usa today story on lifeway’s church dropout research

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, emerging church, emerging culture, missiology, quotes of note, religion, research
• Date: Aug 7,2007

Ed Stetzer, director of Lifeway Research, posted a link on his blog today to the USA Today story on Lifeway’s research on why 18-22 year-olds drop out of church.

Here is the description from Stetzer:

This study is an in-depth look at the percentage of young adults who stay in church vs. drop out between the ages of 18 and 22. Insights will include reasons some leave the church and others stay, as well as what can be done to encourage more to stay in church

Here’s a snippet from the article:

Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30 — both evangelical and mainline — who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research. And 34% of those said they had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30. That means about one in four Protestant young people have left the church.

“This is sobering news that the church needs to change the way it does ministry,” says Ed Stetzer, director of Nashville-based LifeWay Research, which is affiliated with the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

So if this is true, what impact does this have on how we do ministry? It makes things bubble up in me…

Read the entire article here.

Also, you can see all of Lifeway’s media on this research here:

LifeWay Research Uncovers Reasons 18 to 22 Year Olds Drop Out of Church

LifeWay Research: Parents, Churches Can Help Teens Stay in Church

Church Dropout Study Podcast

Church Dropouts How Many Leave Church and Why Powerpoint

Teen Influences on Church Dropouts Powerpoint

Church Dropouts Faces of Young Adults Ages 18_22 Powerpoint

gospel, church, and culture audio available

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: audio, Bible, church, culture, emerging church, emerging culture, Gospel, missiology, pastoring, theology
• Date: Jul 6,2007

Two parts of the Gospel, Church, and Culture leadership seminar with Darrin Patrick from The Journey and Dr. Mark Devine from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has been made available in audio form on the St. Louis Metro Baptist Association website.

The first session available is Part 1 of Darrin’s talk on “What is the Gospel?” The second session available is Dr. Devine’s very insightful presentation on the emerging church.

Just for a quick nugget, Devine dropped that he has been asked by Lifeway, along with other folks like Ed Stetzer and Timothy George, to help write a multi-author ‘definitive’ book on the emerging church. And from what Devine talks about in his session, he very well may on to the best understanding of the movement. I know that is a bold statement but it is deserved. His comments seemed to already trump , yes, even Carson, Gibbs, Bolger, Kunkle and McKnight.

It looks like 2 more sessions – Part 2 of Darrin’s talk on “What is the Gospel?” and his talk “What is Contextualization?” – is forthcoming.

I still plan to do a cliff notes version of all of the sessions for those of you who don’t have time to listen, but if you do, I highly recommend you to take some time out and listen to the audio below. Press ‘play now’ for the session you want to hear.

gospel, church, & culture with mark devine and darrin patrick

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, culture, emerging church, emerging culture, Gospel, leadership, missiology, theology
• Date: Jun 20,2007

I’m really looking forward to this tomorrow. If you are in the area and you have a passion to reach the emerging culture, you won’t want to miss Dr. Mark Devine of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Pastor Darrin Patrick of The Journey talk about the intersection of Gospel, church, and culture at the St. Louis Metro Baptist Association building in Bridgeton off of Fee Fee from 10-2.

They will be talking about missiology, contextualization and the emerging church, among other things. And I’m sure there could be a palatable tension in the air with the controversy surrounding The Journey. My prayer is that there is a spirit of humility and receptivity to the topic at hand.

This conversation needs to happen. Any controversy needs to be quelled. Especially for the sake of mission and reaching the emerging culture in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, Missouri and beyond. And I can’t think of any two persons better to champion the cause of ‘contending and contextualizing’ than Devine and Patrick.

I will try to post within the week a breakdown of the talk for those of you who weren’t able to attend.

This is the official press release from the SLMBA:

GOSPEL, CHURCH, and CULTURE

Thursday, June 21st from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., pastors, church and mission leaders from across the area will gather at our offices for a day with Dr. Mark Devine of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Pastor Darrin Patrick of The Journey.

This day will center upon how to take the never changing gospel to an ever changing culture. What is cultural contextualization and what challenges and opportunities does this present to your church? What is the emerging church and who gets to define it?

This will be a great day of hanging out with fellow leaders, meeting new friends, and asking some relevant and yes, tough questions for the day in which we do kingdom work.

Here is Devine’s recent paper on some of the controversy swirling here in Missouri: Acts 29 and the Missouri Baptist Convention.

wwld – ed stetzer @ the 2007 sbc annual meeting

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: church, culture, emerging culture, evangelism, Gospel, leadership, missiology, pastoring, theology
• Date: Jun 14,2007

For those of you that don’t know, I grew up in a traditional Southern Baptist church in southeast Missouri. As a Southern Baptist, there are some things that become a part of the vernacular. Things like the Cooperative Program, the missions arm of the SBC. Annual international mission-giving programs like the Lottie Moon offering -Moon was an international Southern Baptist missionary who labored tirelessly so her people group [Chinese] could know Jesus. I could go on…

This brings me to Dr. Ed Stetzer. I am a big fan of Stetzer, the newly appointed director of LifeWay Research, LifeWay’s missiologist in residence, board member of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, and pastor at Lake Ridge Church in Cumming, GA. As Mark Driscoll says, “Ed is a rare combination of rigorous biblical theology, pastoral kindness, and keenly honed missional wisdom.” I couldn’t agree more.

Last night, I hopped online to see Stetzer speak at the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in San Antonio. I have seen Stetzer speak on three previous occasions – two in-person at the 2006 Resurgence conference and at a Missions seminar in 2006 at the Baptist Building in Jefferson City, MO and one on-line at the 2007 Baptist Identity Conference at Union University, not to mention read his book Breaking the Missional Code and been through most of his Introduction to Church Planting manual.

Everytime I listen to Stetzer, I come away thinking he, in many ways, is a modern day prophet in a day where alot of dudes think they are but aren’t. He is brilliant, theologically robust, progressive, courageous. As for his San Antonio message, I was so moved by his challenge, that I e-mailed him in mid-talk just to let him know how encouraged I was.

I found a clip of Stetzer speaking last night in San Antonio. In the clip, Stetzer poked some fun at his fellow SBC’ers regarding Lottie Moon. In many ways, it is a profound statement on the emaciated version of much of SBC’s missiology. But the idea rings true for much of evangelicalism. Later on, he goes so far as to say to a room full of messengers this:

Let’s face it. Too many of our churches have chosen their traditions over their children.

Check out the entire clip below:

guest book review: unhooked by laura sessions stepp

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: books, emerging culture, relationships, review, social issues
• Date: Jun 13,2007

Marty Haas, pastor and Director of Publications here at Grace Church – where I serve as worship pastor – has written a great review about a book by Laura Sessions Stepp called Unhooked. I asked him if I could reprint his review here on relevintage. He agreed…

Here is a little background on Stepp. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, currently at the Washington Post. She is a former visiting scholar at the National Academy of Sciences and chairs the board of directors of the Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families, based at the University of Maryland.

Stepp has written about children and families for more than 15 years, authored two books on adolescence, and is a frequent public speaker around the country. She has appeared on the Today Show, Weekend Today, Nightline, PBS and Fox News as well as local television, and has been heard on NPR, ABC and other national, as well as local, radio programs.

Stepp has written for Cosmo, Parent, Child, Working Mother, Reader’s Digest and Nieman Reports of Harvard University. She served as a member of the US Surgeon General’s Healthy People Panel on Adolescence and spent four years as a visiting scholar at the Board on Children, Youth and Families, a program of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.

As for the book, Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both, Stepp’s gives us an inside perspective on the “hookup,” which has become the “primary currency of social interaction” between the sexes in high schools and colleges. Creating a national phenomenon, Unhooked has been featured in more than 50 newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Glamour, Marie Claire and several national publications in Canada and Great Britain.

On to the review:

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