Good Answers to Good Questions

The Barna Group’s latest research is of great interest to me.  This research firm, working with World Vision, put together a study titled “The Connected Generation.”  With a sample size of 15,369 from a young adult population (ages 18 to 35) from twenty-five countries speaking nine languages.  The stated aim of the survey is to equip pastors and church leaders to better understand this age group, of whom much ink has been spilled.  Several items cited over at The Christian Post struck me as important.

This study shows us a crisis in three areas: pastoral care, answering tough questions concerning the Christian Faith, and involving a new generation of church leaders.  Quoting from the article:

Only one-third (33 percent) say they feel deeply cared for by those around them.  “Only a third say they often feel someone believes in me,” Barna President David Kinneman  said. “This tells me that two out of three young people around the world would not feel these kinds of relational connection.”  Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of respondents say they encounter feelings of loneliness and isolation.  

The U.S. and Australia are the two countries with the highest percentage of loneliness and isolation reported with 34 percent of young adult respondents from those two westernized nations reporting frequent loneliness and isolation…

We must connect with children and youth in a relational way, giving them the sense that we love them and care about them.  This is a major opportunity for the church to step in and provide a sense of love and care only Christ-centered fellowship can bring.

The article discusses hard questions below.

…58 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29, who grew up with some type of Christian background, either no longer identify as Christian or do not regularly attend church even if they still identify as Christian. 

Nearly half of young adults who said they left the Christian church reported being active in their church during their teen years.  

Forty-seven percent of respondents with some connection to Christianity say they feel the Church “cannot answer their questions” or spiritual doubts... 

Meanwhile, 31 percent of respondents said “science” also challenges their willingness to believe. 

One-quarter (28 percent) of respondents said human suffering and conflicts around the world cause them to have doubts… 

Eighty percent of young people who left Christianity said they believe that present-day Christianity is “anti-homosexual,” while 81 percent say present-day Christianity is judgmental…

The church needs to meet these questions ‘head on.’  I faced many questions as a college student in the 1980s and 1990s.  I found solid answers from books and sermons by great Christian men like R. C. Sproul, Norman L. Geisler, Paul Little, John H. Gerstner, and D. James Kennedy (Follow the links on their names to their best books.).  The questions then are the same questions people have now: why suffering, how can we know God exists, why should we believe Jesus was God who died for our sins, and can we trust the Bible (Follow links to see my answers to these questions on this blog.).  The answers that were given then are still out there to give now.  Will we ‘step up our game’ to answer the important questions, or will we slothfully squander this great intellectual opportunity?

I find solid answers to the prevailing questions of today from men like Kevin DeYoung on homosexuality, John M. Frame on God’s existence, Alvin Plantinga on how we know the truth, and Craig Blomberg on trusting the Bible.  These are men with sharp minds and the kind of vigorous faith that would 'charge hell with a water pistol.'  We need to get these names out in front of youth and adults alike, but it seems our young men and women face the most severe crisis.

This is a real crisis, not as a result of the loss of a false kind of “Cultural Christianity.”  This is not something that makes the church stronger after all in the end.  We are losing our chance to change the world for Christ.  We are increasingly huddled in our own little clique patting each other on the back while the world quite literally ‘goes to hell in a handbasket.’

Again, from the article:

When it comes to training young leaders in the church, the report indicates that one of the challenges that many churches are facing is that they “lack effective pipelines, processes and models to form young leaders.” 

…Only 9 percent of young adults surveyed said they serve as a leader in their community of faith.  

Twenty-one percent of all churchgoers surveyed said they had access to “leadership training for ministry” through their church. And, 26 percent of churchgoers surveyed said they have “been inspired to be a leader based on the example of someone at my church.”

I see the last two issues as related.  A ‘watered down’ or ‘half-hearted’ approach to Christian doctrine and the questions it answers will not provide young churchgoers with a firm ground from which to develop leadership skills.  You cannot lead out in an effort you do not have confidence in.  The church cannot continue without ministers and leaders.

This is a bleak picture.  It is a matter of prayer and action.  Ask yourself:
• Who am I praying for right now that they might truly come to Christ?
• Am I developing the kind of intellectual skills necessary to answer questions when I am asked?
• Am I showing interest in and loving others as Christ would have me to?
• Am I willing to teach or lead a book discussion that addresses tough questions Christians face?
• Do my social media posts point to people who are searching for answers to good resources?
• When was the last time I shared the answers which have grounded me in the faith in the face of tough questions?

The world has good questions.  Christians have good answers.  Let’s get to it.

Article quoted from: Nearly half of young adults with ties to Christianity say church can’t answer their questions: survey By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter| Friday, November 08, 2019