"7 out of 10 young people leave church during their 20's according to a recent, 5 yr study conducted by the Barna Research Group. Many of the young people indicated that they felt the church failed to address their heart-felt needs. Others held that the church does not adequately love those who doubt. These assessments of the church may not be accurate or fair. However, the number of students exiting the community of believers remains high."*
Is this assessment of the church accurate? fair? Go with me here for a minute (if you attend Sacred Key meetings, you have heard me touch on this more than once)...
I was talking to a woman the other day who is passionate about helping people maximize their health and potential. She made a passing comment - something to the effect of - '... in helping healthy people... well, actually not truly healthy, just not symptomatic'...
We can be truly NOT healthy internally, but just not yet symptomatic. Usually by the time doctors are treating the situation, it is symptoms they are treating and there have already been root contributors going on for some time. If you continue to treat the symptoms, without treating the root, you enter in to a vicious cycle ...
Same goes with treating cacti, and many undesirables in rangeland, such as mesquite, cedar, etc. We have seen others' futile attempts again and again to remove these guys... Such as shredding... with each one of the cactus you are shredding, you are casting their spines out to only grow back even more aggressively, actually spreading your problem, not getting rid of it (their spines have both male and female parts, so they can root (asexually propagate if I'm remembering right?) once they hit soil). One of our ranch neighbors has a field full of tiny mesquites - FULL of mesquites - sprouting everywhere - raises my blood pressure! ;) Just about every year he gets in his tractor, goes through the field and shreds the mesquites. For a short time, the field looks good and you think you've accomplished something... until the soil and seed bed expose what was really going on - the mesquites now re-sprout, nastier than ever. Your problem has only spread. With cacti, mesquite, cedars and others, the root has to be treated to actually make an impact. You can burn and get a top kill but you have to follow up with chemical... you have to get below the surface, and if often takes a joint effort in treatments.
Okay... so I'm sure you see where I'm going. As in our health, and our rangeland, you have to get below the surface. A lot of what we are seeing superficially is simply the outcome, the product, the symptom of the roots... So back to the stat - 7 out of 10 young people are leaving the church in their 20's... indicating that they feel the church has failed to address their heart felt-needs and does not adequately love those who doubt. I have heard many more reasons for frustrations than this. I'll admit some even coming from my own heart. No, i didn't and haven't 'left the church', but i see it everywhere and it can be tempting... or should i say has been tempting.
So here's the point (this post is so poorly written - sorry - just trying to draw thoughts directly to paper without editing) : What we are seeing here is really more of a root issue of the heart. It is us, the true 'church' (body of believers) that are the problem. In our Art of Marriage conference, we saw a Christian counselor sit down with a couple, both husband and wife at their wit's end with each other and all the other was and wasn't doing and so on... the counselor said, 'let me just cut straight to the point: you both don't have issues, you are the issues."
I have personally walked through some unpleasant doors in 'church' - some devastations, disappointments, some hard blows that cut deep to the heart. I have experienced, in my world, the church 'letting you down' and quite frankly gone through seasons where i didn't really want to go and felt almost sick to my stomach, literally, to make myself. So is this reason enough to 'leave'? To become a holiday member who shows my presence on Christmas and Easter and/or when it could be socially or politically advantageous for me?
Let's zoom out a bit and get some context. Let's look at our culture and society as a whole. It's fast food, in more ways than one. In health, in family, in marriage, in church... there's a lot of grab and go - let's get our feel good, let's do what we have to, and push the accelerator. We are absolutely submersed - neck high - in a consumerism culture. What do I want? What will I get out of this? What will make ME happy? Don't want to admit it? Sit on it for a few days and let it soak. Take an intraspective and observe your decisions and your thoughts... who are they centered around?
You see, I was coming to church with an attitude more along the lines of, 'how can you feed me?', not truly 'how can i serve you?'. I was criticizing the worship, the pastor, the people... instead of seeing broken, depraved sinners who desperately need help, encouragement, prayer and wisdom.
I was letting my root issues, my insecurities, color the way i was seeing 'church'... so it was never measuring up, it could never satisfy me, it ... quite simply... wasn't good enough... So is this really what church is all about? If so, then why the hell go?
I need to write a sequel to this when I've been able to look up and write in all the Scriptures, quotes, stats, etc that are buzzing through my head.
Thanks be to God for His faithfulness. He has done such an incredible work in me and my heart over the last several years... it would take pages to explain it... maybe a book. Like clay in the Potter's hand, He has answered me - changed me - and remained faithful, even when I was faithless. I am the issue. Not the 'church'. I was going to church as if entering the supermarket - 'what do I need? what do I want? what will fill me up?... Church is not a supermarket. And while yes, it should serve you solid food (the Bread of Life... the Truth of God's Word)... we are missing the whole picture when we expect to 'come hungry and leave filled' - all by warming a pew for an hour or so, compromised of mostly singing, a little message and tickling of our ears.
The bottom line, the root, of ALL of this is really us - our selfishness, our 'entitlement', our 'happiness'... Christ came to SERVE, not to be served. That cliche to you? Well hold on to your panties b/c you're in for a ride... to wake you up to the reality of the True Gospel. We see in Philippians 2 that Christ, who in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped... He made Himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in the appearance of a man... He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on the Cross. Christ is our example. He is who we should be following. He had everything to claim, and yet He humbled Himself, He washed His disciples feet, He met with the widow, the prostitute, the unfaithful, the outcast.
In my honest heart cry to, 'how can I love like God wants me to love?!'... I WANT to and I suck at it! I want to be about the relationship... not about the religion'... I heard some great wisdom based on Truth: You have to get the love of God, with God, right - before you can get loving people right.
And, until you deal with your OWN issues, your own insecurities... the ROOTS of why you think the way you think and do what you do... you'll be short-sighted and ineffective in truly loving others. Once you are secure in the LORD, and allow Him to expose the root of your heart - to identify, acknowledge, and confess and to walk through the healing and the process of treating these roots... it frees you up to freely live and freely love, as Christ intended. The focus can shift from you to where it needs to be: to Christ and to others.
There ARE legitimate concerns with what we call the church today. The Church is symptomatic of underlying problems beneath the surface - no doubt - but will you continue to feed your flesh, or raise your gaze?
I can't express the exhilaration, the freedom, to be looking at life, namely church, through a different lens. Seeing this place that we call church as holy ground... fertile soil, for me to step in and SERVE, rather than sit back and wait to be served. An easy task? By all means no. You have to be down right thick skinned and tender hearted and it is only by the Supernatural, we can accomplish this.
How would these stats change, and what would the Church look like, if we all took on the attitude of Christ (Phil 2) and started looking through a different lens? If WE changed, and quit waiting for it or them to change?
*excerpt taken from Breakaway Ministries
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