What is the Church’s mission? What is the point? Why aren’t people inclined to come running to
the Church as part of their spiritual quests?
The big question facing so many of our congregations in
particular is ‘Why are there very few young families with children?”
One of the most revealing books I’ve read in recent years is
“UnChristian” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons of the Barna Group. Their research into the perceptions common
among those people, outside of the Church, ages 16 to 29, is revealing. Certainly others have looked at it and
interpret the basic facts differently.
But what they have to share is worthy of thought and reflection.
Here is the summary slide from the UnChristian powerpoint:
Outsiders, age 16 to 29 perceive the Church to be:
Antihomosexual 91%
Judgmental 87%
Hypocritical 85%
Sheltered (old-fashioned,
out of touch with reality) 78%
Too political (especially right wing) 75%
Proselytizers (insensitive to others,
not genuine) 70%
If this is true, and my experience inclines me to believe it
is, we in the Church have a problem attracting these young people and their
children.
Not many people wake
up in the morning and say, “Where can I take my children so that we can all
learn to be more anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical, sheltered and out
of touch with reality, beholden to right wing politics, and insensitive to
others and only concerned about ourselves.
I presented this information to a group of Church folk and
the response they had to it actually confirmed every aspect of these
perceptions. And it only took a couple
of minutes.
So if our mission has something to do with spreading God’s
message of love and forgiveness, we’ve got a problem. The problem of course is that either we are not loving and forgiving, or we
have a very poor public relations department.
The only way we can change is to acknowledge how we have
contributed to these perceptions, beg God’s forgiveness, and begin to live our
lives in a manner that reflects the message of Jesus.
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