LOOKING FOR LOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE

Churches are ebbing rather than flowing.   The future of many churches looks bleak. The Christian media reports that young people are rejecting their Christian identity and leaving the church in droves.  So, . . . What?

The ongoing performance of an automobile requires an ongoing supply of energy.  Today that’s usually gasoline and electricity.  Life too requires energy, but also a constant supply of oxygen.  Likewise, the ongoing life of an authentic follower of Christ requires the ongoing gift of God’s grace.  His grace is sufficient at all times and in all circumstances.  Without God’s grace we are left to our own flawed and insufficient wisdom, abilities, and nature.  Grace enables faith, encourages hope, and empowers love where these characteristics of the Christian life would otherwise be impossible.

In the words of John Wesley, grace makes possible life in Christ as an “Altogether Christian” in contrast to an “Almost Christian.”  Today, Christian young people are leaving the church and shunning their identity as Christians.  They're frustrated in large part due in to so many churches being filled with “Almost Christians”, church attenders who have a measure of honesty, the outward form of Godliness, and may be sincere in being good and doing good.  However, they're missing the key characteristic of an “Altogether Christian”.

The difference between the “Almost” and the “Altogether” is the authentic love of God and love of others.  Love is the key attribute of the Altogether follower of Christ.  Love occasions the obedience to faithfully follow and obey Christ daily in all things. Jesus made it clear several times (read John 14 & 15), “If you love me, you will obey what I command."  Obedience to the Great Commandment is our shared vocation.  It is our steadfast, faithful, obedient response to Christ’s calling to love the Lord God with everything one has and to love others without discrimination.  Such love follows the high and narrow road of Christ’s likeness (holiness).  It is occasioned by an profound desire to faithfully live in the presence of a holy God whose essence is pure, holy love.  Like oil transposed into gasoline to power one’s automobile, such holy love is transposed by God into gifts of grace and fruit of the spirit sufficient at all times and in all circumstances for the life of the authentic follower of Christ.  Young people can spot such love like a seasoned jeweler can spot a high grade, authentic diamond.

Young people are not fooled.  They know authenticity. They recognize true love. They will always look for love somewhere.  Sadly, with a paucity of Altogether Christians in the church, many will continue “looking for love in all the wrong places.”  It is no surprise that so many young people will look for the pure, holy love of God somewhere else.  . . . So,  . . . What?

Note:  John Wesley’s sermon, Almost a Christian, may be read or listened to by Googling the sermon title. It is also available on Amazon with nine other Wesley sermons on Christian discipleship as noted above.

SPIRITUALLY HOMELESS YOUNG PEOPLE AT RISK OF SPIRITUAL INFANT MORTALITY?

In an earlier blog I wrote that more and more young people are falling away from the church.  They are not identifying themselves as Christians yet they're remaining followers of Christ.  While this is true for many, it is not the case for all.  Most are wondering off the path.  They are not remaining

followers.  Recent surveys by the Barna Group* paint the picture. They describe two groups of 18 to 29 year olds who have left the church:  Nomads are young people who are wandering.  They have left the church yet still consider themselves Christians: 43% think church and Christian friends are optional; 25% say faith and religion is just not important to them now; and 23% say that they used to be involved in their church but don’t fit there any more. 

Prodigals are young people who are lost.  They have a Christian background but have lost their faith.  They describe themselves as no longer Christian:  20% say they had a negative experience in church or with Christians; 21% say that Christian beliefs don’t make sense to them; 19% say their spiritual needs can not be met by Christianity.

So, what’s going on here?  Why so much spiritual infant mortality (Prodigals) and Infants-at-risk (Nomads)?  If the issue was actually physical infant mortality, experts at the Centers for Disease Control, World Health Organization, and UNICEF would respond with the very basic regimens for addressing the preventable causes of premature deaths of infants from birth to age five.  Their success over the years has dramatically cut back infant mortality worldwide.  They understand the causes and the means to address the challenge and they’re doing it.

The church is the Body of Christ and as such it is not well, at least in the West.  Again, what’s going on?  Perhaps it’s several things.  Here’s what I see:

• Many faith communities emphasize making believers (an intellectual exercise) and fail to make disciples (head, heart, and life).  They're not the same.  Jesus did not say make believers. 

• The primary responsibility for making disciples is in the home.  The path starts in the home and it remains the primary locus of discipleship. It is the calling and duty of every parent.  Parents need help.  Many have never been discipled themselves. This is one area  churches can rise to the occasion, discipling parents and teaching them to disciple their children. Otherwise, many parents push the responsibility off onto private Christian schools and church youth groups. 

•    Christian Schools drift away from discipleship paradigms to the conventional patterns found in secular public schools.  They follow the same path as many Christian college and universities in the past who failed to hold to the primary mission of making disciples and capitulated to secular goals and standards. Teacher education programs in Christian universities must integrate ways and means of discipleship into the teacher preparation K-12 curricula.

• Many youth groups excel at entertainment and fun factory events (roller skating, paint ball, pizza parties, pool parties, etc.) and devote little time and attention to young people’s spiritual formation, calling, and service.  Ten minutes of devotions and a quick prayer at the end of a fun time is not discipleship.

In the vacuums created by families, schools and church youth groups, alternatives to discipleship flourish.  Vacuums will always be filled by something.  I suspect that both Nomad and Prodigal vacuums are being filled by an abundance of opportunities for entertainment via the internet, texting, video games, and more all of which carry more toxic content than wholesome.  Young people are not the problem.  They are the victims of our benign neglect to take the Great Commission seriously: MAKE DISCIPLES . . . (Matthew 28:19).  Lets figure it out.  Lets be vigilant.  Lets be holy and get to work!

* https://www.barna.org/barna-update/millennials/612-three-spiritual-journeys-of-millennials.html#nomads