Transforming Church

Problems rooted in the distant past
Lest this observation lead you to believe the turnaround for the church occurred in the mere span of a decade, the record needs clarification. Not only does the decline still continue to intensify, the roots of the problem go way back, all the way to the immigration of the church from Europe. With little exception and not with only particular denominations, the church in America chose to be a “member” based organization in contrast with a “disciple” based organization. Whether there was a hierarchy of clergy that often lacked the perspective from the pew, or a voting membership that even more readily provided for personal preference, the church in America has always struggled with being in complete step with Christ’s mission.

For a long time the continued arrival of boats, mainly from Europe, masked the symptoms of little outreach and little success in reaching the unchurched. Even after the boats stopped coming, the 20th Century saw the false growth of emigration, growth that for the most part represented moving membership from the roll of one congregation to another.

Congregations still have the last of the Builders and they continue to try to shore up the stability of congregation. At the same time churches are filled less and less, mostly with gray hair people, and church newsletters are still filled with one social activity after another, offering very little or devoid of ministry to make adults disciples for Christ. Most of these congregations will not be with us much longer. Despite the best of intentions, they have not met the spiritual needs of subsequent generations.

There is little to be gained any longer by trying to focus on what was missing. Tragic as it is, for most living generations “the horse is out of the barn.” This is not to suggest in any way that we should write anyone off. For Christ’s sake we must make every effort to reach everyone. But where our best efforts might have greater effect is with those in our society who are still in their faith formative years. Not everyone identifies this age group the same, but for our purposes we will include those twelve through twenty-nine. Those still younger may need something other than traditional graded Sunday School classes, but that is focus for another occasion.

Some Hopeful Glimmers
Looking at the last four and a half decades there have always been some congregations, though not huge in number, who were getting it right. It is certainly helpful for our long view to see what they were doing, but if you talk to the leadership in those congregations you will find they are already moving to something else. Behind both what they did and where they are now headed is a clear sense of what is involved in disciple making as opposed to member satisfaction or member appeasement. An increasing number of these growing congregations are making a decisive break with the membership based structure of organization they inherited, in favor of a disciple making system similar to the apostolic church.

The worst mistake any of us could make is to finally have the courage to try something that worked for these congregations ten or fifteen years ago, assuming that if we but do it, it will end our woes. Do not start with a particular style of worship you have heard really works (worked). Do not start with some new curriculum that you heard is (was) state of the art. Do not start with a style of youth ministry that attracts (attracted) significant numbers, i.e. going to theme parks, etc. Without having been prepared for it as teens, attempts to fill the void of disciple making ministry for twentysomethings in the past may have encountered some “take it or leave it” risk, but we can be sure that the void of such ministry today definitely means disciples lost.

Post modern adults are now in their forties and younger. Those in their thirties and forties have already moved beyond their best years of faith formation, and the church to date has not been any more effective reaching them than it was the Boomers. If we could mount a huge effort that was on target, we might still make some impact with them, but few of us know how to do that.

Barna study finds 20 Twentysomethings drifting farther away
While the gap between the Church and society continues to widen with each generation, the greatest impact the Church can still hope to make is with those who are still in their faith formative years, those in their teens and twenties. There is no precise science here. Obviously half of the time we look at that window we are looking at the last of one generation and the beginning of another. Revealing data on how we are doing today with this age group has just been published in one of the Barna Group’s newest studies, “Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years.” What those findings immediately say to me is that the type of ministry we have been providing is not making the faith connection.

There are still a few young adult singles ministries around, but most of those serve social rather than spiritual needs. Some congregations have reached adults in varied age groups with effective small group ministries. But the reality is there remains very little disciple making ministry specific to adults in their twenties.

Even though most congregations remain concerned about youth ministry, sadly most of this ministry is done the same way it was ten, twenty years ago. Even though it may often be done well and still attract respectable numbers, the Barna study shows that most of this ministry fails to form or sustain faith beyond that age. Even with that which is perceived to be successful, much of it needs a complete overhaul. Today’s teens feed on previously untried experience and new perspectives, and much of the ministry being offered doesn’t even address that. Another hurdle the church faces is that the further you move into the faith formative years, the more this group faces an overload demand for their time. The church needs to assess how to connect and make the most of precious little and sporadic periods of time available.

Twentysomethings spiritually independent and resistant
The Barna study underscores, “today’s twentysomethings continue to be the most spiritually independent and resistant age group in America.” This should not be viewed as a negative but a positive, because it identifies they have significant unfocused spiritual desire at their core. However, where the rubber hits the road that represents even greater challenges to the church than were already faced unsuccessfully with this age group in the past.

The dilemma is further defined when you realize from Barna’s study that a high 61% of today’s twentysomethings had been churched at one point during their teen years. Most of their families were not “churchgoers,” but most of them were not conventional “goers” either. Apart from maybe a couple of months they were not at either conventional or alternative worship. Instead, as teens they read the Bible, prayed, attended youth ministry programs, all as part of their sustained spiritual quest.

They are brutally honest that Sunday mornings have not helped them, yet all the while they have looked persistently elsewhere for their spiritual needs to be met. While 75% of America’s teens have engaged in at least one type of psychic or witch-craft related activity, 81% of all teens did attend a church for a period of at least two months. It would be a tremendous mistake for the present church to simply say they didn’t even give us a try.

Such venues as contemporary praise services did bring some of the Boomers back to church even late in their faith formative years. Meanwhile many of today’s older teens and twentysomethings have stayed even longer than most of their Boomer parents did as teens. The Barna study, however, presents a chilling reality. As these twentysomethings today are disengaging, it will be even more unlikely they will ever return to the conventional church. Whatever little appeal remained in the contemporary praise balloon, it is rapidly dissipating.

What the concerned church today needs to be planning and implementing are unconventional ways to reach these generations before their faith formative years have passed. And, for generations yet to come, we need to be discerning a lot sooner how to relate to them having their faith formation in mind. No one has said that ministry will ever get easier.