“That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been; and God requires an account of what is past.” (Ecclesiastes 3:15)
I always like to end the new year by looking back, particularly at major trends that might affect how we reach out to others with our Christian faith. Trends are important. They not only shape what we will be buying next Christmas, or what we’ll watch on TV next fall, they also can be used to shape how we can most effectively reach others for Christ.
One of my favorite websites that reports and analyzes trends for Christians is The Barna Group of Ventura, California. I’ll call them Barna for short. Their website is www.barna.org should you want to take an in-depth look at their offerings.
Barna just released its “Top Religious Trends of 2005.” Their research is fascinating and revealed four major trends among what Barna calls “people of faith.”
1. The voice of evangelicals is growing: While only 7% of adult Christians would label themselves as evangelicals, their voice is getting louder; and they are beginning to get more media attention. Unfortunately, Barna found that evangelicals are vastly different from the rest of society. “They are by far the most active in evangelism, most likely to read the Bible, to pray, to attend church services, to volunteer at a church, and to engage in a small group during the week, and give away almost three times as much money as do other Americans.”
Apparently, the 2004 presidential elections gave mainstream evangelicals a stage they have never had before; and the lessons learned from that experience have helped them maintain the momentum through 2005. Barna also notes that evangelicals “are simply fed up with the nonsense that our society is proposing or producing. They have been driven to a deeper relationship with, and reliance upon God, as a result…It appears that a larger share of evangelicals is choosing to exercise their freedom as religious people in America before that freedom is taken away.”
2. The American Christian is biblically illiterate: This should be a call to churches to emphasize the importance of Sunday school and bible study groups. Barna describes what it found to be in “crisis proportions.”
“Although most of them contend that the Bible contains truth and is worth knowing, and most of them argue that they know all of the relevant truths and principles, our research shows otherwise,” Barna noted. “And the trend line is frightening: the younger a person is, the less they understand about the Christian faith…By and large, people parrot what their parents taught them. Sadly, with fewer and fewer parents teaching their kids much of anything related to matters of faith, young people’s belief system is the product of the mass media.”
3. Large numbers of American Christians are becoming frustrated with churches: Barna characterizes this trend as “startling” and refers to this group as “revolutionaries.” “These are individuals,” according to Barna, “who are deeply committed to Christ…Frustrated by churches in the attempts to satisfy that longing, these individuals have crafted entirely new spiritual environments that draw them closer to God and other believers, without the help of a conventional church. There are well over 20 million adults who are pursuing a Revolutionary faith that is reminiscent of the early Church. They are meeting in homes, at work, in public places – wherever they can connect and share their mutual love for Christ and pursue their desire to be obedient servants of God.”
4. Young adults will continue to change how we worship: Barna’s fourth and final trend confirms what many of us already know – the words on the wall we sing during our worship services are not going away. In fact, it’s going to get worse, or better, depending upon your perspective. “They are leaders in the pursuit of new models of faith experience and expression, such as house churches, cyberchurches and marketplace experiences. They are pioneering language that bridges the gap between postmodern cultural imperatives and first-century biblical principles, to create new buzz words and expressions for believers. And they have certainly championed a novel universe of relational networks in which faith is a cornerstone of friendships and shared experiences.”
So you see we have much to look forward to in 2006. But there’s one thing about our Christian faith that you can bet will never change – The life-saving, life-changing power of Jesus Christ. I guess that just goes to prove that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
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