There are a few threads that have been running through my life recently. Those threads are all related in some way. Together, they are creating a driving, pervasive burden on my heart. They are evoking a deep cry to the Lord. What I’d like to do in this space over the next number of posts is explore this with you. I’d like to explore the state of the church, especially as it pertains to the emerging generation (Gen Z / iGen / Zoomers).
Here are some of those threads.
First, I am a Christian father of two young kids. This (by definition, I would argue) means that my number one priority for my children is that they would know Jesus. I honestly don’t care very much if they get high-paying jobs, go to prestigious universities, purchase a home someday, or make a name for themselves. They may or may not do those things, and if they do, the Holy Spirit can work through them. He can also work through them if they don’t. But what is necessary is that they live their lives by faith in Christ. That is my number one prayer and desire for them.
Second, I recently shared a statistic with you that astounded me when I read it a month ago or so. It was from research done by the National Association of Evangelicals in the US less than a decade ago. You never know with statistics, but assuming it’s in any way indicative of truth, the implications are enormous for the church. The research said that 63% of adult Christians made that decision between the ages of 4-14. Another 34% made that decision between the ages of 15-29. Which means that 97% of Christians came to faith before they were 30 years old. I’ve seen other studies that suggested something similar. If we are at all passionate about sharing good news about Jesus with others, then children, teens, and young adults are the most important demographic for us to focus on. It doesn’t mean we don’t reach out to everyone. It doesn’t mean people are irreversible once they hit 30. Those statistics may also be reflective of the lack of evangelism overall in Western Christianity, and how much we rely on people simply “growing up Christian”. Those disclaimers aside, the surveys do seem to indicate when people are the most open to hearing and responding to the good news. I’ve thought again about Proverbs 22:6: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” (Note that this is a general truth, not a truth without exception.)
Third, I’ve been in lots of conversation with our “next generation” ministry leaders at The Bridge Church. It’s evident that there are numerous forces at work in our culture at the moment that are making it increasingly difficult to form Jesus-disciples. There is a level of apathy and disengagement among teenagers regarding spiritual matters that is alarming. So much about our world at the moment is pulling people away from Jesus- not just children and teens, but their parents and other leaders.
Fourth, it’s clear that this is not just a Bridge Church thing, not by a long shot. This is across the board. Here in Canada, Global News recently posted a 3 part series on the state of religion in Canada. There’s much about this report that is frustrating and mind-boggling. Part 2 reads as a paid advertisement for the Sikh and Muslim faiths. In part 1, the focus is mainly on the rapid decline of Christianity. However, only liberal mainline churches are interviewed and referred to. There’s a small note about how this decline isn’t as true for evangelical churches, but then the example given and the leader cited is from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ummm…who wants to call Global News and give them a crash course in theology? In any case, some of the numbers cited from Statistics Canada are eye-opening. Here’s one: among those born between 1940-1959 (“Boomers”), 85% of Canadians are affiliated with a religion (mainly Christianity of one kind or another). Among those born between 1980-1999 (“Millennials”), 32% of Canadians are religiously affiliated. That is a massive drop! And yes, you’ve got the impact of fewer nominal, cultural Christians. There are people who would have identified as a Christian in previous generations because that’s what everyone did, but in today’s culture they see no need. Still, it is indicative of a huge societal shift away from Christianity in Canada.
Fifth, a couple of weeks ago I found myself reading a couple of articles linked by friends online. (Here’s one example.) Both of them were take-downs of evangelical Christianity. Some of the points made were simply wrong and inaccurate. Others deadly accurate. There have been significant issues with the sexual conduct of evangelical Christian leaders (Ravi Zacharias and Bill Hybels as two more recent examples). There has been an unprincipled grasping after political power. There has been a tendency to create personality cults around certain leaders. And what this amounts to is disgrace. The church in Canada, the church in the United States, the church in North America, is smeared. Does the media seem to find inordinate pleasure in reporting these types of things? Absolutely. But there’s truth in it, and it’s what many in emerging generations see in Christian faith, particularly of the evangelical variety. “You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.” (Deuteronomy 28:37)
Sixth (and finally a break from this bleakness), on my prayer retreat last week I read a recent book called Jesus Revolution. It’s about the Jesus People Movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s on the West Coast, especially in California. If you’ve never heard of it, it featured teen and young adult hippies who had fled from the cold institutions of their parents and sought utopia in sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll. All of that had failed to make good on its promise. And suddenly, some of these hippies discovered Jesus. They told others. Soon, thousands and thousands of them were being baptized in the Pacific Ocean every month. They were hungry for the Word of God and thirsty for authentic Christian community. They were filled with the Spirit and were driven to share the good news with all they came into contact with. Some have argued that this movement was the last true revival, the last wide-sweeping Holy Spirit renewal, in North America. With all the social upheaval in the ‘60s and the direction many teens were going in, it must have seemed like the most unlikely generation to see revival. And I thought (and this was the aim of the authors of the book), if God did it before, He can do it again. He can do something similarly astounding in a similarly unlikely generation.
And seventh, as I’ve been sharing some of these thoughts, there are two passages that have come to mind. One is Revelation 4, which gives us a picture of the worship taking place in heaven. There is a throne there, and One who sits on the throne, and before Him the sea- symbolic in the ancient world of disorder and chaos- is still. God is on the throne. Look, Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and earth. Nothing has changed that. He’s sovereign and will work to accomplish His purposes. The second passage is Isaiah 25, especially verses 6-8, which include God’s promise that “he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.” As I said, the church in our culture bears disgrace. Some of it earned. But if we humble ourselves in repentance and seek the Lord, He will remove our disgrace. This is His promise. He will vindicate us. He will lift us up. There is peace in a perspective shaped by passages like these.
None of that removes the urgency of the moment. None of that erases the fact that if we are not awake and alert, the church in our culture, in this generation, could be essentially snuffed out. This should not shock us. Jesus told the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7 that because it had grown cold and lost its first love, he would remove its lamp stand from his presence unless things changed. In other words, the church would die out. But passages like Revelation 4 and Isaiah 25 do clarify our only hope for reversing the tide, and it has to do with humble, wholehearted worship, prayer, and trust.
That’s where I want to take us in the next few weeks. We’ll talk about the major issues and dangers that face the church in this generation. We’ll talk about how change will come. And all of this will be alongside my longer posts from the book of Acts, where we witness a church experiencing growth “through the fire”, in circumstances that would have otherwise led to its demise.
