Following Jesus in a New Babylon

We've heard a lot recently about people who are nuns. People who have no religious affiliation that a growing segment of our society. Mark Matlock says there are teenagers and young adults who may be closeted nuns.

They don't want to disclose what they really don't believe anymore or sing a lot of today is a sense of you know it really respect my mom and dad's faith. I want to come out yet and tell him I'm not a Christian because II meant to hurt their feelings on a wait pummeled me a little older and like to let them know that I don't follow this anymore because they have respect and that's really important because it used to be. This is a hostile group and now it's kind of a group of unity convinced me it's true I stop by when buy into. This is family life today. Our hosts are Damon and Wilson on Bob Lapine can find us online@familylifetoday.com why are so many young adults losing their grip on what they were exposed to when they grew up going to church to talk with researchers David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock about that today. Stay with us and welcome to family life today. Thanks for joining us there's a raging question today about whether we should refer to the country in which we live as post-Christian or whether that's too harsh an appraisal so what you think. I think we should bring some people on the show expert on the Internet? Mark chicken about anti-now fighting for post. I do you think we're past you think we can pull it back. I do think we can bring it back when it will Bob defined that what would bring it back. Look like. Can we be country again where Christian values are the norm, even for people who who don't go to church. Do we want to all. That's a good question I can answer that question. Well, let's see how these guys to answer that question we got David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock joining us on family life today guys, welcome back Hegde do it with you.David is joining us remotely. He's at his office in Southern California. Mark is here in studio with us.

Together they worked on a book called faith for exiles five ways for a new generation to follow Jesus in digital Babylon and we talk this week about what we mean by that we live in a culture where it's more like Babylon than Jerusalem. It's more like living in exile for like being away from the place of God than being in the center of it. David gives leadership to the Barna group and all of the great research that Barna group is done. Mark is a pastor a was a youth volunteer for years. He's a churchman and a researcher and works with churches on leadership related issues and part of your research here was to look at. Generation Z and millennial's, those two age groups and kind of take their spiritual temperature and you said there are it is right for tribes. Basically that you identified in the aggressor for groups that we found in that time and that is your original question, you can we bring it back.

I don't know that we need to worry about getting things back. That's a lot of energy to spend. The question is how do we live and be a faithful presence in the context when you and I think that is what I wanted to say and then I think that these four segments kind of you to show some of that so we looked at the faith boxes of 18 to 29-year-olds and we basically broke them into four categories based on what we saw that the people that we serve surveyed in this research project we were looking at people who had said I presently are at some time in my life identified as a Christian. So people are unchurched. They were not there out of the starter out of the survey. These are kids grow up going to church. They probably went to youth camp probably what were involved in youth group at some point they prayed a prayer or felt like they were part of the church community correct and distant because that's what 83% of that population meets that criteria really yeah so that's often surprising to people but just to give you an idea soaked some buildout while your own time to 10% of the mill 83% were that was sent our sample pool we could draw off and are you saying any religious instruction, so would to Jewish kids who grew up going to Hebrew school be included in is a identified as a Christian okay are edified as a Christian on point, and it's one of the biggest surprises of my career and work in the Barna for so long 25 years is the sheer volume of people who say that Christian America so you are more than 8/10 say their Christian more than 7/10 say they commit a commitment to Jesus Christ, the seller part of their life a bit. Growing up as a pastor's kid, I would've thought everyone was a heathen everyone in the non-Christian. But when you look at the stats were very Christianized nation, even to this day were not very Christ following nation.

David how many of those who would say I grew up as a Christian, are are single. I didn't grow up Jewish or Muslim or atheist or agnostic so I'm a Christian.

By default, as opposed to a Christian by practice. Do we know a majority of them I don't have the exact percentage but most people grow up and what's with the culturally Christian home and kind than that, a devout Christian home so in the 83%. You've got a lot of cultural Christians mixed in with churchgoing kids correct okay alright so with that 83% who self identified and then now there in a place in your asking where are they and you said therefore different places are Landon yes the first group are what we call prodigal's.

These are people who say identified as a Christian. At some point, life absolutely do not identify as a Christian today. That makes about 22% of that population.

Now what's important to note is for one of David's other books you lost me which really look at the dropout problem in the church. That number was about 11% just about eight years ago. So in less than a decade, that number has doubled of 18 to 29-year-olds who say this isn't just I don't go to church anymore. This is, I do not consider myself a Christian any longer.

The next river we call the nomads or we lapsed Christian said these real say I'm a Christian, still but there not really connected to a community of faith. So, going to church the kind don't see the church as the place that they get their spiritual instruction or belonging to. I've heard people call themselves D church tour pastors talk about the D churches that these nomads are some of them can be who could be nomads yes are in so we can take it is they're looking for their spiritual experience outside of the community of faith there of the most prolific problem if you will, and American Christianity and American faith is people that say they are Christian, who sort of.

They're all on board for all the good stuff about Christianity, but they never attend church with a very rarely that they sorta love Jesus but not the church, feeding themselves in any way spiritually, like on a listening to podcasts on a Sunday or a little bit working – a big study on state of the church in digital phase trends are certainly disrupting sort of local church attendance and again was a good way. People are getting more access to information through radio, actually through books through other podcasts and and watching the sermons online and so these non-churched are unchurched people are marketing spiritual input but for the most part. Spirituality is just a very it's like the pilot light is been turned way way down, they might be getting some spirituality from Oprah or they might be getting their spirituality from some magazine there.

The reading an article in the Atlantic that's talking about soul care type issues and has nothing to do with Jesus but that's where their spiritual life is being drawn from right. That's exactly right now, so that's good profile of people who are nomads. They grow Christian, but the flame is really really on low at this point and we talk about people are walking away from the church and hear that that's it's really these nomads and prodigal's world were talking about this this group that's walking away in some way shape and form and I think another important thing in those we notice about the prodigal's is were entering into an air of polite atheism, where while there's always a fraction of of those particles that are hostile toward Christianity as they come out of it or seeing a lot of today is a sense of you know what I really respect my mom and dad's faith.

I want to come out yet and tell him I'm not a Christian because II meant to hurt their feelings on a weight tunnel may little older and like to let them know that I don't follow this anymore because they have respect and that's really important because it used to be. This is a hostile group and now it's kind of a group of unity convinced me, it's true, I still cry when buy into house so the 18 to 29-year-olds are most of them nomads and prodigal's or do they fit into the other two categories that we haven't talked about yet. So the two that were looking at right now are the habitual resilience and habitual's and resilience are those that are still attending church and their attending it with a pretty good frequency okay and so the habitual churchgoers make about 38% of those 18 to 29-year-olds David talk a little bit about the characteristics of the habitual. As researchers we try to put people in the bucket since of course in our research we don't tell people you can be a habitual church will call you no matter prodigal were asking about your questions and then after the surveys are done we put them in different buckets so was her broadly speaking to to draw some circles around us that a group of people that are prodigal's and nomads there do you church for their D Christianized is 52% and then those that are are sort of remaining active as habitual churchgoers is 38% and then 10% are resilient disciples. And so we put people in these buckets, and habitual churchgoers were simply simply that they are self that if I Christians 18 to 29. They attend church at least on a monthly basis. They have a pretty good connection to their faith and then that was a really interesting comparison to this fourth group that were talking about, which are these resilient disciples not represented just 10%. One in 1018 to 29-year-old young people who grew up in order to experience Christianity in some fashion and in the only difference really between habitual churchgoers in these resilient disciples.

There's a couple things that are super important.

But they believe the authority of Scripture.

Many habitual churchgoers believe that but it wasn't necessarily true of all of them. They believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus again.

Most habitual believe that, but not necessarily, and then they believe that they want their faith to be expressed out in the world in a meaningful and positive way that Jesus is alive outside the walls of the church and so what's interesting is a habitual churchgoers which are present, 38%. The largest group of 18 to 29-year-olds and resilience of others action on a lot of differences in terms of their engagement in the churches is what we've been saying all along together is that if you're just looking at whether your young person is attending church attending youth group or the young adults attending church that may or may not be enough of an indicator about how deep their faith is. That's one of the clearest things we saw this research is that just being engaged in the church isn't enough to combat the effects of this screen discipleship era.

It's not a deep enough faith for it to last in our current context.

And so again we learn to so many interesting things about the 10% of these young adults who are most resilient in their faith and and Frank. I just was very inspired by their stories of worked on a couple books on Christian you lost me there very hard to write about people that were walking away from their faith or angry at the faith.

It's a sacred privilege for us to be able to hear those stories in their own way but is so much fun to be able to hear and listen to these resilient disciples were so on fire for their faith and who were the really like lighting up the church and some cool ways, and I want to go back to those three things because I think this is important for moms and dads to hear authority of Scripture. The difference between our resilient Christian and and habitual Christian is the resilient Christian that's bedrock for them for a habitual Christian.

The Bible is important, but their hearing stuff in the culture that's causing them to question whether they can still believe the Bible right that's exactly right. Yeah. And then the resurrection of Christ. That's the second thing do you really believe that Jesus died and came back to life from death. The habitual Christian is going. I've heard that all my life and I I suppose that's true, but what it comes right down to it, I'm not sure I believe that is accurate. Yeah exactly and it's almost as though we see this really interesting thing among young people, which is that they can believe one thing logically and then and then sort of reject it in another fashion so they may. They may believe that the resurrection is sort of sort of true, kinda like a legendary math and it probably has bearing on our faith, but they don't necessarily believe it was physically true right it's a most like it was an old and old wives tale that Jesus must've written was that besides it doesn't really matter that much that the voice of these young habitual churchgoers are prodigal nomads, whereas these resilient disciples are convinced of the death and resurrection of Jesus in a much more tangible way their life really is interesting to use the word churchgoer and disciple that was. I'm guessing a word it really define these two differences there habitual churchgoers, but a disciple is like what Bob was given that there is a big difference even though it sounds subtle. It's huge and it yeah and you want to be really clear to the just while we use certain criteria distinguish them when we went deeper into the research and we ask that all these profiling questions about how they grew up what their experience of Jesus with what their prayer life was like when he saw a dramatic difference between these habitual's in these resilience so there's more going on there there there going to church with about the same frequency but they're having really different experiences with God, with Christ with Holy Spirit with others in the church. We talked about the screen intake of individual Babylon just giving idea of the difference resilient disciples take in about 600 hours of spiritual content on their screens and compare that to habitual's that are almost half that just a little under 300 hours, so there is a real difference in practice, this is just a couple doctrinal issues.

Those things help us filter out that group, but their experiences are really different and their practices are really different authority of Scripture, the resurrection of Christ. I don't miss that third thing I think I will come back to this, you said that for these people living out their faith in a cultural context is very important to them is central to their life and they believe that they live in the world to make a difference in the way and I'm thinking of the young people I know who are recognizing there is a huge relational and social cost to that decision to live out your faith and they're gone. I don't know that I'm ready to pay that price to be an active Christian because the headwinds against that in terms of my employment in terms of who my friend group is in terms of whether I'm accepted or I'm ghosted on social media. All of this is is are the ramifications if you salmon live and make Jesus central to what I'm doing there.

Some people were gonna leave you and their other people who are going to mock you as a result of that, and that's sentence inspiring vision that I think so few young adults have about what it means to live a countercultural life in Christ, a vibrant life of life in Christ that that actually goes against the flow in our culture, and that sounds like someone in Scripture to me that sounds like Daniel who was recognized to have these private practices of belief of prayer of devotion. Scripture – he see in Daniel chapter 9, where he says he is reading the prophet Jeremiah is actually reading doing devotions with Scripture and are based on that he has this this inner life that allows them to have an outward impact and every young person whose it is. Resilient disciple discipleship group that we interviewed. They don't want their faith just a matter on Sunday mornings and want their faith the matter on all of life. They want their faith matter in every location not just in Christian ministry, but in all of the careers they're interested in, and that's the kind of Christianity that week. We actually want our kids and grandkids to aspire to its impact Christianity that is his real real and in the real world and that's was pretty cool about interviewing these resilient disciples.

As I said to such a hopeful project because we learned the kinds of things that these young people really get inspired by how much of a different their faith makes in their lives.

Curious is you talk to these resilient disciples.

Is there a correlation between then and apparent.

It is a resilient disciple. He now are they watching your parents were on fire for Jesus DC more kids that are following Christ because they been watching their parents or is there any correlation there's a huge correlation between what a parent does, and the faith of their kids and so we should be encouraged by that as parents, and in this current context because screens disciple. There's also never been a time when that correlation breaks down as much as it is, as it does today. So just because you're a good Christian parent in my taking you a long way in the past it doesn't carry the same water that it did before. And that's the end I think if we looked at Daniels life and the other exiles in Babylon. We know the story of those who survived his faith lasted but I would bet that there were other young people, along with Daniel Shattuck rejected a bending or three others that are superheroes of the faith that are probably others who will battle you so that Arista became Babylonian. They because they they lost their faith. They lost their way and that's part of the other thing that it's it's small comfort to us as parents, but I think we should realize that the culture is so hard. It is so faith the pleading that even if you do all the right things. It may or may not work and so what we do we pray we work hard. We continue to believe the best about this generation. We try to control our kids because ultimately God is the one who's in charge. Recognizing that parenting is in the law, but is not sufficient alone today to raise kids in this car in this current cultural moment and use it as a phrase you being on fire for Jesus, and I think that the key is we have to be authentically following Jesus.

And I think I know what you mean by that that could to the wrong parent mean the wrong things writing me like they become some kind of super spiritual person, but it's the solder shallow right. One of the things that I found in and actually doing the small groups of teenagers was how little they had a place to doubt or question on their spiritual journey and so some parents are so intense in their faith. They don't give kids the space to be able to ask the questions or to take some of the risks and we think that while Mike had doubts this or if they question that somehow there week or so now I've done something wrong, rather than the fact that that's actually part of what produces resilience because it's in that doubt that they're able to actually lean into their faith even more and become strong in the scary thing is it in the truth.

They can't express those doubts in their home. Maybe for whatever reason with her parents and they can express really a church where they go they going to digital chat room and they'd express them and they get bad answers that they concur with Google and imbibed in their question and see what kind of responses they get.

I'm wondering how many parents who started as as a resilient parents kind of lapsed into habitual Christian parents and so what their kids see as a grown-up is less resilience and more habit and they pick that up. I think this is where we gotta ask ourselves the question as parents do our kids see a vital daily vibrant faith in us. That's not just yes we go to church because that's who we are, but no week we go to church because we find life there because what we read our Bibles during the week week. We actually spend time praying together.

This is this is important to us, not just something that's on our punch list. Though I do not want to get even a step further because when my kids were born I started interviewing moms and dads who had seen him their faith off to their adult children.

I start asking lots of questions. Found out that a lot of them didn't do devotions they could never get that going in the but what what I did notice in their story was that there family was actually making disciples. They were light and dark places and so with the kids were seeing was a demonstration of the power of God in front of them and they also were very vulnerable in one of the things that the tension I asked my parents what should I tell my kids about my past.

Should I tell my kids about and I we say to not do that would deny the power and the glory of God's work to your kids because they're saying, you may be with 10 years of Christ are more working in you and there dealing with their sin in the same way that you passed it on them, which before you is maybe earlier and they need to see the faithfulness of God in your life.

Not the end result they need to see that process of grace working itself out and that's one of the things that we saw happen and a lot of these these homes were always concerned as parents that if we say too much work I somehow signal to our kids. It's okay for you to live a profligate life as a teenager because it'll turn out in the end, but what I hear you saying is, as we can go into that with brokenness and weeping over the scars that were left in our life and say, but God redeemed me from that arc is power of God exactly the idea shared Sunday. My sermon, which was about money.

And when my oldest son was probably 12 or 13, he walked in the my office and I'm writing a check for my giving to God.

You remember what a check was another thing and he looked over my shoulder and he said his name. CJ's like that.

Why would you kick that and I know I think I Megan toys a Megan vacation because that's where all the money he had no idea we've always decided it would be the biggest check we write every month of the mortgage but everything else. So that's was looking at and here's what hit me. Exodus 13 verse 14 things 14. He says here's what you tell your son when he asked you why. So here it is. And it says remind him we were once slaves. But God's mighty hand as I turned to CJ right then I said you don't know, but dad used to be a bad man and he's looking at me because he's only known that imperfect know he's only known you know his life that I was.

I just said this very quickly and again is young, but I think it stuck. It was like I used to be in bondage to the same things. Your grandpa was in bondage to alcohol, women, money, God's mighty hand has saved us everything you've experienced in this life. CJ God did that and so it's a joy to say thank you to him that I think of all the things he learned to church all the things we did newsgroup. None of them stuck, that might've stuck yet. Will giving us something really important we do in private or kids don't see it and that's one of those demonstrations of PowerPoint. We want to talk about what we can do as parents to help tilt the odds in our favor so that our kids wind up as resilient not as habitual's and certainly not as particles or nomads right and your book is so helpful here. In fact, I'm gonna be passing this out to parents of teens. I know it's available for any of our listeners would like to get a copy go to family life today.com to order your copy of the book online or website to get his family life today.com in the book is called faith for exiles by David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock. You can also order by calling one 800 FL today, 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F as in family L as in life, and then the word today. Note family life.

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