I have found over the last few years that oftentimes (though not always) religion, albeit with good intentions, gets in the way of an authentic encounter with Jesus Himself.
As my friend Brian Mashburn says, “When you die and approach the throne of God, would you rather approach Him holding a Bible in your hand, or would you rather approach the throne holding the hand of Jesus?” We want to remove everything that hinders us in our relationship with the Lord…including religion.

We have not stopped BEING the church. But we are sick of DOING church. We have engaged in deeper relationships with other Christ-followers since we have stepped back from our congregation. We are engaging in authentic, transparent, transforming relationships with each other.

I would point you to the book Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna for a better discussion on the religious activities that are followed by many churches today (both evangelical and Pentecostal) that have no root in Scripture.

I hope this does not come across negative. If anything, I am seeing more and more people connect with God in real and transforming ways that are not happening within the church building. They are then connecting outside of the building with other Christ-followers and engaging in the epic of God redeeming what was lost.

God is moving in big ways here. I want to stay in step with Him.

You might enjoy our website http://www.churchrater.com

To answer your questions, yes, we are spending time with other Jesus followers at various different times, sharing our journeys together. We understand the need to have community with other Jesus followers, sharing what he is teaching us and just simply spending time together.

As far as a house church goes, I have absolutely no desire to begin one at all. I think it is a mistake to believe that just because you have stopped going to a large gathering on Sunday morning and moved into a smaller one in someone’s house that you have successfully left the institution. I don’t mean to imply that this is what you are saying, Kent, or to imply that this is what you believe. I simply say what I did to say that at this point in our journey, we are too recently removed from an institutional setting that if we were to begin something in our own home, it would probably end up being a smaller model of what we just left because that’s all we know.

We have done the house church thing before; we were missionaries in Mexico and that was the method we used. I learned some good things from that experience and am thankful for having been there, but I don’t see house churches as the solution.

Too often I have seen Christians walking around as if they have their heads in the clouds, and not down here on Earth with the struggling, the poor, the brokenhearted. Jesus was not like that, so why do his followers act like that?

It’s all good and well to do as much as you can for others, to lead seminars, to be a preacher, to lead classes at church, and to have and be involved in Bible studies. But IM LOOKING FOR REAL CHRISTIANS. Christians who admit their faults, who have a raw and real faith, and who will stoop to the level of the “wordly” people and walk arm in arm, hand in hand, and sometimes even carrying those who are hurting and suffering and sinning along the way to the “blessed life” of Christianity.

Church has turned me off not because I feel that the building is full of hypocrites, but because I feel these people aren’t being real. Stop the facade of having everything together, and feel free to cry, to yell and to be able to accept the blatant sin in your life and the lives of others. “Stoop” if you will, to the level of those tarnished by their faults and mistakes, and go forward to a deeper Christianity that is more accessible and attractive to those who have strayed or may not know Him.

qb

With no spouse or children, is it more likely that twentysomethings will search for a more “personal” spirituality elsewhere? I just know that church can be a lonely place for a twentysomething single. It’s difficult to start going to a church unless there is some connection with it already (relative, close friend, mentor, co-worker, etc).

Are the current parents of twentysomethings less likely to call them and continually ask whether they are attending religious services regularly? My parents called and tried to get me to attend services when I was an undergraduate. I ignored them and didn’t really start back into the church until I got married in graduate school. Part of my motivation was pleasing my parents. Without pressure from parents and other mentors, the twentysomethings may feel that they have implied approval to not become a member of any organized church.

I’ll wrap up by saying that we do not do a good enough job of communicating the benefits of “church” to twentysomethings. We don’t include them enough in the services. We don’t encourage them to be active. We don’t assign to them meaningful work. We don’t plan enough special classes and groups for them (youth [check], college age class [check], twentysomethings class? [no check], etc.) Without any anchors to hold on to, the twentysomethings just seem to float away and drown into their busy, early careers.

If I had been asked, when I was in my 20′s, why I left the church, after going “every time the doors were open”, I probably would have said that I hated hypocrites, and it seemed that the church was full of them, both adults and the people my age. And that would have been an honest statement. The truth was that I had been force fed that God was all-knowing and all-loving, but in my vast teenage wisdom, I couldn’t reconcile all of that with what was going on in my house, and in the rest of my life. I needed someone to show me that Satan was after me HARD. I needed someone with wisdom and love, not intellect or big words, to wrestle this out with me, and to try to help me make sense of it. I know how I was, and that would have been a lot of work for someone to take on. Asking the question one time on a survey wouldn’t have cut it. I now know that it wasn’t the surface answer I thought it was.

I think, in a lot of instances, there may be more to the “Why?” answer than the responder realizes. It may just be “the tip of the iceberg”.

My response to “What can we do?” is “Do we really want to know?”. Would it make a difference? If it was totally off the wall, would we consider it? Not saying implement it, just honestly consider it. Or would it be a “health care summit” situation?

I would have preferred you made that comment on my blog since it is what you are referring to, but that’s OK. I just want to clarify that NOWHERE did I say that the reason WHY this generation is leaving is BECAUSE we/they are biblically illiterate. Allow me to differentiate between the two comments above:

1) In my blog post (reference in my first comment above) I was trying to bring my generation and under down a bit from the pedestal it was being put on throughout the comment section; and I did this by pointing out some of our flaws.
2) Then I posted a second comment above, immediately following the first, to actually respond to Mike’s question concerning “Why and what to do”. I tried to be specific as to the differentiation in regards to the first and second comments.

My bad if the way I did it was not clear enough. Grace be with you -

I don’t know how similar my story is to that of other folks my age, but I can tell you some of the things I’ve seen that I consider to be roots of the problem.

1) There is a disconnect between the eternal reward of Christianity and the present transformation of Christianity. Too many people are still living lives focused on the rules, focused on the outside of the cup and dish, never allowing Christ to actually change their lives. Too many people believe the only voice the Holy Spirit ever uses to be the gentle nudges on your conscience, instead of the ABSOLUTELY UNAVOIDABLE VOICE OF GOD. People don’t let it be real. Not just of this generation, but also of the previous generations. My generation doesn’t have a lot of examples of how to actually BE a Christian and not just act like one. I am incredibly thankful for my parents, who are definitely exceptions to this rule. But I grew up with too many “role models” who preached Heaven and claimed the eternal saving grace of God, but didn’t ever actually allow their hearts, minds, and souls to be changed. They wanted Christianity THEIR way, instead of God’s way – and their way was the one that allowed exclusion, allowed self-righteousness, allowed favoritism, allowed strict legalistic standards for everyone but themselves… Ah, memories.

2) This is almost a subset of the first one, but it’s definitely different enough – and prevalent enough – that it bears mentioning on its own. There are too many people – and a ton of these are actually within my generation – who recognize that the lifestyle I mentioned above doesn’t cut it. You can’t bring people to Christ very effectively if you’re living a double-standard. If you’re ever excluding people in any way, then you’re obviously not showing the love of Christ to all, right? So there’s an overcorrection, and we wind up with people who are making a genuine effort to at least show love to everyone they meet. Problem is, they’re trying to show love in a way that it cannot possibly exist. Here’s what I mean: let’s say you and I are complete strangers (which is, you know, probably right) and meet in line at McDonald’s one day. If I immediately place my arm around you and lean in real close to you, and start speaking in a gentle, throaty whisper, making sure I put the right spiritual tone in my voice, saying all the buzz words like “encourage” and “blessed,” calling you brother or sister… Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d sure want to punch me in the face. Just because you love everyone does not mean you treat everyone like you’re lifelong friends, and EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET KNOWS THAT. Making an attempt to genuinely love everyone is a very noble and very holy quest. But that word “genuinely” is very important. People can smell fake for miles, and it is disgusting, especially when it comes to that “Hey, brother, I know I don’t know you, but I just wanted to encourage you and bless your day by showing you the love of the Lord today, so here’s an overly long violation of your personal space with a bear hug from a complete stranger” crap. I am ALL FOR people being nice to strangers. But for cryin’ out loud, it’s got to be REAL. It’s got to be GENUINE. If all the love you actually feel for someone is at a 4 but you’re trying to put on the show of loving them at a 10, they’re going to be able to pick it up, they’re going to be turned off, and they’re going to leave.

SO! What’s the solution?

Well, the only thing I can think of is a groundswell movement of genuine connections between people, where we all start to let down our guards and expose ourselves as imperfect people, desperately in need of a savior, completely unable to accomplish ANYTHING on our own, and entirely reliant on God, His Son, His Spirit, and His church to help us get through each and every single day. When people – of all ages – start to see that Christians at large are returning to the core beliefs of humility, self-sacrifice, and genuine universal love… We’ll get ‘em back. We’ll get ‘em all. We can win the world. if we truly allow Christ to be shown through our lives.