Supporting the Millennials
We turn again to David Kinnaman’s book, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church …and Rethinking Faith. If we want to stem the loss of our youth into the world or Satan’s religions, we need to seriously consider why they leave and what we can do. One loss is one too many.
In his book, the president of Barna Research Group presents the results of thousands of interviews with the millennials, asking them why they have turned their backs on “institutional” Christianity. He provides six reasons for their departure (pgs 92-93).
1. The church seems overprotective. It seems like the church is a “creativity killer” and warns too strongly that intersecting with the world is “anathema.”
If that is the case, this older generation needs to be reminded and to teach the younger generation that God intends for us to engage in our culture. The wise man wrote: “Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. For he will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20).
Daniel lived in and engaged his pagan culture as did Esther. Jesus did not pray that His followers would disengage the culture but rather influence the culture (John 17:11, 15, 17, 20-21). We are not to “love” the world to the degree that we turn our backs on God and His truth (1 John 2:17-19) but we cannot convert the world if we are not in the world.
So, here at Swartz Creek, I have asked some of our members to prepare short devotional talks for our teenagers to discuss how their Christianity impacts and influences their secular careers. In what ways does Christ’s teachings make their jobs easier? How do they respond when their Christianity is challenged in the work force? In what ways is their Christianity challenged?
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We have all heard the expression “helicopter parenting” – basically being too protective of our children so that we do not allow them to make their own decisions and their own mistakes. The church cannot engage in “helicopter disciplining” either. Get our teenagers connected to Christ and show them how Christ makes them better people and, through them, a better world.
2. Shallow. Its a universal perception that millennials believe their churches (across all stripes) are “boring. Easy platitudes, proof texting, and formulaic slogans have anesthetized many young adults, leaving them with no idea of the gravity and power of following Christ.”
If this is true, and apparently it is, we need to be careful how we expect “slogans” to carry the day. In the churches of Christ, we like to say: “We speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent.” Another is: “We need to do Bible things in Bible ways.” And another, coming I believe originally from one of the Wesley brothers (maybe John): “In matters of faith, unity. In matters of opinion, freedom. In all things, love.”
All of those slogans have strong biblical support. But we’ve got to show our teenagers where the biblical support is, how it is relevant, and how these slogans apply in today’s world. Christianity has strong philosophical, logical, historical, emotional, and biblical support. With the proper training and guidance, our young people can grow up to have a tightly compacted Christian faith that is impervious to the challenges of our modern society.
More on these six reasons in the near future…
–Paul Holland
