The Church Failed Millennials, Just Not In the Way You Think It Did

by Derek Rishmawy

If you hadn’t already heard, millennials are leaving the church in droves leaving many church leaders scratching their heads as to what to do about it. Rachel Held Evans came out with a piece on CNN.com stepping into the gap to explain why they are leaving. Apparently it struck a nerve; it was shared over 170,000 times. Speaking as the voice of a generation, she raised issues like our exhaustion with the culture wars, poor handling of teaching on sexuality, gay marriage, science and religion, and putative weakness on social justice. Instead, millennials want, and need, a deeper encounter with Jesus.

Of course, as the college and young adult guy at my church, as well as a millennial myself (freshly 27), I read her piece and the follow-up with great interest. I saw a number of those 170,000 shares in my Facebook feed, with loud cries of “Amen!” and some disgruntled nay-saying. I probably uttered both as I read it. While there were a number of insightful, reassuringly critical, and helpful interactions with her piece, addressed to the churches and readers in general, I wanted to briefly address myself more directly to my fellow millennials here.

We Were Failed 

I’ll be honest, my initial instinct when I come to pieces like these is to balk a bit. I worry that we can tend to come off as whiny, demanding, or entitled. Even worse, there’s a sort of myopia involved in thinking Christianity must change or die every 30 years or so.

We’re not the first group of young’uns frustrated with the church and maybe we need to question ourselves a bit more here. That said, I want to acknowledge that I think we were failed. This failure was more than weak, harmful teaching on sexuality, or false science/religion dichotomies. Those errors are there, to be sure, and ought to be dealt with, but the failure I’m thinking about goes a bit deeper.

One thing I think the pop Evangelical church has truly dropped the ball on is talking to us about the Church. I mean, honestly, during all the Sunday School lessons, high school talks, and special Bible studies, I’m not sure I heard any solid teaching about the Church until I hit college. This was a problem because once I hit my bitter phases, I didn’t have really have much of a doctrine of the Church to fall back on; to me the Church wasn’t really the beloved bride of Christ; I hadn’t been forced to consider the import of Christ’s body to which He has inseparably bound Himself as its head; there wasn’t really a people of God, elected to be spotless and pure in Him; instead of understanding myself to be a part of the corporate Temple of God, I saw each of us as our own little dwelling of the Spirit, responsible to keep our own act clean.

Have You Prayed For it?

Early on in my own college-aged angst over the frustrations of church life, I got a piece of sage advice from an older Christian mentor. I think I had been complaining about all the ways my church, or the church, didn’t “get it”, or something like that, when they asked me, “Yes, that’s probably all very true, but have you been praying for it?”

Had I been praying for it? To be honest, I don’t think I had. I thought the church was there to pray for me, not really the other way around. Still, I found myself gently challenged in that question, so I started to pray for the church. Not perfectly, of course, but regularly. And actually, I not only prayed for it, I decided to commit myself to it, and serve it more diligently. And you know what? It made it worse in a lot of ways.

By praying for it and serving it, I began to love it like I never really had before. Instead of viewing it through the non-committal, arm’s distance, American, semi-apathy I had settled into, I saw its weaknesses and failures in the stark, glaring light of love. The thing about that love, though, is that it didn’t drive me away, but drew me deeper in. I came to the point where walking away from it wasn’t even an option.

Even more, in light of prayer, and time spent serving her, I began to realize that, in fact, some of my earlier frustrations with her were more to do with my youth and haste, than her flaws. She turned out to be more holy and beautiful than I gave her credit for. I began to see all of the wonderful works Jesus was working in His Bride that I’d simply been too jaded and frustrated to notice before.

It’s not so much that I found out that she didn’t really have any flaws, it’s that I found out I had some too. I saw all the ways I could be loved and give love, to know and be known, receive and give myself away in imitation of my Savior. In spite of it all, I became conscious of my deep need for the Church. In fact, following Jesus without her didn’t really make any sense. If I had walked away, it wouldn’t have been just her problem, but mine as well. It wasn’t an issue of the church getting better to fit my wants, needs, and expectations, but realizing how skewed and myopic some of my wants and judgments really were (and still are.)

And this brings me to my “plea” to fellow millennials. A lot of us are leaving the church. For some of us, this is simply finding out we never really had anything more than a superficial “faith” in the first place. Others of us really love Jesus, but are fed up and frustrated with the church we grew up with. My question for you is: have you prayed for her? Have you really served her? Do you love her? Have you struggled to see her the way Christ sees her, as the bride He was willing to lay Himself down for, even to the point of death to cover her sins and make her whole?

If you haven’t, try it. Pray for the church. Pray for her health, her life, her forgiveness, her sanctification, and mission in the world. Then, find a half-way decent church that preaches the Bible, prays, and tries to be neighborly, and commit yourself to it. Risk being wrong about the church in the best way possible. Continue to show up, be present, graciously challenging, as well as submitting, enough to have an actual voice in your community. Whatever you do, don’t simply leave. If you do, you’ll rob yourself of the chance to see what Jesus is doing in that community He’s covenanted Himself to. Instead, commit yourself and risk a bit of hope. Generations before us have found that God comes through on His promises to preserve the church He obtained with His own blood (Acts 20:28). Dare to believe that Jesus is still sanctifying His Bride, until that day when she is presented to Him in glory. I know for myself, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christandpopculture/2013/07/a-plea-to-my-fellow-millennials-about-leaving-the-church/

12 Questions to Ask Before You Watch 'Game of Thrones'

by Desiring God

“Pastor John, do you believe there is a difference between film nudity versus pornography? I know many Christians who are against porn, but they have no issue watching movies or TV shows that show graphic nudity.” A young woman named Emily recently emailed this question to the Ask Pastor John inbox.

A day later, Adam emailed to ask: “Pastor John, what would you say to a Christian who watches the cable TV show Game of Thrones?” This is a television series rated TV-MA, and has become rather infamous for its explicit nudity and sex scenes, and for graphic scenes of rape and sexual violence against women. Game of Thrones is now the most popular series in HBO history, with an average audience of more than 18 million viewers.

What follows is a slightly edited transcript of John Piper’s response in today’s episode of Ask Pastor John.

The closer I get to death and meeting Jesus personally face to face, and giving an account for my life and for the careless words that I have spoken (Matthew 12:36), the more sure I am of my resolve never intentionally to look at a television show or a movie or a website or a magazine where I know I will see photos or films of nudity. Never. That is my resolve. And the closer I get to death, the better I feel about that, and the more committed I become.

Frankly, I want to invite all Christians to join me in this pursuit of greater purity of heart and mind. In our day, when entertainment media is virtually the lingua franca [common language] of the world, this is an invitation to be an alien. And I believe with all my heart that what the world needs is radically bold, sacrificially loving, God-besotted, “freaks” and aliens. In other words, I am inviting you to say no to the world for the sake of the world.

The world does not need more cool, hip, culturally savvy, irrelevant copies of itself. That is a hoax that has duped thousands of young Christians. They think they have to be hip, cool, savvy, culturally aware, watching everything in order not to be freakish. And that is undoing them morally and undoing their witness.

So here are 12 questions to think about, or 12 reasons why I am committed to a radical abstention from anything I know is going to present me with nudity.

1. Am I Recrucifying Christ?

Christ died to purify his people. It is an absolute travesty of the cross to treat it as though Jesus died only to forgive us for the sin of watching nudity, and not to purify us for the power not to watch it.
He has blood-bought power in his cross. He died to make us pure. He “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession” (Titus 2:14). If we choose to endorse or embrace or enjoy or pursue impurity, we take a spear and ram it into Jesus’s side every time we do. He suffered to set us free from impurity.

2. Does It Express or Advance My Holiness?

In the Bible, from beginning to end, there is a radical call for holiness — holiness of mind and heart and life. “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15). Or 2 Corinthians 7:1, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” Nudity in movies and photos is not holy and does not advance our holiness. It is unholy and impure.

3. When Will I Tear Out My Eye, If Not Now?

Jesus said everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away (Matthew 5:28–29). Seeing naked women — or seeing naked men — causes a man or woman to sin with their minds and their desires, and often with their bodies. If Jesus told us to guard our hearts by gouging out our eyes to prevent lust, how much more would he say: “Don’t watch it!”

4. Is It Not Satisfying to Think on What Is Honorable?

Life in Christ is not mainly the avoidance of evil, but mainly the passionate pursuit of good. Remember Philippians 4:8, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

My life is not a constrained life. It is a free life. “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

5. Am I Longing to See God?

I want to see and know God as fully as possible in this life and the next. Watching nudity is a huge hindrance to that pursuit. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). The defilement of the mind and heart by watching nudity dulls the heart’s ability to see and enjoy God. I dare anyone to watch nudity and turn straight to God and give him thanks and enjoy him more because of what you just experienced.

6. Do I Care About the Souls of the Nudes?

God calls women to adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control (1 Timothy 2:9). When we pursue or receive or embrace nudity in our entertainment, we are implicitly endorsing the sin of the women who sell themselves to this way and are, therefore, uncaring about their souls. They disobey 1 Timothy 2:9, and we say that’s okay.

7. Would I Be Glad If My Daughter Played This Role?

Most Christians are hypocrites in watching nudity because, on the one hand they say by their watching that this is okay, and on the other hand they know deep down they would not want their daughter or their wife or their girlfriend to be playing this role. That is hypocrisy.

8. Am I Assuming Nudity Can Be Faked?

Nudity is not like murder and violence on the screen. Violence on a screen is make-believe; nobody really gets killed. But nudity is not make-believe. These actresses are really naked in front of the camera, doing exactly what the director says to do with their legs and their hands and their breasts. And they are naked in front of millions of people to see.

9. Am I Compromising the Beauty of Sex?

Sexual relations is a beautiful thing. God created it and pronounced it “good” (1 Timothy 4:3). But it is not a spectator sport. It is a holy joy that is sacred in its secure place of tender love. Men and women who want to be watched in their nudity are in the category with exhibitionists who pull down their pants at the top of escalators.

10. Am I Assuming Nudity Is Necessary for Good Art?

There is no great film or television series that needs nudity to add to its greatness. No. There isn’t. There are creative ways to be true to reality without turning sex into a spectator’s sport and without putting actors and actresses in morally compromised situations on the set.

It is not artistic integrity that is driving nudity on the screen. Underneath all of this is male sexual appetite driving this business, and following from that is peer pressure in the industry and the desire for ratings that sell. It is not art that puts nudity in film, it’s the appeal of prurience. It sells.

11. Am I Craving Acceptance?

Christians do not watch nudity with a view to maximizing holiness. That is not what keeps them coming back to the shows. They know deep down that these television shows or these movies are shot through with the commendation and exaltation of attitudes and actions that are utterly out of step with the death to self and out of step with exaltation of Christ.

No, what keeps those Christians coming back is the fear that if they take Christ at his word and make holiness as serious as I am saying it is, they would have to stop seeing so many television shows and so many movies, and they would be viewed as freakish. And that today is the worst evil of all. To be seen as freakish is a much greater evil than to be unholy.

12. Am I Free from Doubt?

There is one biblical guideline that makes life very simple: “But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:32). My paraphrase: If you doubt, don’t. That would alter the viewing habits of millions, and oh how sweetly they would sleep with their conscience.

So I say it again. Join me in the pursuit of the kind of purity that sees God, and knows the fullness of joy in his presence and the everlasting pleasure at his right hand.

Source: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1548392123858589724#allposts