"You Lost Me" - David Kinnaman

October 31, 2011 in Blog, Influence, Pop Culture with 2 Comments

Table of contents for Catalyst 2011 Labs

  1. "You Lost Me" - David Kinnaman

This is a summary of David Kinnaman's opening talk at the Catalyst Labs. This is not a review of David's excellent new book, You Lost Me, by the same title.

David wanted to know why young Christians are leaving the church. This formed the core of his research and questions.

Many claim this is a natural process in all generations. That young people leave only to come back later in life. David's research indicates that's not true.

Yes, there are some similarities, but there are some significant differences as well. So what do today's young adults look like?

For example:
  • There's a new normal: Young Adults who haven't moved into the (Modern) pattern of adulthood.
  • Today's young people consume 10.5 cumulative hours per day of media.
  • 67% still believe Bible is a sacred book
How do we disciple in a totally new generation? First, we must realize that Significant social shifts are powered by massive cultural change. What kind of change? Today's young adults:
  • Are less connectedness to any institutions (church, school, political party, etc.)
  • Believe church is Anti-science
  • Have massively high expectations for quality storytelling
So what does it mean to Be Present with this generation? We struggle because we've tried to mass-produce disciples. How do we move forward? Discipleship begins in the home, so what are  we doing to help parents? Our churches need to be producing solid, intergenerational relationships. We need to help students recover a clear sense of relationship, vocation and revelation.
It's about being able to bring up questions about evolution or sexuality without having a Bible thrown at you.
you-lost-meWhere do we begin? What are the first steps?
  1. Start by enlisting 3-4x as many adults. Enlisting families is vital
  2. How we teach and inspire matters to engage our older generations.
  3. The older generation needs to stop giving the younger generation a hard time.
What we need to focus on to teach the younger generation:
  1. How does vocation fit into calling?
  2. The Church isn't a safe place to process doubt. "Slick and 1/2-baked answers to our thorny and honest questions."
  3. Be Present in doubts. Living with is more important than answers.
  4. Doing is the antidote to doubt
  5. Participation changes us
You can't talk a person out of doubt. You can just Be Present with them.

Young people have more Spiritual Junctions than any generation previous to us. Are we present with them in those moments?

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  • http://pomoxian.com Henry Imler

    As much as I distrust him and the Barna group when it comes to their statistics (see good sociologists such as Brad Wright, Christian Smith, and Robert Wuthnow as well as the group Christian sociologist blog, Black, White, and Gray for critiques of Barna's alarmism, methodology, and alternate studies),  Kinnaman’s suggestions on how to communicate with and disciple the Millennial is quite helpful. Thanks for the notes, I'll be sharing them with particular people.

  • http://www.jrforasteros.com JR. Forasteros

    I'll have to check out those critiques. Several of our older church leaders have been really energized by "You Lost Me". It'll be an interesting tension to explore.