Unreached & Under-Equipped
By: Kim Spence, Intern
Editor’s Note: Faith Beyond Belief is glad to announce that this summer we have hired four interns to help us with program preparation and to be trained in apologetics. We are especially proud that intern Kim Spence has taken it upon herself to write a blog exposing the crisis of her generation.
Do you ever wonder how many people will come to know Jesus in the next 30 years? Will Christianity withstand generational shifts? As a 21-year-old devoted follower of Christ, I often ponder these questions. That the generation after mine might include even fewer Christians is an alarming thought. But to be honest, it feels inevitable, as so many people nowadays are moulded by society and heavily influenced by social media. Is there a chance that these addictions can be broken and replaced with discipleship and the teaching of God's Word? Yes, but only with God’s help. Thanks to technology overuse and church disengagement, as a group Generation Z (born between 1997-2012, aka zoomers) is characterised by a decrease in Biblical commitment and a widespread, and growing, desire to leave the church.
Recently, a Springtide Research Institute survey of 10,000 young people, followed up by some 150 interviews, found that in the Gen-Z category, 52% claim affiliation with the Christian faith but have “little to no trust in organised religion.” Almost a third said they do not think a faith community is important, and at least one out of five said that they do not live out their religious beliefs in their everyday life. This is only one survey out of many, all of them providing alarming proof that over half of these young people correlate “untrustworthy” with “church.”
Inevitably, these same people are losing confidence in what they believe. A Literature Review article found that in 2018, 58 percent of North American teens self-identified as Christians, but only four percent had a confident biblical worldview. Within this same study the teens were asked to respond to 47 evangelical statements. From those questions, “98% of the teens who regularly attend church agree that Jesus is the divine Son of God, but only 63% say they are very sure about this; 85% agree Jesus was a real person who was crucified by Rome and was physically raised from the dead, but only 63% would say they are sure.” Where is this uncertainty coming from when the Bible supposedly gives Christians clear answers?
We live in a tech-savvy world where it is rare to find a child or teen that has not grown up without daily access to some type of digital device. In such an environment young people become captivated by the constant sound of notifications. In 2019, 8 to 12-year-olds averaged nearly 5 hours a day looking at a screen, whether through their smartphones, tablets, TVs, or gaming consoles. For teens 13-17, that number grew to roughly 7.5 hours, with neither of these data points including screen time at school. That was three years ago. Imagine today’s numbers. We are living in a world where following an “influencer'' on Instagram is easier than following Jesus.
Thanks in large part to digital influences, zoomers are heavily focused on justice and have largely dispensed with traditional views on race, religion and sexuality. Author Charles Holmes shows that an abundance of North American zoomers find their identity in an always-changing society. Holmes says that zoomers have become unsure about the Bible due to questions that are seldom answered to their satisfaction. For example, does the Bible support homosexuality? Is the Bible racist? Or, is God just? Many zoomers are leaving the church, either because no one takes the time to work through biblical answers with them or because the answers they hear contradict the deluge of non-Christian messaging they receive through digital media.
Research tells us that along with a focus on justice, zoomers value community and relationships, and what better place to find those than in a church. As members of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) we share the responsibility for answering questions and supporting one another as together we work through the difficult challenges that face my generation. Done right, a new emphasis by believers on community could be the start of giving zoomers a reason to remain in the body of Christ.
It is past time to recognize that young people who’ve grown up in Canadian churches are in trouble spiritually. But the situation isn’t lost. Answering zoomer’s questions and helping them develop relationships with older adults could, and with God’s help will change everything. Do we have a choice? Somehow we must learn how to help young adults maintain a biblical worldview in the digital age, and this can only be done when devoted Christians partner with Jesus to disciple and love this newest generation.
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Faith Beyond Belief. (2022, May 26). Special release - Horizon 2021. Faith Beyond Belief. Retrieved June 7, 2022, from https://www.faithbeyondbelief.ca/podcast/special-release-horizon-2021