Non-Resilient Twentysomething Christians

Recent Research by the Barna Group in America suggests that one in ten twentysomething year olds, who were raised and disciple inside the church during their childhood and teens, has become what they call a ‘resilient disciple’.

Of that generation of young church attenders, 22% have since given the faith away, 30% still believe in God and Jesus but don’t attend church, and 38% attend church habitually but have a non-resilient faith. These figures are alarming.

They cause us to ask: What builds resilient disciples? Barna’s research indicates that the highest correlation exists between resilience and feeling intimacy with God. This looks like sensing that Jesus speaks into your personal life, conversational prayer, and reading the bible.

I also suspect another factor is a key contributor. Younger people often have a sense that suffering is harmful. Suffering causes us to feel bad about ourselves – it lowers our self-esteem. Low self-esteem, so it is imagined, causes us to doubt ourselves and not believe we can achieve our best. We have a right to protect ourselves from this type of negativity. In this way of thinking, it follows that suffering, self-doubt, and non-flourishing cannot be part of God’s intentions for us.

So what do young people think when life throws you a curve ball? Or when there is tension and even conflict inside the church (as there is in most of the New Testament churches)? The intuitive response is something like – God is not loving, and now I am doubting I can trust him. And the church is a negative place, and it is right for me to avoid that nonsense.

This above view is different from the biblical view of God and suffering. God is loving, in control, and nothing happens to us outside of his sovereignty. Suffering can be both personal (Paul’s thorn), interpersonal (Paul is hurt by the Corinthians), and family or church wide. God uses suffering, both individually and corporately, to grow perseverance (resilience), character, hope and unity. Trust him, and hang in there.

By Rev. David Rietveld