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Churchless; You Lost MeUnderstanding todays unchurched and how to connect with them.Results of research performed by The Barna Research GroupPart I: The ProblemIntroduction:-4445459740 This presentation is based upon research performed by the Barna Group: a leading Christian research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture. When we use the term "Culture" we mean the World System. The culture is radically changing for the worse and successfully luring people of all age groups away from the church.The emphasis of this presentation is on Mosaics or Millennia's ages thirteen through the twenties. -353695173355The church (Body of Chirst) is hemorrhaging members! We must not just keep on as usual; we must take immediate action to stop the bleeding. If we do not take immediate action, our church will die!-148590435610Barna's research shows that 28% of church dropouts are Elders (over age 70); this is the resource age God has placed in our churches. Being retired, they have time, experience, education and wealth. 35% Boomers (ages 51 to 69), this age has raised their children and should be preparing to take the mantle of leadership. 40 % Busters (ages 32 to 50), are the most influential on the next generation, and 48% Mosaics (ages 13 through 31) which represents the future of the church.Please note that approximate half of the Mosaics are leaving which clearly predicts the death of the church, as we know her, unless immediate action is taken to reverse the trend! If we continue our same traditional methods, we can only expect to continue getting the same results!6096015240The emphasis of this retreat is on Mosaics.-24301451181100Mosaics are the most influenced age and there are many cultural attractions being applied to draw them away from God.Too often, we become complacent if we enjoy a few hundred Christians that regularly participate in our church services. We have not plateaued if the population around us continues to increase while we remain static!The haunting question that we must come to terms with is, "Can't we do something to stop this loss?" The answer is YES if we are willing to return to the basics of the Bible.Three major dropout groups have been researched and they have differing long-term relationships with the church. -57150412115Nomads still consider themselves Christians and choose to no longer engage the church as their means of identifying with Christ. Prodigals, on the other hand, separate themselves from both the church and their faith. They no longer consider themselves to be Christian. Exiles live with a strong tension between their Christian faith and the current culture.-723901310640Our Cultural Moment: Christianity is a matter of heart transformation. Unless we bring our Mosaics into a disciplined relationship with Jesus Christ, the world system is going to lure them away. True Christianity emphasizes Faith over Reason. The Mosaics in our churches Must be taught to, in faith, believe that God is a real Spiritual Person, and He has inspired the content of His Word, the Bible. Unless the Mosaics build their lives on this foundation, they become vulnerable to the misleading tactics of the culture. True Christianity and the culture are in tension trying to influence each other (and the culture appears to currently be winning!). Jesus said, "If you are to be one of My disciples, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) The culture says, "You only go around once so gratify self with worldly pleasures and entertainments while you are young enough to enjoy it."Implying that painting the walls of aging buildings, ushering, taking up collections, and mowing the church grass is what Christians are called to do is so misleading. Those that do so must surely not be thinking of the future day when they will give an account of how they used the resources entrusted to them and how they influenced others.-72390437515Part I of this presentation is about why churches are losing members and Part II is about what can be done about it. The hope of the return of church participation is with youth. Losing this generation means probable lose of their children and the generations to follow.This slide is of typical mosaics equipped with portable technology that keeps them in close communication with their peers and the world around them. They enjoy instant access to information about any topic that interests them.-87630433578022129752346960-90805704850Teen church engagement remains robust, but many of the enthusiastic teens so common in North America churches are not growing up to be faithful young adult Disciples of Christ! There are different kinds of dropouts, as well as faithful young adults who never drop out at all. We need to take care not to lump an entire generation together, because every story of disconnection requires a personal, tailor-made response. The dropout problem is, at its core, a faith development problem; to use religious language, it’s a discipleship making problem! The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully in a rapidly changing culture. They have not been provided the necessary spiritual foundation to withstand the temptations that will surely be thrown at them!Teenagers are some of the most religiously active Americans; American twentysomethings, however, are the least religiously active!NOTES:Mosiacs often participate in church youth programs for good, but not spiritually foundational reasons.23234651386840800107620This is the proper stage of life for developing Godly relationships with members of the opposite sex. If the church does not instruct mosaics the Godly plan for sex, be assured the culture will teach them worldly expressions of sex.Others participate at this age to enjoy clean, supervised fun and some may use the church as their stage for developing their talents to be used for personal gain as an adult. -8382076200The church must assist parents in preparing teens for adult life. Teens must make major life choices about their education, marriage, child-raising, and how they will become cultural servants or consumers. -637540554990God has placed the responsibility for transfer of the Christian faith to the next generation with parents. Failure of parents to properly perform this transfer leaves the responsibility to the church. There are no other means to make this transfer.Christian generations are like links in a chain. If parents, Elders, Boomers and Busters fail in this responsibility, then the next link is broken and future generations are most likely to grow up separated from God and His church.A tragedy of the modern church is the mindset that just getting Youth to attend our meetings is successful ministry. We try to compete with the World by offering free pizza, playing games, and showing videos to attract crowds. 2035810-161290If a Youth does not establish a genuine relationship with Jesus, she will leave the church when we stop giving out free pizza! 41910703580The early church was not a gathering for entertainment and fun; the modern church, however too often, teach Youth that Christianity is entertaining and fun.1. The faith journeys of the next generation are not monochromatic or one-size fits all. -182816510623552. The majority of young dropouts are not walking away from faith; they are putting involvement in church on hold. 3. There is a countertrend in the You-Lost-Me data – young Christ-followers can be passionate, committed, and bursting to engage the culture for the sake of the Gospel. A New Technological, Social, and Spiritual Reality:There are over 2,000 registered Students in Typical US High Schools. They are the most vulnerable unreached people groups in our neighborhood and are being ignored by the church! -247015283210The secular culture has successfully used intimidation to convince the church that Christian faith cannot be taken into the classrooms; thus we have surrendered these students to the culture!The law does forbid Christian adults to evangelize on campus but Christian students can. Thus, parents and the church must equip these students to share their faith in their schools.Copies of a method for taking the Gospel into our schools is available on the book table. We call it Training Student Trainers (TST).190500121920The next generation is living in a new technological, social, and spiritual reality; the reality can be summed up in three words.-212725687705ACCESS: The first and perhaps most obvious change relates to emerging digital tools and technologies: The methods and means by which young adults connect with each other and obtain information about the world. Hardware such as personal computers, tablets, mobile devices, and smart phones, as well as soft technology like Web pages, apps, etc. are providing the next generation (and the rest of us) with nearly unlimited access to other people and their ideas and worldviews at the instantaneous click of a mouse or swipe of a finger.The heightened level of access provided by these tools is changing the way young adults think about and relate to the world and their faith and spirituality through screens.Simply put, technology is fueling the rapid pace of change and the disconnection between the past and the future. The Internet and digital tools are at the root of a massive disruption between how previous generations relate, work, think, and worship. Access is not all negative. Thousands of young Christians are creating new venues for the Gospel via new media, the Internet, podcasting, blogging, and tweeting, among many others. There is something embedded in their DNA that seeks a platform for influence and advocacy. The church should capitalize on this resource.Some have compared the proliferation of these new technologies to the invention of the printing press, which democratized access to ideas and, in many ways, enabled the rise of science, capitalism, modern political theory, and so much more. Martin Luther described the printing press as "God's highest and extremist act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward." The digital world with the world wide Internet may be God's new highest and extremist act of Grace.ALIENATION: The second cultural shift is how alienated today's teens and young adults feel from the structures that undergird our society. We might think of alienation as vey high levels of isolation from family, community, and institutions.Alienation is rooted in the massive social changes that began in the 1960s: The civil rights movement, student riots and unrest, Vietnam war, hippie culture, rock 'n' roll, women's liberation, birth control and the sexual revolution, new mainframe computer technologies, the moon landing, Watergate, FM radio, the Catholic transition to the English Mass, etc. In many ways, what we now know as "youth culture" was born during that era, as young people embraced new forms of music and art, unprecedented lifestyles, and anti-establishment thinking.The generation gap is bigger today than ever but it is also a continuation, a deepening, of the rifts introduced by the youth culture of the 1960s.Research by the Gallup organization, that stretches back to the 1930s and '40s, shows that young adults first began to look much different religiously from their parents during the 1960s.The implication of this research is that the dynamic of church disengagement during young adulthood was crafted by the Baby Boomers (Boomers are people born during the demographic post–World War II baby boom between the years 1946 and 1964). Now their children and their children's children are taking a similarly circuitous route through faith and young adulthood.NOTES:Family: Father absence is an example of profound social change introduced during the 1960s, but is much more common today. In the 1960s, Five percent of live births were to unmarried women: currently, the percentage is 42%. In other words, today's children are eight times more likely to have come into the world without married parents. -23495482600Mosaics have grown up in a culture that affirms a multiplicity of family types: traditional, blended, nontraditional, and same sex partnerships. This has influenced their understanding of what it means to be a family, how healthy families should function, what it means to have a good Heavenly Father in their lives, and how they can find meaning, trust, and intimacy in peers, family, and romantic relationships. If the parent(s) are not faithful to Christ, the children will not likely establish a relationship with Jesus either.A related set of changes includes alienation from the institution of marriage. Many consider their peers as their family, some resort to gangs. Adulthood: Each generation has taken a longer, more circuitous path to adulthood. Many young adults are postponing the complete transition to adulthood. This is characterized by five key developmental tasks: leaving home, finishing school, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child.As much as anything, this cultural change bares the gap between church and the lives of today's next generation. Most churches and parishes are simply not prepared to minister or disciple those taking a nontraditional path to adulthood. They are most capable of guiding and helping the traditional marriage-career-stabilized young adult.Institutions: A third mark of alienating cultural change launched by the Boomers and amplified in the Mosaics is skepticism about institutions. Many young adults feel "lost" from our systems of education, economics, government, and culture.College graduates face a dismal employment outlook that is only gradually improving. Imagine how it must feel to have invested four or five years of your life in earning an education from an established institution, only to find that the piece of paper you receive on graduation day is not a ticket to future success. You might be disillusioned about both the education system and the workplace. Making a living and making a difference with your life, not to mention getting married and raising a family, tend to require a paycheck.The Mosaic generation is skeptical, even cynical, about the institutions that have shaped our society, and while they retain an undiminished optimism about the future, they see themselves creating that future mostly disengaged from the institutions that have defined our culture so far.The bad news for the church is that, where congregations and parishes are structured to meet the needs of the "old normal", it will be difficult for young people to find a meaningful place. The good news, however, is that the church is uniquely called to be the community of God; a true, authentic community that banishes isolation, loneliness, and alienation and replaces them with love.3343910685800AUTHORITY: There is a new spiritual narrative on the rise that says Christianity is no longer the "default setting" of American society. The Christian faith exerted significant influence on our culture in previous generations, but much of that public role has dissipated during the past years. The acceleration of those secularizing effects has been felt strongly in the last fifty years. Six different arenas of culture once contributed to the socialization of faith: community, church, religious programming (such as Sunday school), public schools (which had prayers and Bible reading), (popular entertainment which was based, at least somewhat, on a Biblical worldview), and stable family structures. In other words, while far from perfect, Christianity was the culture's autopilot.Many of those socializing forces have eroded or at least significantly changed. The cultural structures that carved deep channels for the faith formation of young people are no longer available to the church. The education system does its best to be neutral religiously and to install "values" but not Biblical morality.The next generation is growing up in a culture in which the authority of the Christian community and obedience to scriptures are much less present in their development experiences. Mosaic Christian's face an environment in which Christianity's authority has been greatly diminished in both obvious and subtle ways.Students interviewed by The Barna Group had nothing negative to say about their parents or the Bible but they also saw little connection between these sources of authority and their attitudes or behaviors.Six Perceptions of Faith, Christianity, and Churches resulting in Young People Drop Out: (Page 91-184 of You Lost Me)These are false perceptions yet real to those who embrace them. These are areas the church must work to correct if She is to win young dropouts back.1250952114551. Churches seem restrictive and overprotective. Self expression has become one of the foundations of our postmodern culture. There is less concern about truth than about freedom to express feelings, ideas, and experiences.Among previously churched, 23% indicate, “Christians demonize everything outside of the church!” The perception that the church restricts expression while turning a blind eye to real-world problems leads to a view of the church as, at best, an ineffective organization – and, at worst, a hypocritical one!2. Christianity, as practiced, is too shallow.3166110354330Today’s Young adults are the most over stimulated and widely educated generation in history They are bombarded by information, images, sounds, and choices, and most are not content with a consistently ho-hum experience from church or anywhere else. Millions of young dropouts agree that something was lacking in their church experiences: 1/3 say, “Church is boring”, ? note that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests”, 20% say “God seems missing from my experience of church” 3. Churches seem antagonistic to science80010331470Many young dropouts are not science apologists as much as they are students seeking an honest conversation about reality. 35% believe that Christians are too confident that they know all the answers. 23% say they are “turned off by the creation – evolution debate.” Research has found that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to both their religious beliefs and their sense of professional calling into a science-related field. 4. Churches are judgmental and rigid about sexuality294894066675We currently see little restraint when it comes to public displays of sexually charged content, sexualized children and teenagers, the widespread acceptance of multiple sexual partners and orientations. These characterize our current era as one of sexual promiscuity, experimentation, and sharing. Growing up in such an environment has left young people struggling with how to live meaningful lives in terms of sex and sexuality. Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body. It is God’s design initiated by hormonal signals from the brain. While transitioning through the stages of puberty and early maturity, the traditional emphases on sexual purity and waiting for marriage to become sexually active seem increasingly outdated to the broader culture. Some in the Christian community are beginning to wonder if the problem has more to do with how churches express these positions than with the standards themselves. Interwoven with these issues are other cultural shifts such as delayed marriage, tens of millions of births outside marriage, and the relaxation of sexual regulation in the media. 38100 5. The exclusivity of Christianity is a turnoffA hallmark of modern society is the ability to choose one’s beliefs in a manner that is personally satisfying. -993775467360Young adults typically embrace tolerance, open mindedness, flexibility, and inclusiveness, and most want to find areas of common ground with each other, even if that requires minimizing real and critical differences. In this context, Christianity’s claims that Jesus is the only way to salvation, that the Bible is the only reliable and authoritative word of God, and that Christianity is the only faith that connects people to the Creator and Ruler of the universe upsets many young adults! NOTES:6. Churches are unfriendly to those with emotional problems and doubt.156210351790Many young adults who formerly attended a Christian church feel that churches are not safe places to wrestle with doubts about the beliefs, teachings, or practices of ChristianityMore than one-third of young dropouts say they are unable “to ask my most pressing life questions in church.” A significant number of young unchurched adults feel misunderstood and ignored in times of need because churches, “do not help with depression or other emotional problems.” In Conclusion: Recognition that the Body of Christ is hemorrhaging is essential. Until we are willing to admit that some of our churches are on life support and need emergency attention, they are surely going to die!16954583820Emergency treatment is necessary to sustain life! Part II of this retreat will address the solution to these six perceptions . ................
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