You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church
“We are at a critical point in the life of the North American church; the Christian community must rethink our efforts to make disciples.”
Disclaimer: This post is an adaption of a discipleship email letter sent out that incorporates David Kinnaman’s book You Lost Me.
I hope you are getting ready for a fantastic and eventful July 4th weekend! As I spend this July 4th overseas, I am filled with an overwhelming appreciation and renewed love for America and the treasured independence and freedoms we have.
Over the past few months, we have narrowed in on how every true disciple of Christ will be marked with love. But this love is not subjective to individual perceptions or determined definitions. The love a true disciple is marked with is distinctly a reflection of Christ's love.
Today, on this July 4th weekend, I want you to think with me about being marked by a Christlike love that listens to the lost.
Love by listening
Jesus demonstrated love by engaging with and listening to the lost. Christians love to run to the cross, saying, "Jesus died for sinners." It is true, Jesus' love culminates in his life-giving death on the cross and resurrection from the dead that solidifies the possibility of a new life and the secured hope of a future resurrection and life with him. But he didn't just die for sinners. He didn't walk straight to the cross. He first lived a morally perfect life with sinners. He ate with sinners, he engaged them, he talked with them, and most important for the point presented today; he listened to them.
John 4 recounts how a Jewish Rabbi—Jesus—intentionally went to Samaria, was alone with a Samaritan woman, initiates a conversation with her, and then listens to her! Even though this was a Samaritan woman (Jews and Samaritans did not get along—and Jewish rabbis certainly didn't talk with women alone!), Jesus talks with her and listens to her story and theological questions. Cultural customs, ethnic relations, religious convictions, and moral practices will not separate Jesus from those dying of thirst begging to be quenched. He is the living water able to wash the most stained of sinner fully clean and provide a new life in him.
How can we love like Jesus this 4th of July? Maybe we listen to those we are celebrating with?
In his book You Lost Me, David Kinnaman addresses the skepticism and increasing departure of young adults from the Christian faith. Kinnaman exposes the hard reality that the number of people who claim Christianity but have chosen to leave the Church's institutional structure is significantly increasing in America. These once insiders now find themselves as inbetweeners. They hold to Christian theology, do not embrace secularism or a different religion, but are skeptical of the organized Church. Kinnaman offers a lot of insightful information and wonderful recommendations throughout the book, and some not-so-good ones as well. However, I want to hone in on one intriguing observation.
I believe Kinnaman has identified a group in America that is somewhat like modern-day Samaritans. In Jesus' time, the separation between Jews and Samaritans was over 700 years in the making, beginning around 722 B.C. The Assyrians came and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. After the conquest, some Assyrians stayed in the provinces and intermarried with the remaining Jews. For most national Jews, the Samaritans were neither Jew nor Gentile but half breeds and not to be socialized. They were in-between the Jewish culture and religion. And thus, avoided and ignored.
Christians tend to treat inbetweeners today as Jews did Samaritans in Jesus' day. We don't know what to do with those who know the truth, grew up in the Church, and chose to live apart from the Christian community. Most solutions to this growing group of people are ignoring them, avoiding the topic of Church with them, or condemning them.
I agree with Kinnaman; a fourth option is to love them like Jesus and listen to them. Kinnaman says, "we must be willing to listen and respond to the heartfelt institutional doubts of the next generation." We never know what God may do when we love like Christ and listen.
