Dr. Joel Thiessen (Canada’s younger version of Reginald Bibby) has done a Canadian study and found that society increasingly self-identifies as having “No religion”. Millennials are raised in a social context without a religion. Some might have gone to Sunday school or received baptism as an infant but end up as a non-attender of church. The United States and Europe are all generally in a similar situation. The U.S. might be a little better.
This presents a challenge because people do not know who Jesus is. With this challenge comes the opportunity to socialize Christianity in a more positive way. The opportunity is that we get to start with a brand new slate.
How we do share the love of Jesus to our friends, acquaintances, and family who are in this category of “Religious None”? If you are 50 or younger, you probably know someone who has never been to church and who has heard about Jesus spoken of at Christmastime or as a curse word.
How do we share the good news of Jesus in this generation? With sensitivity to “None”s, or using the seeker-sensitive model?
Sorry the video is only on facebook and not on youtube, thus, the link to a facebook page of Acadia Divinity College (alma mater):
Plenty of millennials went to church as children. Some even chose to go when they didn’t have to. I was one of those, but not the only one.
If the church wants to bring people back to the congregation, they have to eradicate the hate: homophobia, MAGA-style racism, and all this silly tinfoil hat denial of truth about how in danger God’s green earth is from man-made pollutants. These are the things that drive people from the church in the first place.
If the church were more welcoming and reasonable, like Jesus was, then the church might not be suffering such poor attendance.
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Randal, thanks for expressing how you feel about this. I understand.
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