In his research, McDowell has uncovered some startling statistics. For example, among churched youth:
* 63% don't believe that Jesus is the Son of the one true God.
* 51% don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
* 68% don't believe that the Holy Spirit is a real entity.
* It has been estimated that between 69% and 94% of churched youth are leaving the traditional church after high school, and very few are returning.
* Only 33% of churched youth have said that the church will play a part in their lives when they leave home.
How did we get here?
Put aside all those people we haven't reached. What about the ones we have?
I'm in a worship class right now at Rockbridge, and we're wrestling with the issue of "cultural relevance" this week. One of the great things about Rockbridge not being tied to any one denomination is the diversity of thought among students. That brings us to some areas that we might not enter. Here's a snippet from a conversation we're having on being "relevant". The questions are from another student, and below them are my replies.
"Do we create a Christ-centered counter-culture, different from what is around us?"
Yes, but not in the way we have so often in the past. We are measured as different from the culture not by our opposition to it, but by our love for God and our neighbors in spite of it. We should take from culture what is good, work to raise the other to that level, rejecting what is harmful. We can disagree without denouncing. We can live another way.
"Do we rise above the culture situation?"
No, we go down. Making ourselves less - in service to God through our service to our fellow men and women. Then when we gather we celebrate who God is and what He has done in us and through us. Just as the organic is changed when lightning flows through it, so will we change as the power of God flows through us.
What I'm suggesting isn't the "social gospel". We aren't doing this with the belief that through our efforts we will be saved, or that by providing service to others that they will be saved. What we are doing is acknowledging that living faith produces action and that action repeated grows faith.
"Or do we live with the tension of being in the world, but not of the world?"
In our weakness we would see it as a tension, but the safest and most stress free place on earth is the center of God's will.
We have to equip our youth and our adults with the ability to learn how God's truth applies to the present day. This will mean a "Manhattan Project" level of spiritual formation where the words of Jesus are learned not just through facts, but through service. Just as the athlete or musician learns and hones their skills through practice, so must we learn and grow more productive through not just knowing, but doing.
Simply coming to church, accepting the music and teaching into the space you give it and then going back out into life isn't cutting it and never has. We've confused the size of our churches and our youth groups with the depth of their devotion.
Every member a minister. Every single one.
We got a go ahead from the new principal at Valparaiso Elementary to do a service project over there. Their picnic tables are a mess and need refinishing. It's a start. We're serving inside, have worked outside with another church, nave provided school supplies and will again, but this is a new opportunity to show that educator what we have learned about Jesus includes loving our neighbor.
My hope is that our men involve some of our youth in that effort. Just as there used to be an apprenticeship as one learned a trade, maybe what's needed is that sort of pathway to servanthood for our children and youth.
Get out there!
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