Not your Grandaddy's church anymore

In doing some recent research for a lesson to teens I was teaching a few weeks ago, I came across an example in my mind that has really stuck. I have been extrapolating out the concept in my brain and trying to come to grips with what it means for the church today, and how we can take this information and move beyond the box we are used too.

The concept is this: Church is not what it once was. Back "in the day", church was what you did. The good folks the bad folks the rich folks the poor folks, everyone went to church. You were looked at strangely if you did not go to church, that was the custom of the land back in 20th century, up until at least the 1980's. In the 80's I think we began to see a gradual shift in that ideology. It was slow at first as most major culture shifts are, having lived through these days as a child and teen I didn't even notice. But as I reflected back as a guy in my mid-thirties, it became very obvious that things have changed. Some might be saying, "DUH, took you long enough!", but I bet people that have actually taken the time to stop and think about the ramifications are fairly slim. The paradigm has not just shifted, it has become a polar opposite.

In today's culture, as we are about to say goodbye to 2010, church is bordering on irrelevant for most people under 25. In today's culture where social media has taken control of almost everyone's life, the church is now where only the "goodie-two-shoes" and those down on their luck attend. Or those who are entrenched in the power structure of a given congregation. It is no longer a cultural norm. All the "cool kids" are not doing it anymore. At least not outside of the Bible belt. Soon even those kids will be disinterested if the church does not step up its game.

Of course identifying the problem is only half the battle, the second part is creating solutions. I believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is still relevant for this generation. It is the church culture and methods that have chased people off. Unfortunately, this begins at home. The rapid church growth of the seventies and eighties and into the nineties had a great effect on the young families in those days, but did not translate into generational growth any more then the average church in America. Many of those who were born in the 70's and 80's are now absent from church and thus not bringing their children to hear about God. In my next post I will give solutions to this problem, in a "where do we go from here?" type of format...