Wednesday night JR High

So the Next Generation Will Know

Chapter 1 Love Responds

A recent study found that nearly 95 percent of teenagers in America have access to a smartphone.

In the past, young people encountered skepticism primarily from their friends or from professors in the university.

Today, the internet is easily accessed on smartphones and mobile devices, bringing the most ardent skepticism home to the next generation at a very young age.

For this reason, we should expect the objections from young people to be far more articulate and well researched. Our responses must meet the challenge offered by internet skeptics, and we must start training our youth earlier than ever before.

• “What do you think is the most difficult thing to believe about Christianity?”

• “Of all the things the pastor said today, what seemed the most difficult to believe?”

• “What is your biggest question or doubt about Christianity?”

• “What do your skeptical friends say about Christianity?”

The youngest generation in America is quickly becoming the largest generation in America. Born between 2000 and 2015, school-aged Christians are part of what has been termed “Generation Z” (aka, “Gen Z”).

More importantly, Gen Z is projected to very quickly become the largest demographic group in the world (comprising 32 percent of the global population) 3 and is already the single largest media audience in the nation.

Gen Z has become the embodiment of an important (and disturbing) trend. Recent surveys and studies reveal that Gen Z is the least religious of all generations in America. In fact, “the percentage of teens who identify as atheist is double that of the general population.” This data is consistent with recent historical data. The number of young people leaving the church over the past twenty years is staggering. According to one study at UCLA, 52 percent of college students reported frequent church attendance the year before they entered college, but only 29 percent continued frequent church attendance by their junior year. A variety of studies report that 50 to 70 percent of young Christians walk away from the church by the time they are in their college years. Even those who don’t leave find themselves struggling to believe Christianity is true. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of students in youth groups struggle in their faith after graduation.

Here are the most popular student responses from four different studies:

“Some stuff is too far-fetched for me to believe.”

“Too many questions that can’t be answered.”

“I’m a scientist now, and I don’t believe in miracles.”

“I learned about evolution when I went away to college.”

“There is a lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator.”

“I just realized somewhere along the line that I didn’t really believe it.”

“I’m doing a lot more learning, studying, and kind of making decisions myself rather than listening to someone else.” 10

“Because I grew up and realized it was a story like Santa or the Easter Bunny.”

“As I learn more about the world around me and understand things that I once did not, I find that the thought of an all-powerful being to be less and less believable.”

“I realized that religion is in complete contradiction with the rational and scientific world, and to continue to subscribe to a religion would be hypocritical.”

“It no longer fits into what I understand of the universe.” 11

“I have a hard time believing that a good God would allow so much evil or suffering in the world.”

“There are too many injustices in the history of Christianity.”

“I had a bad experience at church with a Christian.”

While it’s tempting to believe that secular universities—influenced by the natural sciences—are the sole reason young believers walk away from the church, the data doesn’t support this claim. Most young people abandon their Christian faith while they are still at home with their parents. Today, incoming college freshmen, when surveyed before they enter college, are three times more likely to report that they are religiously unaffiliated than freshmen who entered college in 1986. Seventy-nine percent of these young people say they walked away from Christianity during their adolescent and teen years. 13 Many reported that they left the faith between the ages of ten and seventeen.

“If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”

“If you could ask God to explain one confusing thing, what would it be?”

According to the statistics, young Christians decide to abandon the church long before they ever tell anyone and usually before they leave the homes of their parents. Polls continue to show that most people in America will become Christian prior to the age of fifteen. In fact, one large evangelical study found that the median age of conversion was eleven. Why are older teens and young adults less likely to become Christians? If their own answers tell us anything, it’s based on their intellectual skepticism, and the age of doubt and cynicism appears to be dropping. That’s why it’s so important for us to start early—even before your kids are verbalizing their questions. Moses instructed the Israelites to include children in their midst when talking about (or celebrating) God “so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 31:12 NASB).

It’s tempting to think your church’s high school youth ministry can eventually address the issues we’ve described, but the data tells a different story. We must start much earlier.

“What scientific proof do you have that God exists?”

“Why should I believe in miracles?”

“If evolution is true, why should I believe in God?”

“Why should I trust something on ‘faith’ when I could use ‘reason’?”

“Why should I trust what you or my pastor has to say about Christianity?”

“How is believing in God any different from believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?”

“Why does science seem to contradict the claims of Christianity?”

“Why would an all-powerful, all-loving God allow so much evil in the world?”

“How can I be sure Jesus really rose from the grave?”

“If Christianity is true, why are so many Christians hypocrites?”

“Why is the history of Christianity filled with so much violence?”

“Why should I care about any of this to begin with?”

This survey was first developed by Brett Kunkle from Maven

Do you believe in a supreme being or higher power?

Why or why not?

What do you think he, she, or it is like, and why?

Do you believe truth exists?

If so, do you think we can know truth?

Is there such a thing as objective/absolute truth?

Is there religious truth?

If so, how do we find it?

Do you believe there are moral facts (right and wrong) that everyone should follow?

Or do you believe that morality is relative to individuals or cultures?

Why or why not?

Do you believe in an afterlife?

Why or why not?

If yes, what do you think the afterlife is like?

Who do you believe Jesus was?

Why do you believe this about Jesus?

Where do you get most of your information about Jesus?

What do you think about Christianity?

Why do you believe this?

What has given you this impression?