***Friends, this is an article I just prepared for Care Net’s network. I broke it down into three parts for the purposes of this blog.
Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God.[1]
—Dallas Willard
Last year, God gave me the fire to complete a book — and a handbook for discipleship of sorts — called How I Became a Christian Despite the Church. It’s my raw, personal story of breaking free from the shame, abuse, and distorted views of sex associated with a particularly destructive, cultish, and harmful church called Berachah.
As you can imagine, my journey has given me a huge heart for those who have been hurt by the church. In fact, given the experiences my family, friends, and I suffered as a result of “following God,” I’m often surprised that my own faith is still standing. Incredulously, I’m now a Presbyterian minister and leader in a national Christian ministry that champions human dignity and reminds our culture that pre-natal men and women matter, too.
And, truthfully, despite the name of my book, it’s ultimately designed—without compromising honesty and depth—to show the beauty of biblical faith and build up rather than tear down. I want people to know that church experiences like Berachah weren’t God, shouldn’t be blamed on God, and—in synch Dallas Willard’s quote above—were rather a rebellion against God.
With that background, here are ten essentials for reaching those who’ve been harmed or turned off by the Church:
1) Awareness: Yes, Jesus said he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18), but as Jim Collins pointed out in his business classic Good to Great, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end… with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts or your current reality, whatever they might be.”[2] And our best researchers inform us of the following:
- “A large majority of the nation’s unchurched population is drawn from the sector comprised of people who consider themselves to be Christian… Most unchurched people—more than four out of five—were formerly regular participants in church life, many of whom departed after an ugly incident that hurt them deeply.”[3]
- A 2019 “Unchurched Report” by Billy Graham Center Institute and Lifeway Research teases out the data above further and found that a little over “a third of the people who used to attend church” now stay away specifically because they “lost trust in God, the church, or Christians.” (See You Found Me by Rick Richardson, 47)
- The number of Americans ages 18-29 who have no religious affiliation has nearly quadrupled in the last 30 years[4] and 59% of millennials raised in a church have dropped out.[5]
- 35 million youth raised in families that call themselves Christians will say that they are not by 2050.[6]
Warren Cole Smith, President of Ministry Watch, weighs in on why some of this has happened:
“For centuries, Americans have seen Christians and the Church as a positive influence in the world. That is no longer the case. Today, the Church in America is facing a credibility crisis. In 1975, Gallup said 68 percent of Americans had a ‘great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence in Church or organized religion. Gallup’s 2019 survey found that number was 36 percent…
The causes of this slide in confidence are many. And it is also true that no matter what we do, some people will despise a faithful, biblical Church. Jesus Himself was despised and rejected by those who hate the truth.
However, the slide in credibility of the Church over the past 40 years has more to do with hypocrisy than it does any heroic stand for the truth. In fact, people who have lost confidence in the Church often blame the bad behavior of Church leaders, including financial and sexual abuse scandals. Young people, in particular, have become discouraged with Church leaders who are quick to judge the poor and the powerless, but who tolerate and even encourage rich and powerful leaders whose behavior is clearly at odds with Christian teaching… [Christian leaders who do so] because it suits their own financial or political purposes.”[7]
Even Tim Keller, one of the finest pastor-apologists speaking to the secular mind today, acknowledges that “millennials are turned off to the Bible because they are turned off by the Church.” The remedy for this, he says, is “not, of course, to make excuses for the Church. Rather, millennials will be helped the most in their attitude toward the Bible if they see the strength of the connection between the Bible and Jesus.”[8]
***This week (Part 1) we made the “awareness” case. Next week (Part 2) and the following week (Part 3), we’ll get more practical with the remaining nine essentials for reaching those who’ve been hurt or disillusioned by the Church.
[1] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines. (San Francisco: Harper & Row) 1988, 81.
[2] Jim Collins, Good to Great (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 85.
[3] https://www.barna.com/research/millions-of-unchurched-adults-are-christians-hurt-by-churches-but-can-be-healed-of-the-pain/?fbclid=IwAR3du2gIoPZvMKHkU96PmgZ9M2anNviKUV2pJ8jYZ1BZ-wphjfjINAPb2yo
[4] https://religionnews.com/2018/06/26/why-millennials-are-really-leaving-religion-its-not-just-politics-folks/
[5] https://faithit.com/12-reasons-millennials-over-church-sam-eaton/
[6] https://www.barna.com/research/millennial-spiritual-curiosity/
[7] https://breakpoint.org/whats-ahead-in-2020-a-breakpoint-symposium/
[8] Michael & Lauren McAfee, Not What You Think: Why the Bible Might Be Nothing We Expected Yet Everything We Need (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 12.