"What Christian Teens Really Believe About God"

Pastor Laura Guy

February 19, 2006

Here's an instant replay of what happened in worship:

We thought about how difficult it is to communicate sometimes, and how that is especially true when it comes to communicating the faith to the next generation.
We looked at a new study that asked Christian teens what they believed about God to see how well we, the Church, have done at communicating the faith. The study revealed that Christian teens, for the most part, actually believed in something called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism - a belief that God is most concerned about whether we are good people; God is "on call" to help us be happy; and God is basically unknowable.
We realized that none of these attributes of God that the teens believed in are found in the God we know who is revealed in Jesus Christ. In Christ, we find a God who longs to be in relationship with us, a God who longs to be a constant companion and intimate friend. Somehow, we - the Church - have managed to communicate a belief system to our youth that is not Christianity. We have given them a faith that does not include Christ, the cross or the resurrection - a faith that has no teeth and no purpose.
We admitted that God is a mystery and that becoming a Christian is more like falling in love than baking cookies (so says Donald Miller). We have tried to dilute the faith to 3 easy steps rather than let people encounter the God known to us in the living Christ.
We celebrated the mystery of communion - ordinary bread and juice that remind us that Christ died so that we may be reconciled to God and yet that same Christ is present with us.