Why we should all be concerned..
In a recent Washington Times article, "Why even the pious are leaving" should raise concern for all of us. Julia Duin, "a veteran reporter and the religion editor for the Washington times, has written an eye-opening account of one of the most vexing problems of our time: Americans even the most pious, are leaving their churches in droves."
Some facts Julia points out.
According to Barna, the number of unchurched is increasing by a rate of one million per year.
The youth especially, are not finding solace in contemporary churches. The author notes that at the current pace, only 4 percent of America's teens will end up as Bible believers. This is in sharp contrast to 35 percent of baby boomers and 65 percent of World War II generations.
THE PLANTER: While Julia does a good job pointing out the problems of the Church she has little to offer regarding solutions. What solutions do you recommend to deal with this American Church crisis? Let's put some stuff on the table. While contemplating your answers or suggestions, please remember that God is showing up all around the world in Acts 2 Pentecost fashion except America. What is missing? Why other places and why not America? Could it be that the answer is in the Word of God and that answer has always been the answer to unleash the Pentecost power of God among us? What are we missing?
Tell us what you think?
posted by Bob Carder @ 1:25 PM
25 comments
25 Comments:
I'm sure there are numerous reasons for this shift.
1. The postmodernism of our culture conflicts with the absolute truth claims of the Gospel. Who are kids gonna believe Obama & Oprah or their crazy old pastor?
2. Many churches are trying to copy the methodology of the world. Churches simply cannot entertain and hold their attention like other media.
3. Parents are leaving the job of educating and discipling their kids to schools which promote secular humanism, Sunday school curriculum generated by some guy in Nashville who lives in front of a computer, and a 20-something youth pastor who has never raised a kid. Hmmm ... I wonder why we're losing them.
4. On the positive side, maybe a clear line is finally developing between cultural Christianity and the real thing. Maybe the erosion is a sign of health. Crazy, I know. It'd be much easier to blame churches for not sharing the Gospel or discipling.
5. Maybe it's time for America to die. (Genesis 15:16)
I wonder what the stats for homeschooled kids looks like?
reasons the 20'somethings are leaving the established church:
1.)Pretension, we know it when we smell it, and many churches are reeking of it, with their fancy systems and events that look like the outside world. Church has in many places been reduced to a club or concert.
2.) Freedom, we're not getting it. Those of us who will take time to look will see that we are promised freedom by Christ. Joy, Hope, Love, Truth, all are supposed to be resonating within us as we are set free. But none of us are getting what we were promised. What we were given was a plethora of coping mechanisms and a 'support group' full of people just as miserable as we were that we could mope with.
these are the big two i see.
The youngsters are leaving in part because of those dang secular philosophy professors at the university. Kids leave the youth group, graduate high school, and head off to college where the pressures are ridiculous both from profs and from classmates. Some prof first knocks out the legs of your faith and then smashes and burns the table's top. Kids just don't recover well from that sort of thing. They simply don't go to church in college and simply never come back after college. We are mass producing self-centered, postmodern, secular-humanists who think that there is really no way to know whether or not there is a God, so you might as well live like there isn't one. I blame a big majority on the university. The university has always been the agent and catalyst for change in the nation. As the young people in America are, so too is America.
But, yeah, I suppose it's also got to do with the church and the parents. We haven't done the greatest of jobs in teaching the core foundation and then giving apologetic reasons for believing such things. Our legs need to be made of solid steel, not rickety old wood. We need to make harder for angry professors to tear faith apart.
Though I agree with Joel's points 1-3 (I take issue with those last two) and though I agree with Zach, I do not think that is the real heart of the issue. Give me the universities of the nation, and I will change the nation.
We need to get on our knees and pray!
It'd be great to see the break down of young adults who do and do not attend college. I wonder if their rates of church exodus are the same. If college educated drop out rates are higher, you're probably right Levi. I'm going to bet my money on the lack of parental disciple-making until someone hits me with the stats.
As a parent who too late saw his error in leaving his children's Christian education to the SS teachers, Christian school teachers, etc., I clearly see that is is my fault that my kids are not walking with Christ.
Not only did I not teach them in their formative years, but I did not model real well.
But neither did my parents do those things with me and I found my way to Christ (praise His name!), turning my life over IN COLLEGE (public).
So yes it's my fault, but there's something else, too. I was raised in a denomination that never told me about Christ as MY savior -- and once He found me, the churches I attended did very little to disciple me.
So I would say it's a mix of bad Christian parenting and bad discipleship. But that's only my experience. I'm sure there's more involved than that on a nationwide (worldwide) scale.
Let me clarify: My children know about God and all of them have "asked Jesus into their heart" (hate that term), but one has no relationship with church or Church or as far as I can tell Christ; another still claims Christ but has no involvement whatsoever in a church body of any kind; and the third claims Christ and is attending a Christian college, but I don't see a lot of fruit.
there is a thread that is surfacing. Parents have in large part relinquished their rights and responsibilities to disciple their own children and given those rights over to Sunday school teachers and youth pastors.
I also understand Levi's point that college professors are to blame in part and they are doing great damage. But I also believe that the damage was done before the youth ever left home for college. Professors may have sealed the deal or helped seal it, but the young adults were already on the slippery slope.
I believe we are heading in the right direction for solutions, let's keep talking.
Mike, the church didn't teach you right. You were taught to trust your child's discipleship to youth pastors and Sunday schools. I doubt you were ever told that it was your responsibility to disciple your own children. It was a subtle trick of the enemy and it worked.
Not only did you think the youth pastor was the spiritual authority but sadly another shift is occurring everyday. That shift is is in the mind of the teen who now views the Youth Pastor as his/her spiritual authority and not his parents anymore. That shift also happens in the child's mind regarding Sunday school teachers.
Parents must not give up their spiritual authority over their children and they must intentionally disciple them.
There's more to talk about here, let's talk.
With the hundreds of people that come here each week - how many of you are willing to pray for Mike's kids?
Let see how many will commit them to prayer. I have already and will continue - how about you?
Let's engage the enemy through spiritual warfare praying and take back the ground that the enemy has gained.
Leave a comment here if you will pray for Mike's kids. Let's encourage Mike and turn what he sees as "his fault' into praise.
I do think we should look long and hard at Zach's comments. He's been there
For Joel and everyone else, I found some stats that show the decline in religious activity as level of education increases. The study was conducted by The Pew Report at
http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/table-education-by-tradition.pdf
The total among Protestants is 14% at less than high school, 38% high school grad, 24% some college, 15% college graduate, 9% post graduate.
For Catholics it's similar: 17% less than high school, 36% high school grad, 21% some college, 16% college graduate, 10% post graduate.
Generally, as the level of education increases, church attendance decreases. But I'm not sure that they are all becoming atheist or agnostic. For those, the levels stay relatively even throughout the advancing years of education. I get the feeling that young people are more interested in spiritual things, but are leaving the church. I've heard that from other places as well.
Maybe my argument should be adjusted...professors go to great lengths to show that CHRISTIANITY is wrong. This creates a spiritual vacuum. The student doesn't want to embrace the non-belief of this angry man teaching, but now realizes the "inconsistencies" and "falsehood" of the faith of her parents. She inevitably turns to some wacky religious spirituality that fills her need for spiritual things. Or she turns inward to try to find the goddess inside herself, life Oprah or whoever.
It looks as though they aren't leaving the church to become secular humanist atheists. They are leaving to make their own "spirituality." How can we address this? I think we still ought to attack the university, but perhaps in a different way. The problem is with postmodernism that shows there is not truth and if you want to be spiritual, do it. But don't chain yourself to the dogmatic truth of Christianity because they are stuck in modern and premodern ways of thinking. How do we attack postmodernism without compromising our own stand on Absolute Truth and Orthodox Christian living? ideas??
And yes, I do agree that something happens before they go off to college. They are not grounded enough in the faith and have not yet come to accept it as their own. They hang by the threads of what they grew up with (assuming they grew up in the church) without really building that solid foundation on which to stand. We as parents and church leaders need to do a better job at helping kids in these areas. This is how we can infiltrate the universities. When our kids can rightly stand up for what is right, they will be admired by their peers and I think it will help more young people to be assured of their faith.
And Mike, I'm standing in the gap for you and your kids. I have hope that they will return and become right with God again.
Thanks for the thoughts -- and I welcome any prayers for my kids.
And I agree, Bob, that the church didn't teach me properly. But I can't lay the state of my kids' spiritual health at the church's feet. I knew I should be doing more, not because I was taught so, but because the template was planted in me by God. Where I took a wrong turn was in thinking that providing opportunities for my children to learn and encounter God and Jesus (and they did encounter both) was the same as teaching them myself.
But I do believe God is faithful and I do believe that what He has called His own He will rescue and retain.
I'm with you all in praying for Mike's kids. I'm with Terry in continuing to pray from way back when.
I also think we have the answer in the Word. Give them a cause worth living and dying for and they will peak with interest. Don't give them church show them Church in the family of God that is willing to risk for others including them.
Dudes,
Scripture is filled with promises from God to His people. Promises of freedom and healing and closeness with Him. My point is that my generation is well aware of these promises, but WE DO NOT SEE THEIR FULFILLMENT IN THE CHURCH!!!! I went to church for years, desperately hating myself for my sin, wondering what sermon i was missing or act of service i had ignored that was supposed to free me from homosexuality. i was alsways told that freedom was mine, but i never saw it. not in myself, or in anyone else. nonody told me what i had to do to recieve this blessing that i am supposed to have in this life. i wasnt alone. many of my generation see straight through the presentation, pretention and attractional ministry of the church today and see the truth: that they ARENT ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE WORLD. Their passions, their problems, their pettiness, there is no difference on the inside of the building than the out. This is why my age is leaving.
Zach, through Disciple Driven Church, a movement of Holy Spirit led disciple making you have been delivered and transformed and now you are leading others in their own transformation.
My heart is full of praise to God for letting you in on His power.
It's all about God here. He alone deserves the glory and through Zach's life the demons shutter at God's glory.
Zach,
I appreciate your honesty. Could you tell us exactly how you were delivered? If we're all preaching from the same Bible why were the results so different from one church to another?
Zach will tell you and I must say, Churches are teaching that their is deliverance. We take every new Christ follower through the Gates of Grace - a steps to freedom path.
Terry & Suzette wrote the material from experiences and what they learned about deliverance. True freedom is there for all who desire it.
We don't like dealing with the Spirit Realm in America. We think the devil only lives in other poor countries. Sarcasm intended.
Zach is one of many who have been set free like Jesus said, "He came to set the captives free." We don't like to trust Jesus to set captives free, maybe we are afraid of the Spirit Realm.
I'm fascinated. Is the material written by Terry and Suzette available or is it a secret recipe for the franchise? (That's just a joke.) Can you give me some idea of what this looks like? Is it anything like Neil Anderson's steps to freedom?
ok, let me explain the best i can. My experience with seeking victory over my sin was met primarily with frustration. I was gay. i didnt want to be, but its hard to get someone in bondage to see the bondage they are in. so i felt like i was, and i was. this made me an untouchable in the church, carrying a disease that no one comes back from. the world was telling me that it was natural, and i almost wanted to believe it, but i refused to. but talking to anyone my age (highschool) would have immediately ostracized me. the only solace i ever received was from my youth pastor, who allowed me to vent to him. but venting and crying was all i ever really did. when i told other people, their response was that they didnt know how to help, and suggested that i get therapy. at one point, i didnt even want help. i wanted someone to listen and not judge and not push me off to "someone more qualified". But it wasnt until i became a part of the Disciple driven Chruch, where Terry, Bob, and everyone else said "This sin is hindering you, you need to get rid of it, and WE ARE GOING TO HELP SEE YOU THROUGH WITH IT." I was always told that this sin had to go away, but no one was ever willing to lift a finger to help. no one would tell me that i had authority over my sin in Christ. No one would walk with me, ask me how i was holding up, encoouraging and rebuking me as needed. Never before was Romans 8:1 actually true.
So i was guided through consecration. a good part of this process was having people speak into my life, showing me my sin (because many of them i was ignorant of or in denial of), and helping me see what lies i had been believing and what Truth countered it. it was a long process, and its a continous process, picking up my cross and following Him, but i have been set free from so much: homosexuality, an obsession with witchcraft, pornaography, a need to be in control, a fear of people hurting/leaving me behind, a need for perfection, and the Lord reveals more to be removed as life goes on.
People ask "how is the church not doing this?" one answer, among many is that its not physically possible. this process requires INTENSE investment of time, energy, availability, etc... there are not enough concecrated Christians in a typical church to be discipling and helping to consecrate EVERY member. So SOME people get it. some. and the others are left behind. and when the world looks at that, they see favoritism, but thats another story.
did i answer every question? did i answer any of them? are there any more? did i miss something?
Joel,
We used Neil Anderson’s material when we first started and it was where we started with Zach. I highly recommend the Steps to Freedom by Neil Anderson. We do have a “secret formula”. What we use now is derived from Scripture being applied as we walk out these issues in people's lives. The focus of our material is consecration not deliverance. In the process of consecration we feel deliverance will take care of itself. We do not believe it can be done outside of a strong disciple relationship.
Zach is my 5th generation disciple. This means that there are 3 other disciples involved here besides Zach and me. We did not see these results until we started multiplying disciples in this way. There is something about the generational approach to disciple making that facilitates these kinds of results.
It is much deeper than just the number of people involved. Through our disciple making God creates a culture where transparency exists. People are taught about their spiritual gifts and begin to walk in and use them. Sin is exposed, renounced, and the people are truly regenerated by the Holy Spirit. He shows up in power where people truly seek and surrender to Him. Since they live Romans 8:1, they share what God has done and others are drawn to the grace of God because it shows through them.
We do not distribute our material because we feel it needs to be used in a disciple making relationship in order to be effective. This is not something we take lightly. We want everyone to first get free, then watch others get free, then lead others to freedom. You cannot be ordained in the Disciple Driven Church without walking through this essential process. You do not have to be a part of the Disciple Driven Church in order to use it. We will be glad to walk you through the process and help you learn to use this tool if you are going to commit to disciple others. We have people we are working with in several areas around the country and none of them are officially a part of the Disciple Driven Church. They also are staring to see similar results in their disciple making process.
Thanks Zach and Terry.
I'd love to go through this process and lead others in it. What I find remarkable is that you guys aren't trying to cash in with a book deal. Isn't that the American way?
I am truly sick of nearly a decade and a half of powerless, discipleless "ministry." My own discipleship was years of hit and miss, self-effort which was inadequate. I'm convinced that you can't lead someone where you've never been.
What's the first step here?
No book deal for me Joel. I am waiting for the movie deal :)
Call Bob and he will work out the details. God will provide the means for us to get together. Bob is the guy that handles those details.
Joel, let's connect. Thanks Zach for showing us your life. Thanks Joel for inviting Zach to share his story which is really His (Jesus) story.
Yes, thanks Zach for the transparency. You've been a blessing to me, personally.
Terry,
I like the idea of focusing on consecration rather than deliverance. It links our healing to the discipleship process, though healing continues to be supernatural.
It's good to hear how God is using you guys.
Blessings,
Rick
Thanks Rick, your comments encourage us in our efforts to see God glorified.
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