My friend Sue Jolly posted a note on her FaceBook this morning that came from someone else's FaceBook a while back. The note was essentially talking about a book that had recently come out called "Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church" by Kenra Dean. The book came out of a five year study done by the National Study of Youth and Religion, which came up with some pretty tough statistics regarding youth and how seriously they took religion. None of the statistics surprised me really, having seen this trend for the last ten years or so, but I think too many of us (youth ministers and parents) are becoming to content to stand back and watch the trend continue.
(Instead of having a "works cited" page, just know that all quoted and italicized stuff from here on out is from that book.)
The biggest problem, it seems, these days with the church is the "optional-ness" of it. It seems too many people regard it as a choice. We have soccer leagues that play on Sunday mornings. Kids miss church and Sunday School because if they miss a game, they may not get to play in other games. The soccer game is elevated in importance to church. It's not that they don't care for church. "Teenagers themselves consistently demonstrate an openness to religion, but few of them are deeply committed to one." It's just that soccer is more important and, "Since the religious and spiritual choices of American teenagers echo, with astonishing clarity, the religious and spiritual choices of the adults who love them, lackadaisical faith is not young people's issue, but ours." In other words, as parents, we let soccer become more important than church too. And our kids are going to follow our lead.
The danger of this is that "most teenagers are perfectly content with their religious world-views". And, I would add, most adults as well. The Barna research group, which has conducted numerous studies of their own, concludes that this lack of committment is a major barrier to spiritual depth:
On the one hand, four out of five self-identified Christian adults (81%) say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today. More than three out of four self-identified Christians (78%) strongly agreed that spirituality is very important to them. Yet, less than one out of every five self-identified Christians (18%) claims to be totally committed to investing in their own spiritual development. About the same proportion of self-identified Christians (22%) claims to be “completely dependent upon God.” Those figures help explain why a majority of self-identified Christian adults (52%) believe that there is much more to the Christian life than what they have experienced. Without a full determination to live like Christ and for Him, the path to complete transformation is blocked.
So what do we do? Dean argues that "The solution lies not in beefing up congregational youth programs or making worship more "cool" and attractive, but in modeling the kind of mature passionate faith we say we want young people to have." and I agree to this to an extent. I think that some level of attraction has to go with youth ministry in order to draw some kids in. But, too many youth ministries are built on flash and have no substance. And, kids connect with this, because this is pretty much their lives when it comes to other areas of entertainment. Movies, music and TV have all been boiled down to grabbing your attention in the quickest amount of time and to hold your attention rather than offering anything lasting. Thats why Led Zeppelin will always be cool 20 years from now and Kei$ha will disappear into the mass of quickly forgotten artists of the last 20 years.
The question then becomes what do we do instead? Dean asks: "What if the church models a way of life that asks, not passionate surrender but ho-hum assent? What if we are preaching moral affirmation, a feel-better faith, and a hands-off God instead of the decisively involved, impossibly loving, radically sending God of Abraham and mary, who desired us enough to enter creation in Jesus Christ and whose Spirit is active in the church and in the world today? If this is the case - if theological malpractice explains teenagers; half-hearted religious identities - then perhaps most young people practice Moralistic Therapeutic Deism not because they reject Christianity, but because this is the only "Christianity" they know." To me, this is the key. We have to make our beliefs matter. We have allowed Christianity and its place in our lives become a choice or an alternative to what we'd rather be doing. And to turn this around, we can't just work on our youth. This has to start with parents.
I'm not saying that we need to be at the church with our kids anytime the lights are on. I'm very against over-programming at the church level. It isn't the church's responsibility to train up your kids... its yours. Deut 6:4-9: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
Ask yourself:
When was the last time you prayed with your kids? (outside of church or meal-time)
When was the last time you read your bible on your own?
When was the last time you read your bible with your children?
Is football more important than church?
What are you doing to support your children's and youth ministries at your church?
Are you expecting the church to be primary spiritual growth agent in your household?
Below are the guiding beliefs of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: (Almost Christian, pg 14) do you agree with any or all of these? Do your kids?
1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught by the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught by the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
Its time to re-prioritize.
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