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Why millennials are leaving the church

What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.
We want an end to the culture wars. We want a truce between science and faith. We want to be known for what we stand for, not what we are against.
We want to ask questions that don’t have predetermined answers.
We want churches that emphasize an allegiance to the kingdom of God over an allegiance to a single political party or a single nation.
We want our LGBT friends to feel truly welcome in our faith communities.
We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness, not only when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to living simply, caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing reconciliation, engaging in creation care and becoming peacemakers.
You can’t hand us a latte and then go about business as usual and expect us to stick around. We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.
Like every generation before ours and every generation after, deep down, we long for Jesus.

My husband is not my soul mate

And then he gave me some of the best relationship advice I ever got: There is no biblical basis to indicate that God has one soul mate for you to find and marry. You could have a great marriage with any number of compatible people. There is no ONE PERSON for you. But once you marry someone, that person becomes your one person.

The Charitable-Industrial Complex

Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine.

First Amendment ‘Goes Too Far’ on Freedom, Say Record Surge of Americans

But even though most people don’t know what freedoms they have under the Constitution, that didn’t stop more than 1 in 3 Americans from saying the First Amendment goes too far in the freedoms it promises. That’s nearly triple the 13 percent of people who said the same last year.

An Open Letter to All Christian Theologians

Sadly, today’s theological discussions are often about who can shout louder. They are marked by hate, anger, bitterness, and disunity. Instead of using theology to attract people to God, it’s being used as a weapon to promote agendas and point out the mistakes or “misbeliefs” of others. Rather than being inspired, individuals simply walk away from these encounters with a sense of discontentment, viewing Christians (often rightfully) as being hypocritical.

I Am a Church Member by Thom Rainer

Those attitudes are (along with my own one-sentence summary):

  1. I will be a functioning church member: The church is a unified body made up of many parts. All parts must function in their role or the church becomes weak.
  2. I will be a unifying church member: Unity is every church members’ responsibility. Gossip and unforgiveness break down unity.
  3. I will not let my church be about my preferences and desires: Church membership is about servanthood.
  4. I will pray for my church leaders: Without ongoing prayer for leaders by church members, our churches will not be healthy.
  5. I will lead my family to be healthy church members: Show your children and spouse how to love the church unconditionally.
  6. I will treasure church membership as a gift: When we view membership as a gift, our sense of entitlement fades.

The World’s Top Missionary-Sending Country Will Surprise You

While the U.S. still does send the largest total number of missionaries, “127,000 in 2010 compared to the 34,000 sent by No. 2-ranked Brazil,” the prize for the largest percentage per million Christians in the population goes to a contender that many will find surprising.
Palestine.
This country’s vibrant population of Christians send 3,401 missionaries for every million Christians.

I Wonder If Sunday School Is Destroying Our Kids

We may believe in the innocence of youth, but our children know better. They see the children in the schoolyard (and they see us at home!). They don’t need the counterfeit gospel of pack-mule-moralism; they need the kiss of the Beauty.
Maybe we do too. Besides, it’s what the Bible in fact teaches.

The One Where I Say Its Okay To Send Your Child To School

I’m not scared to send my child to school. She knows God, she knows what is right, she knows how to be a good influence, and she knows that there are people out there who don’t believe in God – and she’s prayed for them. No, I’m not saying she’s a little missionary, but she has a heart for God that I didn’t have when I was 5. She will have a chance to influence the boys and girls in her school for God.

What’s a “myriad”? (Monday with Mounce 197)

BDAG says μυριάς can mean, “a group/collective of 10,000, myriad,” but it can also mean, “a very large number, not precisely defined, pl. myriads.”
It is this second meaning that is most interesting. Basically, it means a “gajillion.” Or perhaps a “bajillion.” What slang do you use? A gajillion means lots and lots and lots, with no specific number in view.

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The Shift from ‘Alleviating Poverty’ to ‘Creating Prosperity’

Poor countries aren’t poor because they lack tangible things like clothes or electricity or education. They are poor because they lack the intangible foundations of social justice that enable people to create wealth for themselves and their communities, things like clear property title, freedom to start and register a business, access to networks of productivity and circles of exchange, and the expectation that their business contract will be honored and they’ll receive justice and fair resolution if it isn’t. We can take these intangibles for granted, but without them long-term, sustainable wealth creation is impossible.

Solving Poverty Is Rocket Science

But here’s the problem: Poverty, whether here in America or abroad, is one of the oldest and most complex problems plaguing the human race. It is tangled in social, cultural, economic, political, ethnic, geographic, and spiritual factors that challenge even the most skilled experts. Simple solutions just don’t work, and well-meaning amateurs can not only waste valuable resources but even cause unintended harm in their efforts.

Why I’ll Never Play the Lottery

I will never play the lottery. Why? Because I can’t think of anything worse than winning.
I realize this sounds crazy. It may even seem straight-up un-American. Not that everyone plays, but to be so vehemently against winning? Who wouldn’t want free money? But here’s the thing: It’s not free. It comes with a price. And the price I’d pay for hitting the jackpot would never be worth it to me.

I fell in love with a megachurch

I was used to leaving church feeling guilty for my sins from the previous week, for letting my mind wander to sex while Latin words rolled off an old priest’s tongue. But after Lakewood, I felt lighter, like I had handed some of my burden over to … God? Did that mean I believed in Him? Had the energy of this place pulled me here, or was it something bigger?

Rethinking Small Churches

Bigger is not necessarily better, but neither is smaller necessarily better. Small is not the goal. Let’s face it; a small church that reaches people becomes a larger church and this is a good thing. Healthy churches grow and reproduce.
We have many reasons to affirm small churches, but romanticizing them is unhelpful to the mission. So without idealizing the small church, let’s value it.

Survey: Evangelicals Increasingly Countercultural on Same-Sex Issues

For instance, over a third of “Practicing Catholics” think same-sex relationships are morally sound, a marked increase since 2003. Those who identified as “Practicing Protestants,” on the other hand, show the least moral support among religious groups, with only 15 percent of 2013 respondents believing that same-sex marriages are morally acceptable. Evangelicals pronounced an even stronger rejection of the morality of same-sex relationships, with the percentage of disapproving respondents jumping from 95 percent to 98 percent.

When Social Sharing Goes Wrong: Regretting The Facebook Post

But the nature of online and offline regret is also quite different. Evidence from real-world-regret literature (yes, there are many studies in this area) show that what we regret in real life tends to be what we don’t do — we regret inaction because of the fear of negative outcomes. For example, when we regret not telling people how we really feel about them.
But research indicates that Facebook users regret their action instead of inaction, “in which the impulsiveness of sharing or posting on Facebook may blind users to the negative outcomes of posts even if the outcome is immediate,” the Carnegie Mellon researchers wrote.

How to Fix Your Attention Span

Most of the daily content we consume—what gets our attention—is just a distraction from the real work we’re called to do. And, in this crazy information age, we need to be vigilant with our attention. We’re only given so much to spend. Herbert A. Simon, a Nobel Prize winner, once wrote: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a death of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.”

Genetics Are Awesome, Photographer Explores Resemblance in Family Members

Ulric Collette is a French-Canadian photographer who does some quirky portrait work. In his photo series “Genetic Portraits” he photographs family members and then cuts them side by side to create one portrait. The end result makes you notice the similarities between the people photographed, and how fascinating genetics really are. One really cool thing I noticed, is if you cover one half of the image with your hand, and then the other half, you can clearly picture how different each person is, but then when you look at them both, you notice so many similarities.

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Preaching Liberty to the Colonists

Three overarching patterns emerge from Byrd’s study that should trouble Christian readers. First, the influence of political ideology and historical circumstance in shaping the colonists’ interpretation of Scripture is striking. Traced to its roots, the colonists’ conviction that civil liberty is a God-given right owed more to the Enlightenment than to orthodox Christian teaching, and yet the belief strongly informed how colonists understood the Word of God. Reading the Scripture through the lens of republican ideology, they discovered “a patriotic Bible” perfect for promoting “patriotic zeal.”
Second, the readiness with which Christian advocates of independence sanctified violence is disturbing. “Colonial preachers did not shy away from biblical violence,” Byrd finds. “They embraced it, almost celebrated it, even in its most graphic forms.”
Third, and most ominously, the evidence suggests that the way patriotic ministers portrayed the military conflict with Britain morphed rapidly from merely a “just war”—a war originated for a morally defensible cause and fought according to moral criteria—into a “sacred” or “holy war”—a struggle “executed with divine vengeance upon the minions of Satan.” Patriotism and Christianity had become inseparable, almost indistinguishable.

Children’s Church, the Entertainment Culture, and the Story of God

My hesitation regarding “children’s church” are three-fold: 1) What does it teach our kids about the essence of the church’s corporate worship, vis-à-vis entertainment; 2) What does it communicate about our commitment to corporate worship; and, 3) What impact does it have on preparing our children for corporate worship? I think these hesitations offer grounds for reflection on children’s church.

Beautiful Churches Make Holy Churches

The cathedrals of the past are beautiful and, for the sake of art and history, ought to be preserved for generations to come. Inside their walls we feel a quiet reverence because the creative beauty of such places reflects the glory of the Creator God. But what grace that as new covenant Christians, the only sanctuary needed in order to worship is the sanctuary that God Himself creates in the hearts of His people.

Let’s Level the Playing Field

If gender is just an attitude of mind, then when it comes to athletics, let human beings compete on a level — nay, on the same — playing field. Of course, it might just be that gender is actually a little more than an attitude of mind — but there I go again, committing a hate crime.

Say It All Together Now: The ‘Proof of Heaven’ Author Made Everything Up

Of course, it’s not irrelevant. Alexander has brown M&Ms scattered all throughout his story. Any open-minded reader must therefore be skeptical about the bigger picture of his “visit to Heaven” and the message he brings back from there. If he’s willing to fabricate the details, isn’t it at least possible that he’s making up the major points, too?
It might be a wonderful message. It might make for a great story. But it might not be true.

Stop Apologizing for Caring What You Do

The cocktail party question, “What do you do?” may arise from superficial motivations, but the question isn’t bad. Let’s ask ourselves the question on a regular basis. What do we do with the gifts God’s given us? What do we do in our little corner of this fallen world to join in God’s plan for its redemption? How do we pray for help in our work? How do we seek to understand the lessons God is trying to teach us? If work is this crucial a part of God’s design for us, we need to learn all we can about God’s perspective on it.

Don’t Just Flee Sin … Run Towards Golgotha

No, it means that even though external factors condition, deceive and make it easier for us to fall into sin, we cannot blame those factors. It means that even though we may avoid temptations, we cannot avoid ourselves. It means that even though we do our best to dwell on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, whatever is excellent or praiseworthy… all this is dung if we are not FIRST looking towards HIM WHO IS ALL THESE THINGS.

8 Strategies for Coping with Grief

The process of grief is far more messy, individual, and non-linear than you might think.

What is Your Batting Practice? – Watch; Learn; Practice; Rehearse – Steps in Developing Expertise

So, again, here are the steps…
Somebody shows you how to do it…
then
You do it until you learn it
then
A good observer/coach watches you, and “helps you improve with some small, and occasionally some big, ‘tweaks’”
then
You practice and drill over and over and over and over and over again
then
You actually do it

Scientists Trace Heat Wave To Massive Star At Center Of Solar System

“Our measurements indicate the massive amount of energy this thing gives off is able to travel 93 million miles and reach our planet in as little as eight and a half minutes,” said Professor Mitch Kivens, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. “While we can’t see them, we’re fairly certain these infrared rays strike Earth’s surface, become trapped by the atmosphere, and just heat everything up like a great big oven.”

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Flag Extremism and Christian Practice

This immoderate exaltation of the flag is nothing less than idolatrous. What does it say about a church that would distribute such a personified self-adulation of the American flag which claims, “I bow to no one….I am worshipped….I am revered”? No doubt those who chose to distribute this piece would deny it is contains anything that smacks of idolatry. How could they do otherwise? The fact is that the power of idolatry is best preserved by remaining unacknowledged.

The Amazing Power of Patriotism

Heavenly patriotism is this belief that all human lives everywhere are worth the same.
That we’re a country of countries, a world of families, a earth of one human race, and that was it — the essence of this great land she lived in. What really unites this great land is more than a flag — it’s an idea. The idea that all peoples under heaven are the idea of a Great God.
That all peoples under heaven, in our back alleys and in our hospitals, in our prisons and shelters and headlines and every person in our far-flung world, are flagged as the handiwork of God, the dream of God, the art of God. Everywhere she looked, there it was — “I was the stranger and you welcomed me in.“
It was strange and glorious, how it was happening in her, for her nation, for all the nations: Heavenly patriotism makes you patriotic for all of humanity.

Declaration of Independence and the Image of God

Immigration is, in most cases, all about that pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. For some of the immigrants in my community, migration was really not a choice at all: their lives were threatened by a tyrannical government or they literally faced the possibility of starvation if they did not leave their homes and move. For others, they might have survived where they were, but they were not free: they were drawn to this country by their internal yearning for political, religious, and economic freedom. Many have come to this country betting that the American dream, that those willing to work hard can improve their lot in life and that of their families, is still possible. Folks in pursuit of that dream have been coming to the United States since even before that Declaration was signed 237 years ago this week, and they’re still coming.

Loving Our Enemies

Those who embrace the view of Christian pacifism need to remember that pacifism does not equate with passivism. While, as far as it is known, Jesus never killed or waged war against his enemies, Jesus was never passive in wake of oppression and evil. Jesus pursued his kingdom ministry in the trenches with people who were suffering, including those who suffered under the oppressive and evil tyranny of others. Not only did Jesus live in the trenches with such people, Jesus was willing and in fact did lay his own life down for those suffering. Christians pacifists must be willing to do the same as Jesus. To do any less might be regarded as pacifism but it won’t be Christian pacifism.

Do You Have Too Much Stuff?

As I stood in my damp, musty house, picking through sopping wet piles of purchases and throwing them into huge black plastic bags, my heart hurt from the effort. So much stuff that we once had but didn’t anymore: My favorite Franco Sarto boots. The portfolio filled with all my first published clips.
But as I sorted through the damage, I quickly realized that “stuff” fell into two categories: replaceable and irreplaceable. The boots? Replaceable. The newspaper clippings? Gone forever.

Our fear of boredom is simply a fear of coming face to face with ourselves

Throughout the centuries, theologians, especially those of the mystical tradition, have insisted that God is commonly experienced as a form of absence. Deus absconditus, as Luther described Him. Yet such is our anxiety when presented with empty space that we feel the need to fill it up – every absence being continually and desperately converted into some sort of presence. But many of these substitutions are just ways of us avoiding ourselves, our fear of dependency and the fear of abandonment that such dependency brings with it.

In olden times it was different

Rather than saying “In olden times it was different,” why not say “In times to come, it will be different”? As Paul said, thinking about the past should fill us with hope. Hope based not just on what we will do in the future, but hope based on what God will do in the future.

How to get better at email: What science tells us

What are the best ways to take control and optimize your use of email? Quartz turned to academic research from around the world and other thoughtful sources to compile these insights and suggestions.

Girls’ Legos Are A Hit, But Why Do Girls Need Special Legos?

Johnson says the company carefully studied differences between how girls and boys play. “When boys build a construction set, they’ll build a castle, let’s say, and they’ll play with the finished product on the outside. When girls build construction sets, they tend to play on the inside.”
And research showed that girls loved little details, says Lego brand relations manager Amanda Santoro. “When we were testing this, we asked girls what would you like to see in a Lego school?” she said, as she showed off the line at Toy Fair, the massive industry event held each year in New York City. “Of course, they said an art studio. So we see a lot of detail here with the different paint canisters and the canvas here [a Friend] is creating.”

Calif. roller coaster screams exceed decibel limit

The Gold Striker at Great America in Santa Clara had to be taken offline this week because riders were screaming too loudly.
The San Jose Mercury News reports (http://bit.ly/1aK6QAw ) that the shrieks were exceeding the decibel limit agreed upon in a settlement with Prudential Real Estate, which owns adjacent properties.
So Great America had to cover a portion of the track in a sound-dampening tunnel. The wooden roller coaster reopened on Wednesday after the work was completed.

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[Reminder about the links: I should repeat that I don’t necessarily agree with everything said in the links I provide. I may not agree with any of it! I try to provide links to things that I find interesting and thought-provoking. Thanks for reading!]

Debunking the Fourth: Top 10 Unsightly Facts about the American Revolution

W.R. Inge once wrote, “A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and a common fear of its neighbors.” One need look no further than the American Revolution to see that this claim has merit. This week a lot of American Christians are experiencing a patriotic fervor that’s premised upon historical falsehoods concerning our country’s origin.

The Church in America

For far too long the church has fooled itself thinking it can walk with one foot in the new world to come, the kingdom of God, and the other foot in a kingdom that will not stand. All the while, the left and right of American culture, which are nothing more than different sides of the same secular coin, are more than happy to have the church its corner so long as the church accommodates itself to their ideologies and means of achieving those aims.

3 Common Traits of Youth Who Don’t Leave the Church

It’s hard to sort through the various reports and find the real story. And there is no one easy solution for bringing all of those “lost” kids back into the church, other than continuing to pray for them and speaking the gospel into their lives. However, we can all look at the 20-somethings in our churches who are engaged and involved in ministry. What is it that sets apart the kids who stay in the church?

Hey Paula

I want to forgive Paula, mostly, because I’ve been forgiven of so much. Not just words but actions .. and inactions when there should have been actions. I have no doubt that legions of her fans, of every hue, will forgive her and love her. But I really want my reason to love her and forgive her to be because Jesus has forgiven me over and over. He paid a terrible price to redeem me because I couldn’t control my tongue, or my thoughts. Jesus’ blood brought about the forgiveness I needed because I refused to control myself and because the list of my sins and shortcomings is so long that I could never fix it myself.

Kirsten Powers: I Don’t Stand With Wendy Davis

If the majority of Americans oppose elective late-term abortion, why do we have Davis complaining to CBS’s Bob Schieffer that the male politicians who are championing the late-term abortion ban are “bullying women”? Maybe it’s she who is bullying the rest of us into supporting a view that is mocked by scientific advancement; namely 3-D sonograms. Maybe we should be thankful for the men and wonder what is wrong with the women who think protecting the right to abort your baby for any reason up to the 26th week is a “human right.”

Finding the Right Words for God’s Word

When I first went to Papua New Guinea, I was committed to translating God’s Word as faithfully and as accurately as possible. I thought I had a good idea of what that meant, but I quickly realized that I had oversimplified the actual task of Bible translation. I heard people articulate proposed standards for faithfulness and accuracy. But I found that many of those standards are based on English grammatical features that do not exist in Lamogai or many other languages. So, if those standards are really God’s universal standards, then Lamogai would automatically be disqualified from having a faithful and accurate translation.

How a Biblical Worldview Shapes the Way We Teach Our Children

What this means for followers of Jesus is that every child is far more than a child. Every child is a potential or actual brother or sister in Christ; each one is an eternal soul whose days will long outlast the rise and fall of all the kingdoms of the earth. They and their children and their children’s children will flit ever so briefly across the face of this earth before being swept away into eternity (James 4:14).

Seven (Hopefully) Helpful Hints after Seven Months of Visiting Churches

Though I’ve not been a church consultant for several years, I do seem to see churches through consultant’s eyes. That reality has been especially apparent as I visited many churches during the past seven months. So, even if I am the guest preacher, I enter the church grounds as a guest. I drive my own rental car, and I have to find parking and entrances just like everyone else.
So what have I found these past seven months? I could give you a fairly extensive consultation report about the churches, but I prefer to distill my words into just a few helpful hints.

Ira Glass: Christians Are Horribly Covered by the Media

In this interview with spiritual anthropologist Jim Henderson, This American Life host and professed atheist Ira Glass says he thinks Christians get a really bad rap in the media. The NPR star said the way Christians are often portrayed in pop-culture is totally different from the way the Christians he knows personally actually are in real life.

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don’t have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too.
I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, more insights. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

Thinking about money

In our culture, making more money feels like winning, and winning feels like the point.

Five Simple Ways to Get More People to Read What You Write

All writers want someone to read what we write. We may not admit this openly, we may dress up our explanations of why we write in more noble sounding language, but the bottom line is: we want to be read.

Book Titles With One Letter Missing (20 Pics)

The hashtag #bookswithalettermissing was trending on Twitter. In response, user @darth decided to do us all a favor and Photoshop some of the best entries.

OK, so this one gets special billing. My daughter started blogging… and she writes very well. Enjoy!
Hello, My Name is Child of the One True King

I knew God was proud of me, too. But actually hearing those words and knowing it was God speaking through this man, straight to me, was a completely different story.