Want to offend a Millennial? You could just open your Bible and read it in front of him. But if you live out the teachings of Scripture, you just might win him over.<\/p>\n
Earlier in 2014, I told you about some of the challenges in reaching Millennials for Christ, that is, young adults aged roughly 18 to 33. While 55 percent of Baby Boomers say they\u2019re religious, only 36 percent of Millennials do. \u201cToday,\u201d University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox notes, \u201cfully 29 percent of Millennials consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, a record postwar high. They are also much less likely to describe themselves as \u2018religious\u2019 compared with earlier generations of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, how is this rising generation connecting to the Bible? In a word, poorly. According to a new study by the Barna Group, \u201cNon-Christian Millennials hold ambivalent and sometimes extremely negative views about the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n
How negative? The first thing to know is that a full 62 percent of non-Christian Millennials have never even read the Bible. Friends, that\u2019s the kind of world in which we live \u2014 one with tremendous ignorance of God\u2019s Word. It\u2019s no wonder that the nation has gone so far downhill, so fast, because we can\u2019t expect people to live like Christians if they aren\u2019t Christians, and especially if they don\u2019t even have a passing acquaintance with the Scriptures.<\/p>\n
Non-Christian Millennials\u2019 unfamiliarity with the Bible, however, has not kept them from forming an opinion on it \u2014 an extremely negative one. Barna says that nearly half believe \u201cthe Bible is just another book of teachings written by men that contains stories and advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The most common words they use to describe the Bible are \u201cstory,\u201d \u201cmythology,\u201d \u201csymbolic,\u201d and \u201cfairy tale.\u201d Fully 30 percent of Millennials allow that it\u2019s a useful book of moral teachings, but nearly as many \u2014 27 percent \u2014 agree that the Bible is \u201ca dangerous book of religious dogma used for centuries to oppress people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almost one in five say the Bible is \u201can outdated book with no relevance for today.\u201d I don\u2019t know about you, but those numbers kind of make me want to weep.<\/p>\n
Although we obviously have a long way to go to overcome this prejudice, I\u2019m glad to say that the survey gives us some pointers on how to do it \u2014 and how not to do it.<\/p>\n
First, how not to do it: Barna suggests reading your Bible around a non-Christian Millennial is not likely to spark much spiritual interest \u2014 the opposite, in fact, is more likely to be true. According to Barna, \u201cWhen they see someone reading the Bible in public … they assume the Bible reader is politically conservative … ; that they don\u2019t have anything in common with the person … ; that the Bible reader is old fashioned … or that [he or she is] trying to make a statement or be provocative …Fewer than one in 10 non-Christian young adults indicate any kind of positive response.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what is a more effective approach among this group? According to Barna, \u201cpersonal interactions\u201d with people who have benefited from the Bible tend to bear the most fruit.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve said before, Millennials value relationships. We don\u2019t need to be Bible scholars \u2014 although of course there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. But we do, however, need to practice what the Bible preaches, and be neighborly.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s more good news. The survey suggests that Millennials are fully capable of holding orthodox views about the Bible and the Christian faith. Nearly all self-identified Millennial Christians who attend church at least once a month and who describe their religious faith as very important to their lives believe the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life and that it\u2019s the actual or inspired word of God.<\/p>\n
So when it comes to Millennials and the Bible, is the glass half full, or half empty? It all depends, gentle listener, on us.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. \u201cBreakPoint\u201d is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Want to offend a Millennial? You could just open your Bible and read it in front of him. But if you live out the teachings of Scripture, you just might win him over. Earlier in 2014, I told you about some of the challenges in reaching Millennials for Christ, that is, young adults aged roughly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2464,1132,1659],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}