Vocations and leavers

Two more items in the occasional posts to this blog...

Jason Goroncy alerted me to a post by Michael Jinkins that asks the question; “What sustains you in your vocation?”

Jinkins begins by noting: 
John Calvin believed that it is the vocation itself, the fact of having been called by God which sustains us. That’s a great response, and I’m sure it is true. But, in the day-to-day slog and grind of living our vocations, beyond the assurance that we are where God called us (which is no small thing!), are there other things that sustain us? Prayer, regular Bible study, worship, the practice of Sabbath?  [I'm currently reading, at long last, Eugene Peterson's Working the Angles - it relates strongly to this question.]

The second item is the third post by Bradley Wright and his research team on the question of why people leave church.  In this post he asks, Does Christians’ bad behavior cause people to leave the faith?
This is a very useful series of posts, asking the right questions, attempting to find some answers - and of course, as always, the comments are as interesting as the posts themselves.

Leaving Church? Why?

Two blog posts about why people are leaving church have turned up this week, and it's worth noting them here as part of an ongoing conversation about the question: Why are people leaving the church (in 'droves' as one of these writer's notes). 

The first blogger is Joshua Graves - he's the preaching and teaching minister for the Otter Creek Church in Nashville, Tennessee.  One of his points is: Church and community are very difficult. Church is a great idea until people get involved. Bonhoeffer consistently warns us in his various writings that we destroy community when we try and create it. Meaning–community, in and of itself, cannot be the goal. Rather, community is the space in which we communally seek to experience the resurrected Jesus. That being said, anyone who’s been a part of a church community knows that relationships will suffer, endure disappointment because this is true in any community...

He has more to say on the topic. but the following paragraph perhaps sums it up: I think the real cause of disillusionment with church is self-disappointment. Pain birthed anger, now solidified in cynicism and apathy (funny how those two always go together). Frustration with “the church” is first about frustration with self. We tend to, in the wisdom of Donald Miller, judge others based on actions while judging ourselves based upon our intent. We are harder on “the church” so we can be “easier” on ourselves. This is why some Christians literally demand more from their church than they do from their own family, their own personal lives (money, time, etc.).

The whole post is called Leaving Church?

The other post is from Bradley Wright, whom I've mentioned on several occasions on this blog.   In a post called, Why do Christians leave the faith? the fundamental importance of apologetics.  Wright begins his post by writing: Several colleagues and I recently finished a study of why Christians leave the faith, and we were surprised at what made a difference as well what didn’t seem to matter. 

The post begins in outlining the sociological aspects of their study (and this post is the first of several that will be appearing) but it soon gets onto looking at some of the reasons people bring forward for why they left the church.   For Wright, many of them hinge on a lack of understanding of apologetics, which of course basically goes back to a lack of understanding of the Bible and God Himself. 

Leaving the church, young and old?

In one of those careless moments, I managed to post this onto my own blog, instead of this one. So here it is now, in its rightful place - a few days late.

If there is one thing that everyone in youth ministry seems to talk about it’s how to keep students following Christ after they leave school - especially if they then go onto University or Polytech. Even more so if they leave home
at the same time.

Kara Powell, the executive director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California [man, these Americans have long job titles], says that data shows, 50% of high school students who had been deeply involved in a church’s youth ministry will not be serving God 18 months after graduation. And that’s not counting the many other high school students who are only going to church because their parents are forcing them.

She asks four questions of church and youth leaders:
What gospel are we feeding our kids?
Are students' doubts welcome at our table?
How can kids take their place at God’s diverse kingdom table?
How can we train students to feed themselves after graduation?

Her answers to, and explanations of, these questions can be found in this report from the Shift Conference.

What is interesting, however, is that these questions could just as easily apply to adult Christians. As Skye Jethani says, 48 year olds may not be leaving the church the way 18 year olds are, but are they really growing? Are we feeding them a Red Bull gospel? Are we teaching them to be self-feeders? Are their doubts and struggles welcomed?

Gone for Good?

We wrote about Alan Jamieson's books a few posts ago. Another title that complements his thinking is this one, from the UK.

Gone for Good?: Church Leaving and Returning in the 21st Century, by Leslie Francis and Philip Richter.

In their thought-provoking analysis, Francis and Richter provide a detailed account of the different reasons behind church leaving. They also identify how some church leavers can be converted more easily than others into becoming church returners. The authors look at why many people are disillusioned with the church, while for others questions are around matters of teaching, style of worship or incompatibility of lifestyle. For others, the costs of being involved in the church are too high, for others there are issues about change or lack of it.

Leslie Francis and Philip Richter have evaluated over 7000 telephone interviews and more than 900 questionnaires completed by people who have left churches of different Christian denominations. They provide powerful and authoritative insights into what church leavers really think about the church and into who is likely to return and who is likely to stay away.
Epworth Press 2007