There is a time for confession and true repentance. But we can’t put so much emphasis on constant apology that we diminish confidence in our beliefs or the good that we have for the world.
Kinnaman: Yes. Pastorally, this is a huge part of our emphasis. You can’t move forward without a commitment to repentance.
Barna Group has always been willing to be critical, based on data, trends or expressions of the church that are unhealthy. We try to raise honest questions. Coming from a market research point of view, we’re not just apologists for the church, we’re apologists for a way of thinking about a set of human problems that are impacted by Christian theology.
We’re just as concerned with self-righteousness within the church as unrighteousness in the world. We want to be as transparent as we can about our failures—both as Dave and Gabe, and as a larger Christian culture.
What are opportunities for living out Good Faith that pastors often miss?
Kinnaman: How hungry people are for these deeper conversations. People want to talk about this. But many pastors don’t.
I understand the challenges of building a vibrant community. But many pastors are completely unaware of the level of skepticism and honest conversations happening in their churches. In the digital world, people are fact-checking your sermons as you’re preaching. Sermons from “talking heads” are quickly becoming easy to dismiss by a young person as another voice in the sea of information and marketing demanding their allegiance. Just one example: We see in our research that an increasing number of young people think that their youth pastor is “paid to be their friend.” They view the youth pastor as church marketing.
We have some soul searching that we need to do about the “ministry industry.” How we’ve done things is going to have to change, while remaining committed to the core beliefs passed down to us. These challenges should lead us to a healthy place of being more capable of building strong believers.
The dirty little secret of the modern American church is that we’ve gotten good at producing structures of discipleship and churchgoing, but we’re short on transformation. The people in our pews are capable of being in ministry in the world, theologically and practically, at a much higher level than most pastors are prepared to accept. How are we equipping them?
Gabe, why do you two see hospitality as a key response?
Lyons: About three years ago, I visited Amsterdam to try to understand how church leaders there were approaching church planting in a post-Christian—even anti-Christian—European context. Hospitality was the one constant in their thinking and practice. They loved people well, they built friendships, and they did it in the context of their daily lives. They shared meals constantly, invited people into their homes.
It’s funny to think about it, but that simple act—hospitality—is totally countercultural today. But it’s so simple for Christians to do—and a practice of the Christian community that has been part of Christian life for 2000 years. It’s how the faith has grown no matter what kind of context we’re in.
It’s also a lost art in modern culture. To get to know people, to have long dinners together, to share conversation—it’s countercultural. People open up around the table. Jesus really exhibited this; so did the early church throughout the New Testament.
These simple, countercultural ideas—like how we relate to technology, for example, or practicing a Sabbath—show a better path for the world around. They stand out. If we’re living them.
Let’s come back to that founding data response of “irrelevant.” Henri Nouwen wrote in 1989, “The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation.” (In the Name of Jesus.) He’s speaking of how some of the deepest elements of Christianity don’t carry perceived value for the world. They seem foolish. How do we understand cultural leadership in light of that?
Kinnaman: There’s nuance to what it means to be irrelevant or extreme as Christians. I’d rather see the church do more “irrelevant” and biblically “extreme” things than to try to see us tone down our distinctive. The answer is not to water down our belief or practice in response to those perceptions in the data, but to increase the good and countercultural aspects of it.
Our research shows that millennials are more willing to be challenged than the church is willing to challenge them. But what we have to understand is that the call to follow Jesus—to have that kind of irrelevance you’re talking about—is not a call of mass appeal. It’s a call to the narrow way.
Local churches need to consider the ways that they will challenge people to be “irrelevant,” to be “extremist” in the ways that Jesus calls us to. That way goes against culture, but also goes against quite a few ingrained Christian habits. Our path for that is threefold: Christians need to Love, Believe and Live.
I love that: Love—Believe—Live. Which is hardest for us?
Kinnaman: From the research, the older generations—boomers and elders—have to grow in their Love and their Live. Especially their Love. They don’t really understand the mindset of deep skepticism that the newer generations have. Older generations have an easy time believing, but a harder time loving people at cost to themselves. Millennials are very strong on that Love, much less strong on Believe. But we all have to work on living out all three for faithful engagement.
Lyons: Yes, the pre-eminent virtue of the Christian faith is love. But the definition of love should be grounded in belief, and lived out in balance. Love says that you can be honest about how what you believe can lead to people flourishing, to a better life. I daily wrestle with how to live out my Believe and my Love—to be faithful in my own family and community.
I’ll tell you firsthand—it’s not easy to practice. It’s the reality of Christianity. We need the courage to continually ground our belief in love, and live that out in our culture. But do you know what happens when we do that? Good Faith.
And as we change, the world changes.
For more: GoodFaithBook.org; Barna.org; QIdeas.org
Paul J. Pastor is author of The Face of the Deep: Exploring the Mysterious Person of the Holy Spirit. Follow him on Twitter @PaulJPastor and visit him online at PaulJPastor.com.