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Sobering News

In my nearly 40 years of ministry among college students, I saw increasingly how immature and shallow the faith of l8-19-year-olds was as they came onto campus despite their being raised in Christian homes and participating in the programs of their local churches. By and large, they were good kids, desiring to do well in school and what was right in life. Yet, the vast majority knew little about what the Scriptures teach about following Jesus and what that was to look like. My colleagues and I would spend the next four years attempting to help them gain that understanding.

 

As I prepared to leave campus ministry, I felt God’s leading to a new calling—helping parents and churches to see how so many of their efforts and so much of their money spent to help kids grow spiritually into mature Christian adults were not having the intended effect. Young people were leaving the faith in droves after graduating from high school. And those that weren’t, typically the ones I had involved in my ministry, were spiritually immature. As I state in my book, Letters from Downstream, you can tell a lot about what is happening upstream by what you see downstream.

 

Sadly, a recent study confirms what I saw and what I am trying to get the local church to see—we’re not producing mature disciples who can be ambassadors for Jesus to the people around us. Rather, our congregations are much closer to believing what the culture holds as true rather than what the Bible declares as truth. For example, 56% of those claiming to be Christian evangelicals (see the study for the definition) believe that God accepts the worship of all religions. And 43% agree with the statement that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. Finally, more than a third agreed that religious belief is a matter of personal opinion; it is not about objective truth. What is flowing from upstream is often spiritually toxic. If it were not so, we would not be seeing the prominence of unbiblical beliefs among so many who claim to follow Jesus, and we wouldn’t be seeing a large majority of emerging adults forsaking the faith of their youth.

 

I have been reading a biography of Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message and many other books. One of the things that troubled him about the local church was the lack of the pursuit of the Holy God. He didn’t think most churches were truly focused on that, but rather about growing in numbers and building their reputations as exciting places to attend. I think he was right. Many pastors tend to think the “big show” is what is impressive, so the buildings are big, the programs are big, and there are continual assumptions that our influence will be big. Yet, Elijah confronting the priests of Baal is a cautionary tale. In I Kings 18:16-39, we are told the story of Elijah’s challenge to those priests. They are to prepare a sacrifice to Baal and then ask him to bring fire down to consume it. They do as they’re told; yet nothing happens. Elijah also builds an altar to the Lord and prepares a sacrifice. He calls out to the Lord and fire from heaven falls to consume the offering. As a result, the Israelites fall prostrate and in unison declare, “The Lord—He is God! The Lord—He is God!” (v. 39)

 

If the story ended there, we would likely conclude that Elijah’s “big show” of God’s power would have turned the Israelites back to the Lord. They even declared that was the case! Yet, at the beginning of I Kings 19, we learn that King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, has issued a warrant for Elijah’s death. As a result, he flees for his life. There is no mention of any Israelites rallying to his side. Ahab and Jezebel continued their commitment to Baal and were not dissuaded by the show on Mt. Carmel. It seems Elijah thought this dramatic demonstration of God’s power would change the dynamic in Israelite culture, much like the rich man thought if Lazarus were sent back to the man’s brothers, they would change their hearts. (Luke 16:27-31)

 

For decades, the American church has focused on numbers—numbers of attendees, numbers of converts, numbers of square feet, numbers of campuses—and the result has been less than impressive when looking at the countless statistics out there regarding faith among those raised up in these churches. Like this most recent study indicates, the way we are going about things is not nearly as effective as we have presumed. It’s time we step back and ask the Lord for objective eyes and courageous hearts to begin to change how we “do” church.

 

My goal for my life now is to help folks do that, to let the sobering news be an incentive to open our hearts to what the Lord can do through us to bring much needed change. In God’s grace, it is not too late to start. Let’s get going!

© Jim Musser 2022 All Scripture references are from the New International Version, 2011.