“Hey, Emily, do you believe in Jesus?”
Practice 1
To Form a Resilient Identity, Experience Intimacy with Jesus
Experiencing Jesus means clearing religious clutter for closeness with and joy in Christ.
Time for a quick Kinnaman flashback. My daughter Emily is eight. I am lying in bed next to her, tucking her in for the night. After a long conversation, ranging from favorite Disney movies to preferred methods of assembling puzzles to the life and times of a sweet little girl, we turn to spiritual topics. Her questions are good ones, and after a while, I ask her one of my own.
“Hey, Emily, do you believe in Jesus?”
Emily exclaims, “Yes!”
“Why do you believe in him?”
“Because we read about him in the Bible.”
“That’s a good answer. Do you have any other reasons?”
After a long and thoughtful pause, Emily says, “Dad, do you remember when we prayed for that family, about whether they should join our home group? And then we saw them in Home Depot, and it gave us a chance to ask them to come?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“That was a miracle, Dad. That’s why I believe in Jesus.”
Even to young souls, experiencing Jesus at an intimate level helps reinforce who they are and what they believe.
The first practice of resilient discipleship we uncovered in our research among exemplar, young adults (the group we labeled resilient disciples) is a transformational experience of Jesus. Most Americans say they are Christians, but few follow that up with deep, heart-level, life-directing commitments. This is true of all generations, and it remains true of young adults.
Looking at the full spectrum of young adults’ experiences with Christianity—from prodigals and nomads (the churchless) to habitual churchgoers and resilient disciples (churchgoers)—helps us make sense of the drop-off spots on the road to resilience. It turns out that calling oneself a Christian represents a very low bar. About two out of three eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds in the US say they are Christian (a notable statistic, given all our hand-wringing about the rise of the nones). According to the study we conducted specifically for this book, 100 percent of nomads, habituals, and resilients identify as Christian; we sorted them into those buckets because they ticked the “Christian” box. Prodigals, on the other hand, consider themselves to be something else, and usually that’s religiously unaffiliated.
We also inquired how young adults would comfortably describe their faith to others, not just how they would label themselves. The vast majority of resilient disciples and habitual churchgoers say they would use phrases like “a Christian” or “a follower of Jesus” to describe themselves to other people. More than half of nomads and even some prodigals also appear comfortable using these self-descriptions.1
You can see where we are headed: It’s easy for young adults to call themselves Christian. It is much less common, however, for young people with Christian experience to find their identity in Jesus.
You may have heard of the metaphor of “inoculating” people to the gospel. In a medical scenario, of course, inoculation involves exposing someone to a virus so their cells produce a natural antibody to guard against future full exposure. Sadly, this is an apt description of what happens with Jesus in many young lives. Having been exposed to Christianity, people form patterns and habits that resist deeper faith. These faith antibodies are part of the natural human bent away from God but are also exacerbated by Christian structures that enable superficial, skin-deep spirituality.
Look at the data in table 1. Resilient disciples are much more likely to agree strongly with statements about Jesus that other Christian segments tend to reject. For example, nine out of ten resilient disciples strongly agree that “living in relationship with Jesus is the only way to find fulfillment in life,” that “my relationship with Jesus brings me deep joy and satisfaction,” and that “following Jesus shapes my whole life: body, mind, heart, and soul.” More than eight out of ten resilient disciples firmly agree that “my relationship with Jesus impacts the way I live my life every day.”
What’s so remarkable about resilient disciples is that they truly exhibit a higher level of intimacy with Jesus than other young adults raised in the faith. (Resilient disciples aren’t perfect by any stretch. That’s a theme to which we will return. Resilient disciples, and the churches in which they are planted, still have lots of room to grow.) It’s heartbreaking to find that only about half of habitual churchgoers—young adults who attend church with regularity—strongly agree with straightforward questions about Jesus. How is it possible to show up week after week, year after year, without believing and experiencing Jesus more fully? Habitual churchgoers should top the list of churches’ discipleship priorities; many of these young Christians are primed and ready for a deeper experience of (and commitment to) Christ.
It is easy to call oneself a Christian but much less common to find deep joy in Jesus. That conclusion is where our first practice begins. The first practice of resilient discipleship in digital Babylon is clearing religious clutter to experience intimacy with Jesus.
In the pages that follow, we’re going to show just how cluttered the path has become. In some cases, it’s like hoarders for Jesus. The living Lord is crammed into the small spaces of mental attics alongside all sorts of other accumulated ideas and idols. Unfortunately, churches sometimes sanction the extra baggage, which Jesus warned could happen: “For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden” (Luke 11:46).
From the data in table 2, two themes emerge. First, resilient disciples express a feeling of intimacy with God, closeness that frequently seems lacking in the experience of habituals, nomads, and prodigals. Statements like “Jesus understands what my life is like these days” and “Reading the Bible makes me feel closer to God” capture this feeling. Resilience is felt at a deep, emotional level.
Second, resilient disciples experience conversational intimacy with Jesus. More than four out of five strongly agree with the statement “Jesus speaks to me in a way that is relevant to my life.” Fewer than half of habituals feel this kind of connection, and the percentages are, as expected, much lower among nomads and prodigals. Prayer is a “vibrant part” of resilient disciples’ lives, and it includes “listening to God.”
Taken together, the data tells us that resilient disciples build their identity in Jesus. This is rare. In digital Babylon, as in other societies, figuring out who we are is one of the epic struggles of being human. This battle to define identity is one reason disciple making is so difficult today.
The Search for Identity
Human beings are unique among creation in part because we undergo a constant search for identity. We all want to know, Who am I, really? It is one of humanity’s timeless questions; the search for answers has driven men and women from the very beginning. It is also an ageless question; that is, we return to the search on and off throughout our lives.
We look for answers to this deep-seated question in all sorts of people, places, and things
brands
bands
clothes
celebrities
sports we follow
sports we play
where we’re from
where we love to go
those we admire
our work
our sexuality
And on and on. Human beings blend their identities from a menu of ingredients, like a me-shaped Frappuccino of wants, needs, desires, and self-perceptions.
In digital Babylon, our screens grant us access to a plethora of identity-forming tools, communities, and adventures. Think about it. Before the internet, if you were really into Swedish death metal and Picasso-inspired decoupage (we see that hand!), it’s unlikely you had a community of connoisseurs with whom to share, learn, and be. But now, as a proud resident of digital Babylon, you have nearly instant access to your fellow Viking metalheads and Mod Podgers, who can help you become your best head-banging, Mod-Podging self.
Algorithms that run the apps and search results on our magical devices anticipate and guide the trajectory of our search, providing helpful suggestions for our identity-forming efforts. We will delve deeper into the power of algorithms in the next chapter, but for now, here’s an example. Like a good friend, Netflix recommends shows you might like based on shows you’ve already watched. Facebook suggests news you will find interesting based on past behavior. How thoughtful of those computer-driven preference models! Digital screens, and the algorithms that orchestrate their flickering pixels, know you better than you know yourself.
Actually, the marketers behind the algorithms know who they would like you to be so they can sell you things. Companies understand better than ever before what it means to market and position themselves as a lifestyle brand, whether they are selling surfboards, technology, outdoorsiness, home renovation, craft coffee, or cooking.
Almost everything we buy carries a latent message: the people who purchase such-and-such are [fill in the blank]. Walk into an REI and you encounter clear messages about the identity and lifestyle of outdoors enthusiasts. Same with an Apple store. Everything from the layout, display design, and font choices communicate something about the people who use the company’s products. The next time you pick up a consumer catalog or watch a YouTube before-the-video ad, pause to think, What is the identity being sold here? What we consume stakes a claim on who we are, and that is the stuff of identity.
Another digital Babylon distinctive is that being different and unique—reflected in the oft-repeated mantra “You do you”—is among the highest priorities in the quest for identity. Our society deifies the individual’s search for self-expression. Ironically, however, most of us end up looking like the crowd we want to be a part of; the apparent value placed on self-expression is actually driven by someone else’s preferences. Even when we think we’re marching to our own beat, we’ve got an unseen drummer in our heads, keeping time and making claims on our identity.
Brand Me
It is more than possible to be and raise resilient disciples in digital Babylon, but we need to understand what’s at stake when it comes to identity. We must grasp how its essence is being redefined, even distorted, here in exile.
One of those distortions is a trend we could describe as “elective identity,” the idea that people can and should define their own identity, that the individual—there’s that word again—is the ultimate arbiter of what is true about herself or himself.2 Most people today, including Christians, believe identity can be discovered and decided on by the individual. A perfectly terrible example is the degree to which Christians embrace a pop culture moral code that starts and ends with “me.” A majority of Christians have succumbed to wrongheaded ideas such as:
Collectively, our society says that our choices define our identity. But that is only partly true. It’s true enough that our choices inform what we make of our lives. Certainly, we believe that God created human beings with agency to make choices. But we must persuade young exiles that the truest thing about humans is what our Creator says about us: that we are created with essential worth and dignity as children crafted in his image and that following his Son, Jesus, restores his image in us, which was broken as a result of human rebellion.
Contrary to the Creator’s intentions, human identity is under a full-scale rebrand in digital Babylon. Personal screens reinforce the notion of elective identity by giving us daily, even hourly, chances to present a self-selected, carefully filtered, curated version of ourselves to friends and followers. Social media, for all its promises to connect people, also feeds our worst individualist, brand-making impulses by asking us to present (or perform) our “personal brand guidelines” on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Every day the message is reinforced: you get to—you must—define who you are.
Questions of identity are major themes on a variety of levels for today’s young adults and teens. Take, for example, the arena of gender identity. In Barna’s study of Gen Z, we discovered that today’s teenagers are much more open to the idea that gender is determined by how you feel, not by your birth sex. One out of three teens believes this is true. Seven out of ten say it’s acceptable to be born one gender and feel like another, while two out of five contend it’s okay for someone to change their body to become another gender.3
The fact that some people experience questions surrounding their gender is not new. What is new is the pervasive sense that, because it happens to some individuals, gender must be something everyone has to wrestle to the ground for themselves. There is a ubiquitous sense of live and let live, of you-do-youism, in the quest of young generations to define their identity—which is at odds with how the Scriptures portray what it means to be human.
In digital Babylon, we are all encouraged, even expected, to carefully curate what our own individual brand is: Brand Me. These fluid identities we create and take on do not stand the test of time and, like the house built on sand, collapse instantly when the storm arrives.
But there’s one thing even more disruptive to forming a resilient identity than creating our own version of “me,” and that is creating our own version of Jesus.
Brand Jesus
One sparkling spring day in Southern California, David was talking with a group of ministry interns. One of the young women kept asking questions and making comments that prominently featured the word me, such as “But that’s not what this passage of Scripture is saying to me.”
The cultural crosscurrents of branding and individualism exert tremendous pull on today’s young Christians. In one Barna study, we discovered that there has been a shift in American Christianity toward the notion that discipleship is a solo effort, that the best way to grow spiritually is on your own.4 This trend echoes the cultural refrains of the moment: You do you. Find yourself by looking within. Speak your truth. Young Christians are deeply affected by our cultural climate too, and we shouldn’t be surprised. But we must find a better way of making them resilient.
You can see what’s at stake, even when it comes to perceptions of our spiritual choices. In an era of elective identity, Jesus doesn’t choose us. He is the ultimate opt in. (You can almost see the pop-up on your browser: “To continue on Jesus.com, we require that you accept cookies. Do you agree to these terms?”)
Too often, churches and Christian families have capitulated to the culture’s terms in this regard. And we believe this massive mistake has led to failing discipleship.
The church has responded to the identity pressures of our culture by offering young people a Jesus “brand experience” rather than facilitating a transformational experience to find their identity in the person and work of Jesus.
First, we’ve been complicit in presenting a Jesus to compete at the same level as other affiliations and affinities. Jesus is your cool BFF, your partner in adventure who wants to be tagged in your selfies and help you live your best life. And he can be co-branded with just about anything! Being a Christian is not meaningfully different from participating in the branded culture of our times—it is a transaction equivalent to following a band on Instagram, attending the concerts, and wearing the swag. Jesus is just one more brand competing for our loyalty.
But mere fans of Brand Jesus are not at all resilient under the pressures of life in exile.
A second way we’ve capitulated is to expect too little. The church is one of the least demanding environments for young people, in terms of what they are asked to do mentally and emotionally and of what is expected of them when it comes to serving and giving. We’re just so happy to have them there! Yet one of the most hopeful findings in our research is this: young exemplar Christians are more willing to be challenged than the church is willing to challenge them. This means they expect to be asked to do more but in reality experience a faith community that doesn’t ask all that much of them. David has a missionary friend who said he receives the most teen interest in joining their mission organization not when he promises a good life or talks about the cool places they might live but when he tells them that the mission field will require everything of them, perhaps even their lives.
Undertaking a radical, life-altering mission (see Practice 5) is what our young generations crave, but instead, we take everything, from our worship services to what’s required of a Christian, and mold it into the shape of comfort and entertainment. They want to get their hands dirty. Churches, schools, and families that ask more of young men and women and give them meaningful opportunities to be engaged are indispensable to their spiritual growth.
Brands don’t ask all that much from their fans. Jesus asks us to give everything.
The fact that many parents don’t model spiritual vitality at home also contributes to the problem. In addition, the professionalization of ministry is partly to blame; we’ve become really good at doing ministry to people. And a major complaint of the next generation is that the church often feels too slick, too produced, too businesslike.
If Brand Jesus adds to the identity clutter rather than forming resilient disciples, what’s the alternative?
People grapple with all kinds of answers to—and with many ways to find answers for—the big questions in life. The best answers, we believe, come from historic, orthodox Christianity and are best (though inadequately) expressed in the community of redeemed saints called the church. We believe humanity’s timeless questions are fully answered not by our habits as consumers or by looking inside ourselves but through faith in Christ. We find in Jesus the truest answer to who we are (children of God) and what we are meant to be (representatives of God’s glory).
As for the best way to find an answer to the perennial question Who am I, really? we believe nothing can compare with actually following the real Jesus.
But clearing the identity and religious clutter to become actual followers of the real Jesus is a path too rarely taken.
Experiencing Jesus in Exile
Exiles throughout Scripture participated in an identity-forming way of life—at least, the rare exiles who are remembered for surviving and thriving did. The other kind of exiles, the ones who succumbed to cultural pressure, didn’t have annals written about them. Exiles who remain faithful to their true home are important during times when society undergoes fundamental change, especially when the broader social stresses to conform reach a fever pitch. They play a critical role in reminding us how to stay on the path of faithfulness.
Modern notions of individuals and identity are so different from those of ancient history that we have to be careful about letting our current understanding of these concepts inform our interpretation of Scripture. Still, there are things we can learn from the exiles of old that have bearing on our present reality.
Daniel was a young Hebrew when his people were uprooted from their homeland and made to serve a powerful new kingdom in Babylon. Most of what we know about Daniel and the supporting actors in his story (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) arises from their resilience in the face of pressure to conform. They dared to stand up to the powers of the empire for the sake of their God. Yet we often miss the subtle realities at the heart of this story. As modern readers, we underestimate the indoctrinating power that Babylon wielded. In chapter 1 of Daniel’s story, we learn that these young men were taught the language and literature of Babylon for three years. They were assigned names based on the identities of Babylonian gods and goddesses. They were asked to form their tastes in the manner of the rich and decadent diet provided by the royal house.
These were some of the tools Babylon used in the effort to turn these young Hebrew men into young Babylonian men.
Daniel and his peers, instead of ingratiating themselves into the indoctrinating systems of their captors, waited on God, listened for his voice, and became a conduit to express his power. Throughout the story of Daniel, we read about young exiles who allowed their habits of devotion to God to define them. And those habits made all the difference to their resilience.
We’ve baked this notion of resilience into our definition of discipleship: developing Jesus followers who are resiliently faithful in the face of cultural coercion and who live a vibrant life in the Spirit. Here are six research-based insights we’ve uncovered how a resilient identity can be nurtured in Christian disciples.
Experience Jesus Together
In our qualitative interviews, we discovered that people don’t learn to follow Jesus simply by having lots of great head knowledge about him (although having the right beliefs matters, as we’ll see). Experiencing Jesus is found along a relational pathway with family, friends, and other people who love and experience Jesus. We are loved into loving Jesus.
Arthur, in our interviews, said he makes himself available to young adults and thinks of himself as a “living epistle, not simply telling them about Jesus but allowing them to see and experience him through my life.” Another interviewee, Brett, said he most often experiences Jesus with young adults in a “family-type environment, where they feel safe and known.” This includes having young people over for dinner and letting them “share stories honestly and openly of their faith, doubts, and struggles. We find that having young people in our home, around our dinner table, sharing our stories, and praying for one another, can foster effective discipleship.”
Jim told our researchers a specific story about spending time listening to a young woman’s experience with a bad leader on a church mission trip. “I think we owe honesty to young people. Hearing from her directly and listening intently helped me to redirect her frustration with the flaws in her leader toward the person of Jesus.” This notion of a healthy relationship is something we will come back to in Practice 3, but it’s worth noting here that having functional human relationships, rather than dysfunctional ones, is one way to clear the clutter and help people experience Jesus.
Families help their individual members discover and maintain their resilient identity. Resilients frequently, though not exclusively, grow up in homes where their parents’, grandparents’, and other adults’ faith is vibrant. A cautionary note, however: in exile, family faith is becoming less influential, and thus passing it on is less automatic. The gravitational pull of digital Babylon is stronger than the memory of Jerusalem.
Still, when older adults model deep ways of following Jesus, young people notice—and not only when these people are their parents. Just as unmarried Christian adults need an extended family of faith, young disciples need attention and care from multiple adult gardeners in order to thrive in exile and to discover their identity.
How can we become households of faith that move beyond habitual churchgoing into engaged discipleship?
Navigate by the True North of Christ
The clear and present danger of inoculating young Christians to the gospel should weigh heavy on our hearts and minds. Just as we should plan carefully to avoid the external coercion of secularism in digital Babylon, we must take care not to succumb to the internal pressures of a falsely Christianized context. We must diligently search our churchified systems and purge them of inoculating effects. Jesus warned that many would do great works in his name but that he wouldn’t even recognize them (Matt. 7:21–23). And this: What does it profit a person to gain the whole world but lose their soul? (Matt. 16:26). Jesus repeatedly warned the religious leaders of his day that they were responsible even for the unintended consequences of their decisions and actions.
In other words, we have to redirect people from Brand Jesus to the Jesus of the Gospels.
Jesus’s spotlight on motivations should give us a much-needed dose of humility. What are we trying to accomplish, and to what end? Are we inadvertently pushing a Brand Jesus experience? Are we allowing companies, political parties, nations, or brands to recommend, suggest, guide, or even define our identity?
The answer is almost certainly yes. Idol making is the way of human life; thus, we should continually ask Jesus to reveal these blind spots to us, and then we should repent of them.
If, in trying to build our ministries, churches, and impact, we have contributed to the inoculation of a generation, how can we repent? First, we have to redesign our ministry models to generate the kind of transformation we know disciple making requires. This might mean giving up salaries, staff, size, and status so that we can go after a meaningful relationship with Jesus of Nazareth. We have to look for ways to offer deep explorations of Christ and not just go through the motions of church. As church leaders, making Jesus our true north means prioritizing these eager followers who are so passionate for Jesus—not running a spiritual club.
In addition, we must speak courageously when Christians co-opt the world’s way of doing things. Pushing Brand Jesus is capitulating to digital Babylon’s terms. What we say to one another and how we say it matters. For instance, when we see or hear Christians talking about living your truth, achieving your dreams, or you doing you, we need to gently but firmly correct those Brand Jesus notions. The new moral code says the individual is the center of the moral universe, but Christianity teaches that we orient ourselves by external sources of authority (the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures, the church, etc.).
When Christians capitulate to the zeitgeist of cultural norms—if we cannot articulate a countercultural biblical morality, for example—we leave the next generation immunodeficient. That is the very essence of inoculating young people. We leave them open to lapsing in faith, because why should they resist a culturally derived moralism masquerading as Christianity?
One of the keys to helping the next generation genuinely experience Jesus is to make sure the Christiany things we surround them with don’t keep them away from him. We are responsible even for unintended consequences.
How, then, can we orient our compass away from Brand Jesus toward the true north of the living Lord?
Fearlessly Ask the Big Questions of Life (and Find Answers in Jesus)
The deep search for identity—Who am I, really?—is going on in each person, and no one should accept shallow answers. This is but one of a dozen or so fundamental, aching questions that vex humanity. Human beings often find untrue or incomplete answers to these big questions—or increasingly avoid them altogether with streamed entertainment, virtual vacations, and an endless barrage of sensory delights.
Following Jesus means finding the ultimate answer to these questions in the person and work of Jesus. To be more precise, in the Trinity. If there is a real Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, their life anchors our search for truth—especially the search for truth about ourselves. But the entire process begins by creating space where fellow Christians feel they have permission to ask the big questions.
Effective ministry and preaching excavate questions that lie at the heart of human experience and help people grapple with the answers found in Jesus. His responses reverberate through the centuries.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. . . . Love your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27)
I have come so that [people] may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10 NIV)
If the Son sets you free, you are truly free. (John 8:36)
We are bombarded in digital Babylon, with unprecedented force and frequency, by conflicting, chaotic messages about what matters and how to live. The latest blog post, the newest music, the most popular television show, and even the news all do their level best to convince us we should care and what to do about it (buy something, usually). These messages are constantly changing. We must anchor our search for identity in something deeper and truer, which means we must, like Daniel and his comrades, learn the habits of devotion. We must repeat, to ourselves and to one another, what the Bible says about us. The idea of identity is relatively new language for the way we humans conceive of our experience, and the Bible invites us to consider human reality in an ancient-but-relevant way. What a gift!
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1 NIV)
Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. (2 Cor. 5:17)
We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Eph. 2:10)
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Prov. 4:23 NIV)
Resilient disciples accept and act on orthodox beliefs about Jesus. Right beliefs aren’t the whole picture of following him, but without them, we eventually head in the wrong direction.
How can we help young Christians center their experience of Jesus on asking life’s deepest questions and discovering the truest answers?
We can start this process by creating space for questions, engaging our younger generations in meaningful mentor relationships (more on this in Practice 3), and facilitating discussions in which the worst examples of Brand Jesus are exposed for what they are: a shallow, get-rich-quick kind of gospel.
Don’t Rush a Decision to Follow Jesus
One surprise in our findings is the average (median) age of conversion. We expected to find that resilient disciples have been Christians the longest, but we in fact discovered nearly the opposite. The age of conversion increases across the continuum, from prodigals to resilients. The average age for making a decision to follow Jesus is eight for prodigals and nomads, nine for habitual churchgoers, and eleven for resilient disciples.
It appears that resilient disciples are more likely to make a decision to follow Jesus when they know what they are signing up for. This speaks to the importance of all phases of ministry, whether to children, tweens, teens, or young adults. It puts an exclamation point after the necessity of effective ministry to middle school and high school students (not that you were doubting it) and gives parents and pastors a little breathing room. It is never too late (or too early) for young people to experience Jesus.
While we’re talking about averages, a crucial reminder is that every story matters. We must honor that each person develops and hears from the Holy Spirit in their own time and way. Let’s take care not to be automated in our discipleship processes or expectations.
How can we create effective partnerships and strategies for Jesus-centered ministry across developmental ages in a way that helps people discover and maintain a resilient Christian identity that finds its source in intimacy with Christ?
Get Close and Stay Close to Jesus
Resilient young disciples are hungry for Jesus in their lives, much more so than other young Christians. Looking back at table 1, do you notice the degree to which resilient disciples say they find deep joy and satisfaction in their relationship with Jesus? It is one of their distinguishing characteristics. They describe their relationship with Jesus in very intimate terms. They “feel” close to him.
Worshiping God and experiencing his presence emerge over and over as key priorities for resilient disciples. These activities are about connecting with God. Resilients engage in spiritual activities out of a desire to experience a holy and transcendent God, while other young adult Christians are more likely to be motivated by what’s-in-religion-for-me impulses.
Resilients also feel compelled to grow in faith. (Consider table 2 again.) Seven out of ten say their experience at church provides “guidance for how to grow the fruit of the Spirit.” Statistical analysis indicates this factor is particularly important in predicting a resilient disciple. Habitual churchgoers, on the other hand, tend to go to church out of tradition.
What might amount to mundane activities also seem to find greater resonance among engaged disciples. “Reading the Bible makes me feel closer to God” is a firm sentiment of nearly nine out of ten young exemplars. They tend to think “God first” in their pursuit of spiritual activities, and they also feel an increased sense that “Jesus understands what my life is like these days.”
We also found that resilient disciples are highly likely to say that Jesus speaks to them. In the research for You Lost Me, we were struck by the fact that one of the predictors of sticking with faith was the experience of communicating with God, so we explored this further in the new research—and were not surprised to find that agreeing “Jesus speaks to me in a way that is relevant to my life” is highly correlated with resilient disciples. They also say that prayer does not feel like a formal routine but “a vibrant part of my life” and that “listening to God is a big part of my prayer life.”
By teaching our young people more about prayer and facilitating times for them to experience the intimacy it brings with Christ, we will further solidify their identity in Christ. One leader we interviewed commented, “There’s never been a theoretical experience of Jesus. All that is an abstraction. When I’ve seen young adults experience him, it’s unmistakable. When the young adult (or any of us) is given space and intention to pay attention to what is happening around them and in them, God is already there.”
Go to Church, but Don’t Expect Churchgoing Alone to Bring Intimacy with Christ
Sometimes we mistake being on the path—say, attending church—for making active progress as a disciple. But many young people (and older adults, for that matter) are dutiful churchgoers while remaining otherwise spiritually inert. Church involvement is a necessary but insufficient condition for resilient discipleship. This is a powerful finding.
It is difficult, if not downright impossible, to shape hearts and minds with only a few hours a week to work with. Perhaps an analogy will bring this into sharp focus. Let’s say you show up at a home improvement store and stand in the paint aisle every week for five years straight. You even attend a couple of special demonstrations by the experts in the orange aprons.
That doesn’t make you a painter.
As shown in the previous chapter, about two out of every five young adults who were raised as Christians are now habitual churchgoers (38 percent). They attend a church with some frequency but are missing critical elements of belief, practice, or passion for their faith. Another three out of ten are nomads (30 percent) who rarely attend church or engage in their faith but are still satisfied to wear Brand Jesus. And finally, more than one-fifth turn into prodigals (22 percent), people who no longer identify with Christianity in adulthood.
The overall dropout rate (from 59 to 64 percent in less than a decade) is a sobering referendum on the effectiveness of our ministry to kids and teens. The research suggests we too easily mistake the starting point for the destination, oversimplifying Christianity to mere decisionism. Beginning the journey in Jesus, or making a commitment to become a Christian, is often seen as true transformation in Christ. We make no equivocation that a decision to follow Jesus is vitally important. It is the beginning of the most important thing any of us can do in this life, but it cannot stop there. If our young people are going to thrive in digital Babylon, they have to move beyond familiarity with Jesus into a place of intimacy.
We believe right orthodoxy is so crucial that we’ve defined resilient disciples in part based on their belief that Jesus conquered sin and death by virtue of his death and resurrection. It matters that young people understand and trust the core orthodox teaching of Jesus’s life, work, death, and resurrection.
But nearly nine out of ten habitual churchgoers also believe that Jesus defeated sin and death. The vast majority of nomads (82 percent) and even one-third of prodigals agree. Do you see that it is not merely believing in the truth that transforms?
Today’s disciples and the process of discipleship require greater intentionality, greater thoughtfulness. How clear is your picture of what it means to disciple someone?
Resilience and Godward Rhythms
One of the keys to developing resilient faith and experiencing Jesus is growing young people’s belief that a real God really speaks to us—that he has something unique to say to our hearts and destinies. This is a theme that runs throughout our studies among Millennials of the last decade, and it’s certainly a theme that resounds in Scripture. Hearing from God is also one of the defining characteristics of exiles in the Bible.
We must help this emerging generation hear and respond to the voice of Jesus in their lives.
Let’s commit ourselves to helping young people develop a theology and a practice of hearing from, listening to, and talking with God. There are many wonderful examples in the Bible (for example, Daniel, the most famous exile) as well as a multitude of heroes of the faith who demonstrate this crucial resilience-building mind-set and habit.
David’s pastor, Britt Merrick, said something recently about intentionally cultivating openness to God. The way we do that, he said, is to live by regular “Godward rhythms” that open us up to his voice and work in our lives. Together, let’s cultivate Godward rhythms: spiritual habits and a heartfelt expectation that God will come and speak to us. We can trust that God speaks and that he often does so most clearly through the pages of the Bible. He also talks to us through the voice of the Holy Spirit in our thoughts and feelings and through the counsel of brothers and sisters in our lives.
Hearing from God isn’t some spooky, transcendental thing in which our eyes glaze over and God takes over our bodies. The profile of resilient disciples shows us that it’s much more natural; it’s an everyday reliance on God and dependence on his presence. It’s cultivating a soft heart to God’s leading.
One of the classic Bible stories on the subject is recorded in 1 Samuel 3. After the boy prophet Samuel is consecrated to the temple by his mother, Hannah, he’s placed under the tutelage of a calcified and corrupted spiritual leader, Eli. Even though the elder prophet has lost his own way, he gives the young acolyte a gem of wisdom that sets him on a profound and godly trajectory. After Samuel has been wakened several times in the night by God’s voice, Eli finally counsels his apprentice, “If someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, LORD, your servant is listening’” (v. 9).
The voice of Jesus calls for our repentance and obedience. For courage. For quiet. For us to know how much we are loved.
It’s the voice that speaks to an eight-year-old girl’s heart.
Faith for Exiles began with a story about David dropping off his daughter Emily at UC Berkeley, and we promised to give you a glimpse into the process of making that decision.
As I mentioned, I was totally against the idea of my eighteen-year-old attending the school.
But God changed my mind. How?
Over the course of a month or so, our family had at least half a dozen conversations with people I deeply respect that caused me to rethink my assumptions about Berkeley. Well, more to the point, to rethink my assumptions about the value of the school and the active Christian presence in and around it. I began to see the school for what it is: a crazy place, yes, but also an institution that could meet Emily’s aspirations for a high-level education and a place where her faith could grow.
Those four weeks were unreal. Emily, Jill (her mom, my wife), and I had so many unexpected conversations that slowly shifted our planning. God guided our perceptions through people like Steve, Catherine, Andrew, Kara, Andy, Ryan, Mark, and others. Then one night over dinner, as the decision drew near, we prayed together. I can’t explain it, but I experienced a wave of emotion. I powerfully felt that God was showing us that Berkeley was the place. Jesus was calling Emily to the Bay Area and to Cal. He was calling her to be on mission with him there. I still felt some trepidation, but a sense of peace that it was the right choice overwhelmed me.
Now, halfway into her sophomore year, we see how the hand of God was directing her path. She’s thriving at the school—and in her faith! About two months after Emily committed to Cal, Jill was diagnosed with brain cancer. It was a horrible year for our family, but having our daughter close was a gift. Her first college choice had been a university on the East Coast, but having Emily in the same time zone was a small part of God’s care during a difficult year.
So that’s how Emily went to Berkeley: God spoke to us!
Christians from around the planet experience God in their lives. We need to tell these stories of modern-day faith at every turn, from pulpits and in Bible studies but also through social media and in our conversations and every time we think of them.
Jesus speaks.
Following Jesus is more than just believing the right things or feeling warm fuzzies about him. Being Christian is more than being on “team Jesus.”
It means we find the very essence of ourselves at his feet.
Experiencing Jesus is entering into a dynamic relationship with him as the author and perfecter of our faith. Experiencing the real Jesus is the starting point and the ending point—the Alpha and the Omega—of resilient faithfulness in digital Babylon.