068 Sticky Faith: The Not-So-Sticky-Faith Reality
A few years ago a sobering statistic came out. According to Gallop polls, approximately 40% of the 18-29-year-olds who attended church when they were 16 or 17 are no longer attending church.
About the same time, the Barna Group released its own, even more disconcerting, findings, noting 61% of today’s young adults who had been churched at one point during their teen years are now spiritually disengaged.
The greatest crisis we may be facing in the American church isn’t the debate about a literal hell or the relaxing of sexual mores, important as those may be. It’s the loss of our kids.
How does such news strike you? Some might respond with:
Disgust: “That generation is just a bunch of spoiled kids who don’t seem to care about anything.”
Blame: “If the youth department were doing their job, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Denial: “Those are kids who came out of bad homes or lousy churches. Won’t happen to my kids.”
Resolve: “I have to do something.”
So, how did we get here? What went wrong? Here are a few root causes:
1. Outsourced parenting.
Scripture is clear that the primary responsibility to pass on the faith to the next generation falls on the family. Faith begins at home. But whether because of busyness or lack of skill, we have turned the discipleship of our kids over to the church. But we only have your kids for a couple of hours a week…at most. You have them the rest of the time.
2. Diluted discipleship:
Our children are encouraged to accept Jesus into their hearts so that their sins might be forgiven and they get to go to heaven when you die.” But we don’t teach our children, much less show our children, anything about living for Jesus now – why that matters and how fulfilling that can be.
3. Generational fragmentation.
One of the biggest changes I’ve seen in the American extended family is the loss of generational connectedness. If influence is a function of relationship and relationship is a function of time spent together… we’ve lost a huge amount of potential influence.
4. Societal disintegration.
On multiple fronts, the very fabric of society is becoming unraveled. And, as a result, it’s far more challenging to be a parent and far more difficult to be a kid.
So, how can we reverse this trend?
1. Recognize the value of multi-generational influence.
In 1 Timothy 1, we see that while Timothy’s sticky faith began with his grandmother and then his mother, his father seems to be nowhere in the picture. So, Paul became a father figure for the young man. He invested in this young man…and that investment paid great dividends.
One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids is to put them into environments where they would be influenced by other men and women who shared your love for God. The greater the level of generational connectedness, the greater the sticky faith.
2. Remember the importance of personal investment.
Paul had spent time with Timothy. He had talked to Timothy. But above all, he had been a model for Timothy. People will remember 30% of what you say and 70% of what they see.
Check out the book Sticky Faith by Kara Powell and Chap Clark which served as a major resource for this series.
Text: 2 Timothy 1:1-7
Originally recorded April 27, 2014, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN.