Over the summer, I spent many hours combing through Megan DeFranza’s fascinating book Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God. I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say that Megan’s book is quite simply one of the most important and challenging books I’ve read in the last couple years. This is why I’m going to spend a few blogs interacting with it. Let me say upfront that I consider Megan to... Read more
PS: I’m so exited to have Alan Chambers on my blog! I’ve admired Alan from afar over the last few years and only recently connected with him on social media. For many of you, Alan needs no introduction. But for the rest of our audience, Alan, why don’t you give a brief introduction to your life, story, and how you got involved with Exodus International. AC: I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, accepted Jesus as my Savior at age... Read more
It’s seriously unbelievable! I’ve never seen anything like it. It just may be the way of the future. It’s called “The Bible Project.” And it’s completely free. To be honest, I got instantly depressed when I watched my first Bible Project video. I clicked on the 7 minute survey of Leviticus and I was like, “Okay, so I never want to teach Leviticus again.” (Keep in mind that part of my Ph.D. dissertation was on Leviticus.) See it for yourself:... Read more
Before we dive in, I want to thank you all for offering helpful feedback during this series. Through Tweets and DM’s, comments and texts, emails and phone calls, my thinking has been tremendously shaped by people interacting with my posts. One of the reasons why I blog is to get feedback on ideas that are swimming around in my head. That’s not a bad place for ideas to begin, but it’s a terrible place for them to be kept. So... Read more
I suggested in my last post that what we’re talking about here is largely (though not exclusively) a white problem. Instead of adding the word “white” to everything I say, though, I’ll just stick to the terms “Millennial” and “church” with the understanding that what we’re talking about may not apply to churches made up of racial minorities. In this post, I want to turn things around a bit and expand on a comment I made in passing in my... Read more
I guess this could be subtitled “part 4” of my current series. But since I’m shifting gears a bit, I decided to let it sit as a stand alone, yet related, blog. After reading my first post in the series, my friend Derwin Gray Tweeted me a message saying that the flood of Millennials leaving the church is largely a white problem. African-American, Asian, and Hispanic churches aren’t generally experiencing the same exodus. This intrigued me. My immediate hunch was that... Read more
The following post is an interview. But instead of me interviewing an author, this time the author is going to interview me. We thought it’d be good to mix it up a bit. Josh Packard, Ph.D. is a sociology professor and the author of the highly acclaimed Church Refugees. He’s also the director of The Dechurched Project. As many of you probably know, I’ve read his book and can’t stop quoting it. It’s very good! So I contacted Josh and asked him if I could... Read more
Millennials are leaving the church for all sorts of reasons. And as I showed in a previous blog, there are different types of Leavers. However, after combing through various books and studies on the topic, all of which consist of extensive surveys and interviews of people who have left, I’m struck by the common reasons that keep popping up. What I’ve found was not a bunch of immature and selfish desires that were unmet at church. And I didn’t see... Read more
I want to take a quick break from our current series on why millennials are fleeing the church and reflect on how I experienced God this weekend. My wife and I visited an amazing church in the French Quarter of New Orleans: Vieux Carre Baptist church. My buddies Jay Newman and Sean Michel connected me with pastor Tom Bilderback and his wife Sonia, who have been at “The Vieux,” as it’s called, for the last 4 years. Tom invited me... Read more
In my last post, I pointed out that millennials (18-29 year olds) are fleeing the church. Again, it’s not that I’ve based this on a few anecdotal stories. It’s not that I’ve read one or two surveys that have argued this. The evidence is overwhelming, confirmed by many independent surveys and interviews that have used both quantitative and qualitative research. The question isn’t if millennials are leaving. The questions are why, and what should the church do about it? (I’ve recently come to realize... Read more
Theology in the Raw
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