Helping Your Teens Retain Their Faith (Part 1 of 2)

It can be easy to get discouraged about an emerging generation of young people who don't seem very interested in the Christian faith, but really there's a lot to be encouraged about. And you'll hear more today on Focus on the Family as we have practical ideas to help your teen follow Jesus in this digital age.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. Hey John, as a father of two young men, this topic of how young people and faith coalesce is so close to my heart, because we're living it right now. Gene and I are diligently trying to raise our sons to be men after God's own heart.

Some days we feel like we've got a home run, other days it's a strikeout, right? And I think listeners feel the same way. We're competing with a lot in the culture right now when it comes to the existence of God, a life for Him, what does it mean? And today we're going to discuss some wonderful insights from two experts that will give you a parenting tool, many parenting tools, to have discussions and to engage your young person in a way that I think will be super productive.

Yeah, there's a lot of encouragement here. Our guests are David Kinman and Mark Matlock, and together they've written a book called Faith for Exiles. It's about how to follow Jesus in the current culture, and we have copies of that book.

The details are in the episode notes. David Kinman is the president of the Barna Group. He's an author. He has surveyed some one and a half million people over the years. Mark also works with the Barna Group and lives in Texas.

He's written a number of books, and he's spoken to over a million teenagers, so these guys know what they're talking about, and both are married and have young adult children. David and Mark, welcome to Focus. Thanks, it's nice to be here. It's good to have you. Yeah, glad to be here. Well, you know, I'm looking at the book and reading it and doing the prep for the program, and I'm excited because I am living this, like I said, in the beginning there. I mean, this is where we're at. I know many of the listeners are there, and it's going to be really interesting. Let's start with this idea of digital Babylon.

What does that mean? I think I get it, and here's the other great thing, John. These principles are going to apply to all of us. I mean, I think we're all living in a Babylon-type environment right now in our culture, so whether you are aiming this at your children or yourself, this is how you grow in Christ, but go for it. Digital Babylon. Yeah, so the work of Barna is to try to understand culture, and so this million and a half interviews, I feel worn out just hearing that number. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of people to survey, and we've had telephone interviews and online interviews and focus groups and qualitative interviews, and so we're listening to culture to understand what's happening. And when we've done all this research, I try to then interpret that for families and leaders and parents, and for me, one of my favorite heroes of Scripture is Daniel. And so over the last 10, 12 years, I've really focused in on the world that this emerging generation is living in and trying to compare that to the story of Daniel. And so one day I was doing a radio interview, and I said, you know, it feels like this generation, they're like exiles in Babylon, like digital Babylon, and so that sort of stuck.

It was about eight, nine years ago. And for me, that phrase, digital Babylon, you know, Daniel learned the language and literature of Babylon for three years and more. He's apprenticed. He becomes very influential in that place where faith is foreign.

It's on the sidelines, his faith in Yahweh. And so digital Babylon in today's context is the power of screens, the power of these devices, the power of smartphones, apps that we use and social media and the connectedness of this generation that's more connected than ever, but also less connected. They're lonelier than ever. So really, it's the story of the influence and trying to parent well in this digital age.

Yeah. Mark, as you've worked with Barna and David, obviously, you've identified the idea that, you know, the consumption by young people of digital resources is, I mean, astronomically high. And, you know, as a parent of teens, it's hard to get a grip on that because they use it for entertainment, edutainment, you name it.

Screens are just ubiquitous in the culture. What are the numbers like and what are we facing? Well, when we look at, you know, kind of what's going on right now, we've seen how the Internet and social media has disrupted just about every single industry, every sector that's out there. But the one question is, how has it really affected the church?

How has it really disrupted what's going on there? And one of the things that we looked at as we were looking at the volume of screen hours compared to other experiences that young people were having is that screens disciple. And I think when David and I typed those two words next to each other, we were kind of like the weight of them was so heavy. Because I realize, as someone who's led small groups at my church for, you know, a couple decades, that this is what I've been facing is normally if a student was, you know, considering doubting God or his existence, they would come to me and say, you know, I've got some questions about God, but now they're going to Google first and they're having a secret conversation with somebody else who's discipling them. And then they're coming to me and saying, hey, I don't believe this. And they're coming out with a statement more than a question.

And they've already been formed. And so they're coming and they're arguing with me. And I remember this one exchange I had with this young man who I'd seen been born in my church. So I knew he grew up and I thought he's arguing a little bit smarter than he really is capable of. So somewhere he's getting these ideas and I Googled a couple ideas that he had shared with me. And sure enough, this website popped up how to debate a theist and he had absorbed this information.

And so even though he was in my small group for months, he had been absorbing this to the point that he could argue it back at me. And so by the time I enter into the picture, I have a lot of work to do to undo the discipleship that's already been done away from the Lord. Well, one of the things that is so fun about this book and this study, I've spent 12 years plus really studying the disconnection journeys. I did a project called You Lost Me that was really about the stories of the loss of faith.

And so this project was really about the resilience of faith and the good news. And I actually think we're here today to talk so much about what we love about millennials and Gen Z. We're 46, Mark's 51.

As you say, I've got a 21 year old at 1916. And it is true that there's a lot of strong correlations with the more screen time, the challenges. But this is a message that's more about just like how do you monitor the screen at time or the apps they use? Because we are all going to live in a screen driven age, whatever age, you know, when your kids are going to get their telephone or smartphone, when they're going to get, you know, online.

It's a big bad world out there. And we have to figure out the way of strengthening faith so that they can live resilient lives as Daniel did in this current sort of experience. And so, yeah, it's a really interesting, we're, you know, so much an advocate for the sake of what this generation is asking of the church and the deeper answers that they're asking for. And I so appreciate that because I'm excited for this next generation. I'm not down on it. I think God's putting both orthodoxy speaking truth and orthopraxy doing truth together in this next generation. And it's exciting when that happens. That's the full package. But it is rare.

It is rare. And for parents, it's terrifying sometimes because we are going into some uncharted territories, you know, but we're trying. This is a personal project for us. We're not just some researchers going, hey, this is an interesting subject. We're like going, we care about our kids.

We want to see their faith be resilient in this world because they're going to live in a world that's unlike anything we've ever lived in. And that's a nice setup because the next question I want to ask you just to provide kind of the personal bona fides that you bring is the fact that you've done this with your kids. David, in your case, your daughter chose UC Berkeley. And I'm telling you, these are the kind of conversations going on in the home. I mean, Jean and I have had the same discussion.

We want our boys to go to a great Christian university, Biola, somewhere where they could also get biblical teaching. But that doesn't guarantee anything. I mean, it's nice and it maybe is predictive.

But what happened in your case? Well, it was a crazy set of discussions that my daughter and my family had her senior year, junior year, senior year, and she applied to 27 schools or whatever it was. And she's a science whiz. Yeah.

Yeah. She's really interested. She's studying molecular cellular biology.

I'm just amazed I remember those three words in order. And so she was really interested in a mainstream school. You know, I went to a Christian school, Christian university, my wife did. And so we had this great discussion about what she wanted and where she was going.

And I had to realize in those discussions that it wasn't my vision for her future. She had to live into God's calling. We prayed and I was so touched by the Lord in that period of time because my heart was completely, you know, Berkeley is the last place you're going to go.

You can have that as a safety school on your list of 27 schools to apply to, but that's not going to be a place you go. And over the course of about seven different things, the Lord really spoke to me. This is a place for her to go. And her faith, her faith has actually grown stronger in that environment. Now, my middle daughter is at Biola and, you know, her faith is growing strong in that environment.

But you're right. It's like just because they're in the outward trappings of a Christian environment, just like Mark was saying a little bit ago, just because you're in the building, in the youth group, in the Christian university, part of this message of Digital Babylon is that screens are influencing us in deeper ways. They're becoming our counselor, our best friend, our sex educator, our, you know, confidant. And so we've got to recognize that even if they're in the building, even if they're in the program, they may not actually be with us in terms of heart and mind and soul.

And it's really important. It's hard to let go and let God take over your child's journey. Mark, you had a similar situation not long after David dropped his daughter off at Berkeley.

Yeah, almost the same weekend. He was dropping off in the Bay Area and I was in New York City and Manhattan dropping my daughter off at Parson School of Business. Parson School of Design, where she was going to study fashion. And, you know, we were concerned, like, what will this world be like for her? You know, I'd grown up, I went to Biola as well before David did, and I was, you know, wondering what kind of support system will be around her. How will that influence her? So growing up in California, I wasn't in the Bible Belt, but my daughter grew up in the Bible Belt.

And so I was a little worried because she'd always kind of pushed back a little bit on things and was always asking deep questions about faith in God and his existence. And that's because you're in Texas. Because we're in Texas, right? We're in Dallas, we're in the Bible Belt, yep, in Texas.

And I'm going, what's it going to be like when she goes to New York? Is this her hand on the door moment? Because we've been studying generations, realizing there's a generation that has their hand on the door of church. Is this my daughter's hand on the door moment?

And what happened was really interesting. Because in some ways, like David's daughter, she, for the first time, saw the potent impact of having Christ in her life. She started seeing how light shines in dark places. Because of the discrepancy, right?

Because of the distinction, yeah. She was having a hard time seeing in the Bible Belt, frankly. And she was kind of like going, wow, you know, what's going on there? And I remember being at Rift Valley Academy, talking to some seniors, and there's literally a wall around that school. And I said, what is it like, you know, growing up and going to school inside a wall?

And one of the seniors told me, it's like being a candle in a well-lit room. And that image really stayed with me, this idea that when we're around people of faith all the time, sometimes we don't see how impacting Christ is in our life and the world around us. So for my daughter, this really started an incredible journey and awareness of just how deep her faith went and how effective it was in life. That's good.

Yeah, we're going to get into the research in just a moment. Yeah, and the book we're talking about is called Faith for Exiles. We've got that at focusonthefamily.com slash broadcast.

Or call 800, the letter A in the word family. And while you're at the website, be sure to learn more about Bring Your Bible to School Day, happening this Thursday, October 1st. We've got all the info right there for you about encouraging your teen in their faith through that event. Gentlemen, in your research, you identified four different Christian exile types. Let's get into it.

What were those four and what did they mean? Yeah, so as researchers, we love to put people into buckets. We don't call those people the names in the research, but we use survey data to help us understand a person's spiritual journey. So it's a fun job to try to really understand where someone is at based on not just are they in the building, in the church building, but can we understand their heart set, their mindset, and their beliefs. So I've been studying religion in America for 25 years and doing this with the Barna Group. So with young adults, we were trying to understand the spiritual journeys of people who grow up Christian. So we interviewed 18 to 29-year-olds and we asked them to reflect back on their teenage years and where they were today.

So we came up with four buckets, four categories. The first group are the Resilient Disciples. And that represents one in ten young people. And these are people that believe in the authority of scripture, they believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and they want their faith to matter in the world. And so that was our definition of a resilient disciple. And that's what we're here really talking about. They're actively engaged in a church as well. That was another.

That's right. And that's only 10 percent. Of people who grew up Christian and as teenagers, which should be a really sobering finding for us. Because it really tells us this is not easy, as Jesus says, you know, it's sort of easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

But we could also talk, we sort of paraphrase that it's easier for a young person to grow up as Christian and then sort of walk away from faith and to really have resilient faith today. Yeah. And so that was the first group.

And most of our work in this project was understanding what makes for resilience. So that's the first group. What are the attributes of that group? That's right. Yeah, I get that. What are the other three? The second group was habitual churchgoers.

That sounds bad, but what are you driving at? Well, these are people that are active in faith, they attend church, they call themselves Christians, they love Jesus, but there are other factors about their faith are much diminished. They don't have the same orthodoxy of beliefs. They're really, they're sort of just like Christian in church going only. Is that often the phrase of being a societal Christian, a social Christian?

I think so. And I think this pandemic is really affecting a lot of these habitual Christians who are going to church out of habitual reasons, but they're not really deep in the word. They're not sort of people of prayer. They're not engaged in Christian community outside of it. So that represents about 38% of young people. Yeah, that's sobering. But what's great about that is we have 38% that are in the church within reach, but if we can have those conversations, if we can disciple them in this area of resilience in Digital Babylon, realizing and engage that, they're within reach. So that's the encouraging part of all that. And again, these are 18 to 29 year olds.

18 to 29 year olds. Just to make sure the audience hears that. Yeah. All right, what's the third one? The third group is what we called nomads, and this is the individuals who say, yeah, I'm still a Christian. They just never show up in a church.

That would have been like Mark talking about this person who's got their hand on the door. They have walked through that door. They still think fondly about Jesus. They sort of say they're aligned to Jesus, but they're really cultural Christians. And then the final group of what we call prodigals and fascinating is 22%, one in five, 18 to 29 year olds, twice as large as the young resilience say they're no longer Christian. Now, here's a fascinating time. I identified as a Christian, and I no longer do. I've got the questions lined up, so go for it.

Yeah. Well, it's fascinating because 10 years ago when we did the philosophy project, that number was only 11%. And so over a decade when smartphones rise, when it's the gospel according to YouTube, you've got all these pressures. You've got this huge disaffection, a huge loss of faith among this generation. So the people who have lost their faith is growing to 22% to one in five, whereas to contrast that, the 10% who are the most resilient in their faith. In that group, again, I'm speaking to parents, and I really want them to be equipped to maybe even change their strategy about how to engage their young people spiritually. But what were the kind of top one or two reasons for that disaffection, that group in the prodigals?

What did they say? Well, it's a range of different reasons. The church is anti-science, the church is repressive, the church is judgmental, it's hypocritical. We see a huge correlation to, and I want to talk about this really just sensitively and humbly, like self-righteous Christianity, where we make Jesus all about following rules.

And it's like Jesus is just as concerned with our self-righteousness as he is in unrighteousness in the world. Right, there's two prodigals. Yeah. The older brother is also a prodigal. That's exactly right.

Right. So we see a lot of rejection of that kind of older brother Christianity in the stories of these people. And I just want to sort of say to parents and listeners who are going through that, we've interviewed people, it's a heartbreaking piece, but there's also hope. And there's this real sense of, I've got this sort of sacred job of listening to people who've lost their faith, and I consider that a real privilege, because I respect and honor every person's story. And of course, I don't agree with the spiritual conclusions that they've come to. But I think to parents who just, we grasp on so tightly to the faith of our children because we think it reflects on us. But it's a really important realization in this data that there are a lot of people who lose their faith, and God still cares about them. You can still pray for them. You can still ask the Lord for wisdom about how to speak to them about spiritual things. But it's also like it's okay to let the Holy Spirit do its work in the lives of our children, even when they've lost their faith.

And David and Mark, what's so difficult with that is parents, and I think particularly Christian parents, this issue of control is huge. And we go for behavioral control. And we think we achieve it if we're unaware and we believe they're behaving well. They're not promiscuous sexually. They're not doing drugs. They're not drinking alcohol, et cetera.

And we kind of check the box, oh, don't we have good kids. Well, that can actually be like one of the interesting things, and you lost me when we were looking at these prodigals, is that there were some prodigals that were injured by the church. They were hurt, wounded, maybe some type of sexual or spiritual abuse or something of that nature. But then there's another group that are just like it's kind of like an era of polite atheism, where it's like I've just come to the conclusion that I don't believe any of this.

And a lot of them even wait until they graduate because they don't want to upset their moms and dads because they respect them so much. So they're being polite. They're being polite, and I think that's a unique thing because, as David mentions, it's anti-science and some of these things. They're looking at facts.

They're looking at information, and they're saying this just doesn't add up to me. And it may be that there are ways that we express or understand our faith where we haven't properly integrated those things. And so we need to be looking for those other men and women that have integrated those things that can help them on their way. I've had incredible conversations with teenagers that were ready to leave the door. They were going into a STEM-related field, science, technology, engineering, math, and they were like Christianity doesn't add up. I sat down with them, opened up their mind to the idea that maybe science was more in cahoots with the Bible than they realized. And in that conversation, turned them back into a conversation about how the Lord would be involved in their life if they followed in this path. So I think that's some of what we have to look for as parents is our kids may be thinking about their faith on a level that we're not. And we need to be figuring out where are those men and women that we can bring into their life to help with that. Okay, look, we've set the groundwork.

We're just at the end of the program here. I want to mention the five practices that those 10%, that resilient disciples possess. And we're only going to have time to cover one of the five today, but what are the five and what is the first one in more detail?

So the five themes that we found that were true of resilient disciples. And when you look at these five themes compared to the other profiles, there's a huge difference. There's a huge gap between them. It's not just a minor difference. It's significant.

It's significant. And it really is remarkable, especially between the habituals and the resilience, because they're going to church with about the same frequency, but they're having really different experiences. So the first one is experiencing Jesus. The second is meaningful relationships. The third is cultural discernment. The fourth is vocational discipleship. And the fifth is living in countercultural mission. So those are the five kind of practices that we saw in those resilience. Yeah. And let's get into the first one.

Let's experiencing Jesus. What does that mean to those 10%? Well, and just to put a little coda to the description there is that what we learn is that, you know, trying to develop resilience isn't as simple as do these three or four things. But it's almost like guidelines and guardrails, these five themes. The more of it you do, the more resilient your faith is. At the very beginning of the program, you sort of said, you know, this isn't just about discipling young people.

It is that. But it's also about how we can be more resilient in our own digital lives and our discipleship with Jesus. So experiencing Jesus as a researcher, one of the most remarkable facts that most people overlook is that seven out of 10 Americans say they've made a commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life.

And it's just I remember just absolutely stumbling on that data in my early years at Barna. And so I've been on a 25 year quest to understand, like, what does it really mean to follow Jesus when virtually everyone, seven out of 10 Americans say they do? Right. And so what we find in this study is this idea of clearing the religious clutter. There are things that we do that have sort of lost their meaning or have lost their meaning in the lives of the discipleship process that we're intending to have for people. So how do we help people root their identity, not in their gender or the team that they root for or their favorite outdoor brand, but in who Jesus is and what he says about us?

And so we find that's actually a really rare thing. And most people say, yeah, I've got the Jesus T-shirt, but I don't actually really love him. I don't hear him speak to me in a real and personal way. So, you know, one great example of how we as parents and others can influence this next generation is just asking the Lord to speak to us. And demonstrating this notion of our lives being open to the Lord's leading and, you know, tell the story of Emily and I.

It was like, you're not going to UC Berkeley, you're not going to UC Berkeley. And I was like, OK, well, let's just ask God what he thinks. And so was that her saying?

Yeah, exactly. And so so, you know, the over a period of several weeks, I was like, OK, Lord, I'm going to really ask you for your wisdom. And there were like seven things that were really miraculous as the Lord showed me. And I just wept when I sort of was like, this is actually where God wants my daughter to go. And so we have to demonstrate that an actual trust that a real God is speaking to us as parents. And it's not about controlling our kids, about influencing them towards Jesus. But that might actually be about more influencing us as their parents than it is about them. So this idea of allowing God to speak into our lives, that's a good example of experiencing. Well, I want to jump in because what it demonstrates is humility, which the scripture is so precise on that pride kills us in so many endeavors, whether it's our business or vocational efforts or our parenting. And what a beautiful example as a parent of being humble and listening to Emily, your child, say, Dad, let's let's pray about it. Let's talk to the Lord about it and see if he agrees that it'd be OK for me to go to Berkeley.

I mean, that I could. There's two ways you go at that point. You either humble yourself or you dig in with prideful parenting and say, no, I know what's best for you. I know that's not going to be a good environment.

You're not going to go. And the Lord saying, well, back up. Do you trust me? And I think about the faithful decision we made then because it was not easy and dropping off Emily at school. And, you know, she's an amazing kid, but it's a more than a kid. She's a young lady now. And I just admire her so much. But I think about the week before we dropped her off and a little bit of a personal story for us is that my wife's been struggling with brain cancer for three years. And she had just come through some surgeries that summer, was really having a hard time keeping track of just details. And the most lucid moment that my wife had was praying for her daughter to go to Berkeley the weekend before we dropped her off.

During that stretch of time. And so it's pretty amazing the way God's faithfulness shows up when we do choose to allow him to speak into our lives and then we're obedient to that. Well, I so appreciate that vulnerability, David. And both you and Mark have done a wonderful job with this book, Faith for Exiles. Again, it's aimed for young people, but all of us, people of all ages, can benefit from the content in here. And we've covered one of those five attributes of the resilient Christian.

We're going to come back next time, if you guys are willing, and cover the other four. But I love the beginning. Number one is that intimacy with Jesus and what does that mean.

What a great start to the discussion. And folks, if you want a copy of this book, there's a couple of ways to do that. One, order it from Focus on the Family. If you can make a gift on a monthly basis, we'll send you a copy as our way of saying thank you. If that's too much, and I get that, if you can make a one-time gift of any amount, we'll send it to you. And again, we are a Christian ministry. If you need the book and you can't afford it, we will get it to you. Just let us know and we're going to trust that others in the community of believers will cover the cost of that. So I think you hear my heart there. I believe in this content so much. I want to get it into your hands.

It's that important. And if you can join us in ministry, even better. Yeah, donate as you can and get the book when you call 800, the letter A in the word family. We're stopped by the episode notes. We've got the link there for you. David and Mark, again, thanks for being with us and I look forward to our conversation next time. Absolutely, our pleasure.

Looking forward to it. And I know our listeners are looking forward to the conversation as well. And certainly as we close, there's been a lot happening in the last couple of days to affect the elections on November 3rd. We'll be talking about some of that on Wednesday with our special guests, John Stonestreet and Tim Geglein. They'll offer reminders about the importance of letting your voice be heard, of you making sure you're an informed voter. That's Wednesday. And for now, on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back tomorrow as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.