Posted by:
derrida
(
)
Date: August 14, 2013 02:08PM
Some selected quotes from among the "Top 10 Reasons" given at this evangelical Christian blog post:
http://marc5solas.com/2013/02/08/top-10-reasons-our-kids-leave-church/.
The echoes with the LDS church's troubles are interesting.
"We all know them, the kids who were raised in church. They were stars of the youth group. They maybe even sang in the praise band or led worship. And then… they graduate from High School and they leave church. What happened?"
"The facts:
"The statistics are jaw-droppingly horrific: 70% of youth stop attending church when they graduate from High School. Nearly a decade later, about half return to church.
"Half.
"Let that sink in."
"The minute you aim to be 'authentic,' you’re no longer authentic!"
"Rather than dumbing down the message, the agnostics and atheists treat our youth as intelligent and challenge their intellect with 'deep thoughts' of question and doubt."
"When our kids leave home, they leave the manufactured community they’ve lived in for nearly their entire life. With their faith as something they 'do' in community, they soon find that they can experience this 'life change' and 'life improvement' in 'community' in many different contexts."
"When they leave home, they realize that they can be 'spiritually fulfilled' and get the same subjective self-improvement principles (and warm-fuzzies) from the latest life-coach or from spending time with friends or volunteering at a shelter. And they can be truly authentic...."
"In the 'best life now,' 'Every day a Friday' world of evangelicals, there’s little room for depression, or struggle, or doubt."
"They can’t do it. They know it. All that 'be nice' moralism they’ve been taught? The bible has a word for it: Law. And that’s what we’ve fed them, undiluted, since we dropped them off at the Noah’s Ark playland: Do/Don’t Do."
"But their diet is Law, and scripture tells us that the law condemns us. So that smiling, upbeat 'Love God and Love People' vision statement? Yeah, you’ve just condemned the youth with it. Nice, huh? ... There’s no rest in this law, only a treadmill of works they know they aren’t able to meet. So, either way, they walk away from the church because…
1. They don’t need it
"We’ve traded a historic, objective, faithful gospel based on God’s graciousness toward us for a modern, subjective, pragmatic gospel based upon achieving our goal by following life strategies. Rather than being faithful to the foolish simplicity of the gospel of the cross we’ve set our goal on being “successful” in growing crowds with this gospel of glory. This new gospel saves no one. Our kids can check all of these boxes with any manner of self-help, life-coach, or simply self-designed spiritualism… and they can do it more pragmatically successfully, and in more relevant community."
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Kwuam March 7, 2013 at 4:22 am
"... BALANCE people BALANCE. Jesus show tremendous balance in how he approached people. He didnt cooky cut his approach although the message remained rock solid. He talked to Peter differently than he talked to John…he approached the rich young ruler differently than he approached Nichodemus…
Log in to reply."
marc5solas's Gravatar marc5solas
March 7, 2013 at 2:46 pm | Permalink
"Jesus did indeed approach the rich young ruler and Nicodemus differently, which is a perfect model for how we are to present law and gospel to those around us.
"To the rich young ruler who thought he was meeting the law, Jesus turned it up a notch to show him he wasn’t. You challenge those comfortable in their own ability or sin by increasing the law.
"To Nicodemus, Jesus gave grace. We are called to give grace to those broken by the law.
"The balance you are speaking of is found in the proper distinction between law and grace."
"Marc"
The LDS church likes to think it has this balance, but it doesn't. And even with this notion of balance, the Evangelicals are, like the LDS church, engaged in a losing war.