Focus on the Family Canada and The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada are presenting a one-day conference in six locations across the Cananda, featuring pastor and author Mark Holmen and other special guests. This one-day training conference for pastors and leaders offers a revolutionary yet simple methodology for becoming a faith at home focused church.
2. In one study, 90% of youth active in high school church programs drop out of church by their second year of college. The Southern Baptist Convention reports they are currently losing 70-88% of the young people after their freshman year in college...and may never come back. If current trends in the belief systems and practices of the younger generation continue, in ten years, church attendance will be half the size it is today. 61% of today’s young adults – who had been churched at one point during their teen years are now spiritually disengaged BAD NEWS
12. 1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. GOOD NEWS
13. Search Institutes 40 Assets Consequences of Having 31+ Assets Alcohol Use 45% 3% Violence 62% 6% Success in School (mostly A’s) 3% 51% GOOD NEWS
14. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children… GOOD NEWS
15. Significant Religious Influences Survey Grade 10 students who chose as one of their top 5 Mother 72% Father 49% Pastor 45% Grandparent 34% Youth Group 33% Sunday School 25% Church Camp 25% The Bible 23% Retreats 20% Youth Group Leader 17% GOOD NEWS
16. My Survey of Post High School Students www.siimlife.com GOOD NEWS
17. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. GOOD NEWS
18. Today’s Reality Percentage of churched youth who : view their mom as very religious.? 48% view their dad as very religious? 23% have experienced either family devotions, 27% prayer or Bible reading in the home? have experienced a family service project? 29% have talked with mom about faith? 28% have talked with dad about faith? 13% GOOD NEWS
19. 10 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. GOOD NEWS
21. 20 In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" 21 tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. GOOD NEWS
22. RETROFIT, NOT REBUILD 2O, NOT 180O REMEMBER, NOT RE-DO GREAT NEWS
Reggie McNeal, The Present Future (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 2003), p. 4.) citing youth ministry specialist Dawson MacAlister T. C. Pinkney (Vice-President of Southern Baptist Convention) reports that 70% of teenagers involved in church youth groups stop attending church within two years of their high school graduation. (T.C. Pinkney, Report to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, Nashville, Tennessee, September 18, 2001). In another study from the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life, they found 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return. (Southern Baptist Council on Family Life report to Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, 2002, www.sbcannualmeeting.net/sbc02/newsroom/newspage.asp?ID=261) George Barna (Researcher) Revolution (Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, IL, 2005), p. 48-49)George Barna (Researcher) www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/147-most-twentysomethings-put-christianity-on-the-shelf-following-spiritually-active-teen-years
Marriage and the HomeMatthew 19 – a pronouncement is made regarding marriage, with a promiseMarriage is a fleeting institution, because it is a picture…of God’s love for his people. It will culminate in God’s eternal and intimate marriage to his Bride, the church and there will no longer be marriage. Its purpose will be accomplished. Our marriage will not be to one another…it will be to the most High. Satan knows he cannot defeat the promise of God, so he will direct his attacks relentlessly on the objects of God’s warning, the home.This can be greatly effective, however and cause great damage to his Bride and her temporal purposes because a strong home is essential to the strength of our churches…and with regard to matters of faith and many others…home is where life is making up its mind.
The Great Awakening – 3 periods of rapid and dramatic religious revival throughout the western world. Widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministersa sharp increase in interest in religiona profound sense of guilt and redemptiona jump in evangelical church membershipformation of new religious movements and denominations. Earliest of the awakenings – Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield – didn’t just want people’s intellectual engagement, they wanted a response of the heart, for salvation and life change. At the tail end of the third awakening were such notable men as Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, A. B. Simpson, and the 9 year revival in Los Angeles in the early 1900’s on Azusa Street.
Sociologists refer to the grandchildren of this generation as the Greatest Generation. They were spiritually alive, personally committed and tested. This generation had parents who fought in World War 1 and grandparents who saw the power of God. The Greatest Generation refers to those who were born roughly from 1916 to 1924. DO WE HAVE ANY GREATEST GENERATION PEOPLE HERE TODAY? This is the generation who survived the great depression as young people or parents, and fought in World War 2 (also called the G.I. Generation)Billy GrahamYouth for ChristBible Schools – from 1921 to 1947 there was a new Bible School started virtually every year in the Prairie Provinces of CanadaCampus Crusade, Navigators Church plantsChristian camps Only downfall…they were the parents of the Baby Boomers
Before the Boomers though is a quiet group who were born from 1925 to 1945 They are called the Silent Generation quiet, hardworking people who focused on getting things done and advancing their careersNo US President has come from the Silent Generation (John McCain tried)Parents of Gen X’ers
Baby Boomers 1946-1960 described variously as a "shockwave" and as "the pig in the python.“a demographic bulge which remodeled society as it passed through it. In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional valuesIn 1993, Time magazine reported on the religious affiliations of baby boomers, stating that about 42% of baby boomers were dropouts from formal religion, a third had never strayed from church, and one-fourth of boomers were returning to religious practice. The boomers returning to religion were "usually less tied to tradition and less dependable as church members than the loyalists. “ (Wikipedia)privilege - affluence
Generation X 1961 – 1981 (latest) 13th Generation and Baby Busters. In the U.S. Generation X was originally referred to as the "baby bust" generation because of the drop in the birth rate following the baby boomThe term Generation X was coined in the UK and popularized in 1952 with a study revealign Gen X’ers as a generation of teenagers who "sleep together before they are marriedwere not taught to believe in God as 'much', dislike the Queen, and don't respect parents"
