In his new book, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith, David Kinnaman plots the faith journeys of the current generation. He talks about three types of Christians who have headed for the exits.
The first are nomads. These are people who wander or drift away from active involvement with a church or faith community. Nomads usually think of themselves as Christians. They may even be born-again, but they do not attend church on the regular basis. A key phrase for nomads is: “I think going to church or being with Christian friends is optional.”
A second group are prodigals. They aren’t exactly like the prodigal son Jesus describes who comes to his senses and returns. These prodigals are people who have given up on the faith of their childhood. They have become ex-Christians. A phrase you might hear them say is: “Christian beliefs don’t make sense to me.”
Exiles are the third group. They are people who feel stuck between the comfortable, predictable world of church and the “real world” they feel called to influence. They cannot reconcile the conflict between the two. They are likely to say: “I want to find a way to follow Jesus that connects with the world.”
David Kinnaman found that there is no one answer why young Christians leave the church. There are a variety of reasons. In the book, he talks about six different categories of reasons. They are: overprotective, shallow, antiscience, repressive, exclusive, and doubtless. We will talk about them in tomorrow’s commentary.
His research and the book illustrate that often the church has not been able to equip young adults to live “in the world but not of the world.” This generation is living in the midst of some profound cultural changes. The old ways of equiping Christians might not be sufficient to withstand the cultural assault on Christian values by the popular culure and the media. If the church is to be effective in the 21st century, we need to understand what is convincing so many young Christians to leave the church.