Anglican Mainstream South Africa

By Ed West, Telegraph

I’ll get straight to the point: you need to read You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman. If you’re at all interested for the future of the church. If you’re a church leader – youth minister, senior minister, or bishop. If you’re a parent, or grandparent. If you’re a teenager or young adult, particularly if you’re wondering whether or not to hang around the church for much longer. You need to read this book (here’s a video intro for the digital natives).

New from the Barna group in the US, You Lost Me is reporting on research done among young adults who used to be members of the church. ‘Used to be’ is the key. The title of the book gives voice to the response young adults are making to the church – it’s what you say when you’re talking with someone and they start saying something that doesn’t make sense anymore: ‘hang on, you lost me’.

The research spoke with young adults with a Christian background to hear their stories of why they’ve left the church and sometimes the Christian faith all together. The book is a companion of sorts to Kinnaman’s previous book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters that considered the reasons young non-Christians reject the Christian faith. Where the previous book spoke with the ‘outsiders’, this book is about the ‘insiders’, or at least those who were insiders in the past.

In the first part of the book Kinnaman introduces us to the young adults who have left the church: The nomads, who are disengaged with the church, continue to identify as Christian, but see little importance of faith for their lives; the prodigals who have abandoned the Christianity of their childhood and hold varying levels of resentment toward Christianity and the church; and the exiles, who remain passionate about their Christian faith but are disillusioned with the institutional church as the place to live out their commitment to Jesus.

Part two identifies six main reasons for why young people are disconnected from the church together with recommendations for how the church (church leaders as well as parents) can respond. The six problems are that the church is overprotective and unwelcoming of creativity and involvement in culture; shallow in its teaching; antiscience; repressive particularly in regard to sex; exclusive in a way that conflicts with the open-mindedness, tolerance and acceptance of the surrounding culture; and does not allow the expression of doubt.

Rather than summarise Kinnaman’s alternatives (I want you to read the book for yourself afterall!), the bottom line is the recovery of genuine relationships within the body of Christ. Kinnaman says ‘relationship is central to disciple making—and…the dropout problem is, at its core, a disciple-making problem’.

The last part of the book provides three areas for renewed thinking in the church (you’ll have to read it to find out what they are!). Each of them are grounded clearly in the Bible and the traditions of the church. There is nothing particularly new, but Kinnaman provides a clear  and powerful call to recover things that we know and have neglected.

In many ways it was the final chapter that was the most engaging. Having presented the problem and outlined a response, the book concludes with fifty ideas gathered from church leaders and young Christians that begin to make the concrete changes necessary to begin to chart a new future. Kinnaman acknowledges that he doesn’t agree with every idea presented, and neither do I. But in reading through them not only were there ideas that I’m keen to pick up and run with, reading the thoughts of others prompted me to think of other actions and changes that would be relevant to my own situation.

Bottom line is this: if you are concerned for the future of the church, if you are concerned for young adult nomads, prodigals and exiles, if you are yourself a young adult who is disenchanted with the church, then read this book.

But don’t read it on your own – read it with others: with fellow leaders, with parents and grandparents, with young adults, with teenagers. The website has discussion guides for church leaders and for parents and grandparents. What we really need though is a discussion guide for church leaders, parents, grandparents and young adults to use together. Kinneman’s analysis argues that blame cannot be laid exclusively on any one group of people. Neither will the solution come from the efforts of only one group of people. Relationships grow out of conversations and conversations need more than one voice.

And read it in the company of Jesus, praying that he would continue to lead us into truth and shape us as individuals and communities to be the people he calls us to be.

David Kinneman, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith. Baker Books, 2011

Church of England General Synod Report Encourages “Open-Ended Engagement”

The General Synod, the national assembly of the Church of England, released a report this week providing further clarity on its working relationship with the Anglican Church in North America, and encouraged an “open-ended engagement with ACNA on the part of the Church of England and the (Anglican) Communion.”

“We are encouraged by the desire of the Church of England to continue to embrace the Anglican Church in North America and remain in solidarity with us as we proclaim the Gospel message and truth as revealed in Scripture in the way it has always been understood in Anglican formularies,” said Archbishop Duncan.

The Church of England General Synod report can be viewed here.

“As we have demonstrated successfully to the GAFCON primates, the Anglican Church in North America remains committed to our growing relationships with Anglican provinces outside of North America. Our biblical orthodoxy and ministries are strengthening our bond to our Anglican brothers and sisters around the globe. We are gratified that we are already in a relationship of full communion with many Anglican Provinces and look forward to expanding that circle.”

“In that regard, we appreciate the work of the Faith and Order Commission of the Church of England, whose report and recommendations to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York form the basis of the document now released for General Synod, and whose content substantially advances the same ends with the Church of England,” concluded Archbishop Duncan.

In July 2009, a resolution was brought forth to the Church of England’s General Synod to recognize its common faith and fellowship with the growing Anglican Church in North America. The following February, 2010, representatives and ecumenical friends of the Anglican Church in North America shared directly with the General Synod the vision of the church for reaching North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.  At the 2010 meeting, the General Synod first affirmed the Anglican Church in North America’s desire “to remain within the Anglican family.”

From ENS

Archbishops Rowan Williams of Canterbury and John Sentamu of York have suggested that the Church of England and the Anglican Communion ought to be in “an open-ended engagement” with the Anglican Church in North America.

Pastor John:

What then should a pastor do to promote a passion among his people to see God glorified by the in-gathering of his sheep from the thousands of unreached people groups around the world?

My answer: above everything else, be the kind of person and the kind of preacher whose theme and passion is the majesty of God. . . .

The most important thing I think pastors can do to arouse and sustain a passion for world evangelization is week in and week out to help their people see the crags and peaks and icy cliffs and snowcapped heights of God’s majestic character. And let me sharpen the point in two ways:

1. We should labor in our preaching to clear the mists and fog away from the sharp contours of the character of God. We should let him be seen in his majesty and sovereignty.

I know of one denominational official who, when asked how to preach on texts that seem strong on predestination or election or the sovereignty of grace, said something like, “O, I think you can preach on those texts without letting people know what you think. It’s possible to be sufficiently imprecise so that you don’t upset people.”

That attitude toward doctrine and preaching is the source of widespread weakness and shallowness in our churches. It is a tragedy when we believe that we are serving the cause of God by surrounding the peaks of his glory with a fog of ambiguity. If our people are ever going to have a global faith and a global vision we are going to have to stop hiding from them the biblical proportions of the majesty of God.

2. The majestic character of God needs to be seen week in and week out not in the context of casualness and triviality and Sunday morning slapstick, but in the context of exaltation and awe and solemnity and earnestness and intensity.

How will our people ever come to feel in their bones the awful magnitude of what is at stake in the eternal destiny of the unevangelized, if our homiletical maxim is to start with a joke and keep the people entertained with anecdotes along the way. How will the people ever come to know and feel the crags and peaks and snowcapped heights of God’s glory if our preaching and worship services are more like picnics in the valley than thunder on the ice face of Mt. Everest?

That’s the most important thing as I see it for arousing and sustaining a passion for the glory of God in world evangelization — week in and week out to help them see the majesty of the glory of God.

Excerpted from “A Pastor’s Role in World Missions” (1984).