Finding Faith by Flory and Miller.

I took a break from doing heavy lifting with history books and read a 2008 book on dominant trends within current evangelicalism based on a study by two sociologists of religion, Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller. Their book is called Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation. They are specifically interested in finding the religious or spiritual trends among the under 40 crowd. To do so, they spent two years interviewing 100 people and visiting a dozen significant congregations around the country.

They build their analysis around 4 types of trends or styles that they see among evangelicalism: what they call Innovators, Appropriators, Resisters, and Reclaimers. The innovators are represented by people like Brian McLaren and Leonard Sweet, and, according to the authors, prefer smaller congregations with a high level of engagement with the larger community and social issues. The Appropriators are the large Mall type mega churches that offer hundreds of programming choices to the religious consumer. The Resisters are those who are critical of postmodernism and resistant to any accommodation to current cultural changes and who keep a strong focus on rational faith and careful exegesis of the scriptures and ultimately desire to move young people back to a rational, text-based faith. Finally the Reclaimers are those evangelicals who are leaving evangelical churches in order to associate with strongly liturgical churches such as the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Anglican. They are reclaiming the ancient traditions of worship of the early or Patristic church.

What do you think of these four types of response? Are there any responses that you might feel that they left out? Which response do you most identify with?

Covenant Skunklings

hey guys,

Brian had a "God-idea" about starting an innovative group to come up with some fresh ideas and new initiatives to reach out to the younger generation. It is called the "skunk group" or the Covenant Skunklings -- I'll let him explain why. Go to this url to read his post and contribute ideas ... anyone with really GOOD ideas and faithful participation MIGHT get a trip to Boston ...

While this forum will continue to be more oriented around theological discussion, the Covenant Skunklings will be more oriented around practical ideas for outreach to youth and the young adult generation. ALL IDEAS ARE WELCOME!

jh

Youth Ministry 3.0?

Scot McKnight started a discussion about youth ministry, called Youth Ministry 3.0, today along with a brief intro to a book by a guy named Marko. It seemes like an appropriate focus for discussion considering recent emails about the coming collapse (or decline?) of contemporary evangelical church.

Here is the post:

.....................
I sat down the other day with a youth pastor and asked a direct question that I've asked a number of youth leaders: "What percentage of your youth become adult, mature Christians?"

His response: "You want the truth?"

I said, "Of course."

His answer: "About 25%."

We both sat there, fumbling our coffee cups, looking at one another, nothing said and nothing to be said. In grief and wonder we searched for what we might do together to change the course of the church. His numbers are about average for evangelical churches. I wonder if some youth pastors would sit down, think for 15 minutes or so over the last few years and what has become of their youth. What "worked" and what "didn't work"? Listen to these ruggedly honest words from Mark Oestreicher:

"The way we're doing things is already not working. We're failing at our calling. And deep down, most of us know it. This is why we need an epochal shift in our assumptions, approaches, models, and methods."
...........................

The book the quote is taken from is called:

Youth Ministry 3.0: A Manifesto of Where We've Been, Where We Are & Where We Need to Go.

What will we do about it?

hi all: I found the article below in Scott McKnight's Jesuscreed (now on belief.net). I want you to remember that I said this a couple of days ago, and I have been saying it for the last several years in this blog and by email ... I didn't get it from McKnight, or McLaren, or even Gallup or Barna. We can see it with our eyes if we look around. There is urgency about this. Sorry to start another discussion thread -- you can keep responding to the previous thread, but this allows me to insert a link:

What will we do about it?
...........
Research from a number of angles says the same thing: 20 somethings are not attending church. There is nothing less than a crisis in the church, a crisis that is far greater than most church folk know about and care to confront with the energies and focus that are needed. Here are the two facts:

1. The elderly people are exiting the church's back door.
2. The younger people are not entering the front door.

This means the numbers are declining. If something isn't done about it soon, the church will be facing a crisis in the next twenty years unlike anything the American church has ever seen. At a pragmatic level, it will mean a dramatic reduction in budgets ... I could go on. The more pressing issue is speaking the gospel to a new generation.

What will we do about it? Call for a conference. What are we doing about it?
............
jh