THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART IV
Are all of you familiar with the story of Samuel and Eli? Samuel’s mother, Hanna, had long desired to have a child. She prayed and prayed and prayed to God…and finally her prayer was answered. She had a son, and she named him Samuel. Then in gratitude to God for answering her prayer, she gave her son to God. After he was weaned, he was raised in the temple by Eli, the priest.
One night, God called to Samuel, saying, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel thought it was Eli who was calling him, so he ran to the sleeping Eli’s side, awakened him and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” After this happened about three times, Eli perceived that it was God who was calling the boy. He instructed Samuel to say, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
Of this story, theologian Jack Hayford once said, “The younger generation needs the older generation to help them identify the voice of God, just as Samuel needed Eli to help him know that God was calling him.” Then he added, “Yet the older generation must also realize that God is speaking to the younger generation as well.” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
You’ve heard me mention the name of David Kinnaman in the past. He and a man named Gabe Lyons were coauthors of a book called unChristian. The basic premise of that book is that Christians these days are characterized more by what they stand against than they are by what they stand for, and that’s not a good thing. Kinnaman’s latest book is entitled You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith. In it, I believe he raises some rather profound concerns for the modern day church.
David Kinnaman is currently the president of the Barna Group, which is a private, nonpartisan research and resource company. Though Kinnaman is only 37 years old, in his sixteen years with the Barna Group he has supervised more than 350,000 interviews with people on matters of faith, politics and social dynamics. In other words, he knows that of which he speaks.
Let me begin our discussion today by laying out the definitions of a few basic terms that Kinnaman refers to on a regular basis. People born prior to 1946 are often called America’s Greatest Generation, or Baby Boosters. Kinnaman refers to these people as Elders. People born between 1946 and 1964 are called Baby Boomers. Kinnaman just calls them Boomers. People born between 1965 and 1983 are often referred to as Generation X. Kinnaman calls them Busters. People born between 1984 and 2002 are often times called Generation Y, or, Millennials. Kinnaman calls this group of people Mosaics. A mosaic, of course, is a unique piece of decorative art. Now for those of you listening in who were born after the year 2002, I offer my sincere apology. You have not yet been categorized. Rest assured, however, in the knowledge that one day…you will be.
Okay, so we have Elders, Boomers, Busters and Mosaics. Bob Buford, in a book called Half Time, says that each generation uses about five words or phrases to describe itself. Elders use words like: World War II and the Great Depression, smarter, honest, work ethic and respectful. Boomers use words like: work ethic, respectful, values, morals, and smarter. Busters use words like: technology use, work ethic, conservative/traditional, smarter, and respectful. Mosaics use words like: technology use, music and pop culture, liberal/tolerant, smarter, and clothes.
For those of you keeping score at home, you will note that each generation refers to itself as being smarter than the previous generation. Yet when it comes to Mosaics, Buford points out, “Where has the word respectful gone? And what happened to the term work ethic?” Those are terms not chosen by Mosaics. Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that we are dealing with a different kind of generation here. David Kinnaman calls them discontinuously different. In other words, there’s never been anything quite like them before, so patterns of behavior from previous generations simply do not apply.
This is a group that, generally speaking, is missing from the pews of the church today. Often times Mosaics were raised in the church. In fact, many of them were quite active in the church as teenagers. Yet by the time they reach their early twenties, more often than not, they are no longer active in the institutional church. The reasons these young people drop out are very real and very personal to those who experience them. Yet the Barna Group, through a diligent research project, has uncovered a pattern to the church dropout problem. There are three basic ways that Mosaics are lost, when it comes to the church. David Kinnaman refers to these people as Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles.
Nomads walk away from church involvement, but still consider themselves to be Christian. Prodigals, on the other hand, lose their faith…and no longer describe themselves as Christian. Exiles are still invested in their Christian faith, but they feel stuck or lost between culture and the church.
Kelly is an example of a Nomad. She grew up in a Protestant church. Her father worked for Christian organizations during Kelly’s entire life and regularly teaches Sunday school. Both of her parents are committed churchgoers. Yet Kelly describes struggling with an anxiety disorder and feeling that she never fit in at church. As Kelly herself puts it, “The first strike against the church was the youth group where I didn’t fit in and no effort was made to help me. The second strike was in college when the campus ministry I attended started talking about quotas for getting people saved. The third strike was the judgments my parents received from their church friends about me. They actually told my parents that they must have done a poor job of raising me.” Yet Kelly fits the profile of a nomad because she claims she prays...and she reads her Bible regularly. As Kelly herself puts it, “I never lost faith in Christ, but I have lost faith in the church.” That’s a Nomad.
Mike fits the profile of a Prodigal. He grew up in the Catholic Church, but his love for science and razor-sharp wit – which was sometimes perceived as disrespect – often times put him at odds with parish leaders. After a period of searching and wrestling with his faith, Mike says, “I just stopped believing in all those Christian stories.” Time will tell if Mike will return to faith later in life, but the mindset of a Prodigal typically rejects that kind of outcome. In my mind, we need to pray for Prodigals, not argue with them. They believe what they believe for a reason.
Nathan fits the profile of an Exile. Nathan’s parents – like Kelly’s – were fixtures in the church during his childhood years. Then his parents split up. As Nathan puts it, “I was really volatile toward church and faith for a long time…but way more so toward church than faith.” In an interview with Relevant magazine he described his enormous cynicism toward all things having to do with institutional Christianity. He and his friends say they are embarrassed by a lot of the Christian subculture from which they came, but not necessarily embarrassed by their beliefs. They claim to be searching for something more from their faith. In other words, they want their faith to make a difference. Such is the profile of an Exile.
There you have it: Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles. Truth be told, I think there are Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles in more generations that just the Mosaics. That aside, the question thus becomes: What can we do about it? What can the church do about the questions and the cynicism that young people seem to have about the church today?
David Kinnaman believes that the dropout problem – at its core – is a faith-development problem. Kinnaman says, and I quote, “The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully in a rapidly changing culture.” Then he adds, “To use religious language, we have a disciple-making problem.” We have a disciple-making problem? Now you know why I utilized Kinnaman’s work so extensively.
Several weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.
The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Four weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.
Three weeks ago we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows, and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love, much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.
Last week we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the class.
Today we examine the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: live faithfully. Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We begin by taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship and sense in prayer. We aspire to live lives reflecting the faith we profess…looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
I know the Presbyterian Church failed my generation, in a manner of speaking. In Sunday school, in the early years, we were taught the basic Bible stories. Then by the time we reached junior and senior high school – at a time when we could finally begin to comprehend the meaning behind those stories – we were taught how to apply our faith. Do you see what I’m trying to say? In other words, our junior and senior high school Sunday school teachers were trying to build a house without laying a firm foundation. We were taught what to do, but we were never taught why.
In the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about just such a thing. He says, “Everyone who hears these words of mine – and acts upon them – will be like the wise man who built his house upon a rock. The rains fell, and the floods came, and beat upon that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them, will be like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The rains fell and the floods came and beat upon that house and it fell…and great was the fall of it.”
We need a firm foundation. Jesus Christ provides that firm foundation. That foundation is built just like we said in the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We take to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship and sense in prayer. In other words, we live what we believe. It’s a little thing theologians like to call orthopraxis. If orthodoxy means right belief, then orthopraxis means right practice. Easier said than done though, don’t you think?
I think the secret to living faithfully is revealed in something a wise man from this church recently said to me. He said, “When my wife and I got married, we both agreed to follow the rule of sixty/forty.” I said, “What’s the rule of sixty/forty?” He replied, “We agreed to give sixty and expect forty in return. Most people think marriage is fifty/fifty. It’s not. We agreed to the rule of sixty/forty.” Then with a glint in his eye he leaned forward and said, “Sometimes it’s seventy/ thirty.” The rule of sixty/forty must work…because Chuck and Janet Koller have now been married for more than 60 years.
You know, the people who leave the church generally don’t do so because of the church itself. They do so because they’ve been upset by people in the church. They sense an incongruity between the faith people profess and the way they live their lives. We need to learn orthopraxis. We need to learn to live the life of faith we say we believe.
I think the rule of sixty/forty just might apply to the discipleship practice of living faithfully as well. If we think that all of our relationships are going to be fifty/fifty, we’re going to be sorely disappointed and we’re going to feel as if we’ve been mistreated a great deal of the time. But if we approach our relationships with the attitude of sixty/forty – and are sometimes even willing to give seventy/thirty – then we will likely find ourselves living a whole lot more faithfully than we have in the past. And we’ll be well on the way…to living out the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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