Sugar high over? Younginz going high church?

[1still_waters]

Young Evangelicals Are Getting High � THE CHRISTIAN PUNDIT


The sugar high of seeker sensitive, coffee shops, movie clips, fog machines, purpose driven, paper thin Christianity may be coming to an end.


Apparently younger Evangelicals who attend non-denominational, trendy type churches are flocking in droves to what is called high church.


It's a mixed bag of good news and bad news.


Good news because they want more, and they want away from shallow seeker sensitive tactics that rely on coffee shops, movie clips and smoke machines.

Ten or fifteen years ago, it was American evangelical congregations that seemed cutting edge. They had the bands, the coolest youth pastor, professional babysitting for every women’s Bible study, and a church library full of Christian novels. But now, to kids who grew up in that context, it seems a bit dated or disconnected—the same kind of feeling that a 90′s movie gives them. Not that it’s not a church; it’s just feels to them the way that 50′s worship felt to their parents. So they leave. If they don’t walk away from Christianity completely, they head to Rome or something similar.
In a way, it’s hard to understand. Why would you trade your jeans, fair-trade coffee, a Bible and some Getty songs for formal “church clothes”, fasting, a Bible and a priest? It makes no sense to want to kneel on a stone floor instead of sit in a comfy chair. And if you’re hearing about Jesus anyway, why does it really matter?

Bad news because some are going Roman Catholic and liberal Anglican.


Other good news..

But not all kids who grew up in American evangelicalism are jumping off into high church rite and sacrament: congregations that carefully teach robust, historic Protestant theology to their children are notably not losing them to the Vatican, or even Lambeth. Protestant churches that recognize their own ecclesiastical and theological heritage, training their children to value and continue it in a 21st century setting, usually retain their youth. These kids have the tools they need to think biblically through the deep and difficult issues of the day and articulate their position without having a crisis of faith. They know the headlines, church history, theology and their Bibles, and so are equipped to engage culture in a winsome, accessible way. T

 

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