Reinforcing and Refuting Presuppositions

I enjoy the sociological study of my Tribe. I mean, I like it when the Barna Research group releases a new study (and book) about the thoughts and attitudes of Christians. I like it when a Christian and non-Christian visit a bunch of churches in America and write from their different perspectives. I like when documentaries come out about the state of evangelicalism. I like when a college student at an Ivy League school secretly enrolls at a noted Christian college for a semester and writes a book about evangelical behavior from a non-Christian's point of view. For some reason, these kinds of things fascinate me.

Obviously, when you get a sociological study that combines Tribal behavior as it relates to teenagers AND it's on sale for 20% off AND I get to combine that with my handy-dandy "Pastor's Perks" discount, well...

...SOLD.

This particular find is titled Essential Church?: reclaiming a generation of dropouts. It written by a father and son, Thom and Sam Rainer, who have done similar research and written similar books on the state of the church. I haven't read any of those.

Anyway, like many similar books that dive into the state of the American church these days, they find plenty of things we need to work on. I don't think that's a big shock. What's a bit different here is that they focus on "evangelical" churches rather than mainline denominations (who have plenty of well-documented issues) that are aging rapidly and in a freefall decline. So, in this book, the authors chose to focus on why young people DROP OUT of church. You know, an attitude that's like, "Church is irrelevant. I don't hate church and had many positive experiences at my church and I still love Jesus and learn from podcasts/vodcasts, but I don't need a 'church' anymore." That's the kind he's writing about.

Side note: I would've liked it if the book had focused on those people who had a positive experience at one church location who have chosen to attend another church in the same area. I run into that quite a bit more than I do the group the author's talked about. Frankly, I don't see as much "drop-out" as I do what is called "church-hopping." But, their book isn't about that. So, Rainer's, there's your next book idea. Free of charge. The Diner is a full-service entity. We aim to please.

So, here are the 7 main findings the authors discovered as to why young people drop out of church:

1. Doctrinal Dilution "Watering down Scripture is not the answer to reaching a younger generation for Christ. They do not want to be mollycoddled with tough doctrinal truths." Diner input: I'd say this is true for any generation. But, it's why, at my church, the student ministry sets the bar high with regard to exegetical teaching...starting in middle school What's cool is our children's ministry does this, too.

2. Loss of Evangelistic Passion: "Dying churches stop speaking about Christ to the world."

3. Failure to be Relevant: "The unchanging truths of Scripture will always contain the answer for those searching to fill the void of their lives. The church, however, must find ways to relay the gospel message to the culture around them." Diner input: This is always a very delicate balance, but there's no question that ministries in rural areas or cosmopolitan settings or suburbs all have nuances that need to be adhered to, but I think the authors are correct.

4. Few outwardly focused ministries: "'It's all about me!' is the anthem chant of the dying church. As crucial as Bible studies and fellowship are, dying churches gorge themselves on closed study groups and churchwide fellowship events while neglecting outreach in the community. The country club church can remain so for a limited amount of time. In order for the American church to survive, it must reach into the community with outwardly focused ministries. Dying churches heavily skew their ministries internally." Diner input: The days of sitting in pews or classrooms listening to a (seminary term alert) 'master teacher' for years just taking class after class and calling that "depth" and/or "spiritual growth" are finished. This is where individuals within the churches need to re-focus on what growth truly is and leaders need to point them in that direction.

5. Conflict over personal preferences: "People within the church can squabble over the most insignificant things. And these internal conflicts smother a church. These quibbles overshadow the true purpose of the church." Diner input: Amen.

6. The priority of comfort: "People in dying churches choose their priority of comfort over reaching beyond the church bubble into the community full of specific and difficult needs." Diner input: And sometimes we place those "difficult needs" into safe little boxes with easy answers, which sound like happy talk but don't get much done. And don't get me started on what people would have to rearrange regarding priorities if we were to get serious about changing this.

7. Biblical illiteracy: "Biblical illiteracy runs rampant in floundering churches."

Well, there's the premise of the book. These are 7 areas that create kind of recipe (my term) for why young people drop out of churches. Again, they aren't antagonistic or even upset...it's just that a mix of these elements causes them to view church as "non-essential" to their lives.

Now, over the next few days I'll dive deeper into these areas. I mean, obviously, this is the outline of their book and they spend more time with all sorts of statistics and such...but they touch on areas like the role of the senior pastor in all of this, the area of worship service, and all that jazz. So, we will, too.

But, for today, now that we're up and running again, I thought I'd put the outline out there for you and let the patrons run with this wherever they'd like.

*pours coffee, and giggles because he enjoys provocation of the patronage*