1. The Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate
The first Mega-Theme sited in the research is unfortunately not that surprising but possibly the most alarming. To speak to someone in a typical church gathering on Sunday and you will find this to be the case. The scary part is the trend: this is declining in literacy, causing the next generation, if trends continue, to be even less theological literate than today. But what has gotten us to this point?
I must state that I do not believe this to be a flaw in intentions. I do believe the previous generation of church leaders have desired their people to understand texts of Scripture and be able to apply it to their lives. But I believe the reason for our current state is three fold:
1) We teach the Head, not the Heart
Stemming from the Enlightenment was the concept that to attain the knowledge of something cognitively would result in changing of habits. The idea then leads to classroom settings where students are taught information about a subject rather than the apprenticeship model of previous generations. The assumption is made that when someone knows, they automatically do. The church's discipleship structure has looked like this for the previous few generations (Sunday School, Seminars, Classes, etc). However, this simply doesn't turn into action, and Scripture is best understood within a framework of action.
2) We focus on the How, not the why
As a pastor who speaks on a weekly basis, I have always found the statistic that within 72 hours of your message only about 10% of what you said is remembered. So much time and energy is put into this 30-45 minutes, yet it yields unfruitful results. During this time, you find many people finding exactly three points within a portion of Scripture (see, I even did it within this blog!). And typically these three points all have to do with how I am to act. Don't hear me wrong, I believe very strongly that what we believe will result in life change and action, however I see that the focus of our preaching/teaching has been how we are supposed to act (leaning towards Moralism) rather than Who God Is and how that effect us. It's as if unintentionally we have created a religious system that once you do 1-2-3 you will have attained perfection in that compartmentalized area and you can move on to the next, resulting in a people that is so focused on HOW to Act rather than WHY we act.
Recently I have been taught a concept that has transformed how I look at Scripture application. It is a four-fold approach: Who God Is, What God does (through person and work of Jesus), Who I Am (in Christ) and How I am to act. The focus of this is not action, but identity. God does not act outside of who he is (put another way, Who God is Determines How God Acts), and the same is true of us (Who I am In Christ determines how I am to Act). Rather than focusing on the why, I am now focusing on WHO God is and Who I am in Christ. Once someone grasps that this is who they are rather than this is how they are supposed to act, actions will be a natural outgrowth. This is the WHY.
3) We still act within the Modern Paradigm
Along with the first idea of teaching the head goes the concept of teaching points rather than story. Caesar Kalinowski of Soma Communities does an amazing job of explaining this in the video posted HERE . To summarize if you don't have time, most of what we learn is based off of Stories (think of your family heritage, how you share a vacation). In these situations, you don't take out an outline and share the three greatest things, but you tell stories and the stories are the connections that help you understand your frame of reference. If you look at Scripture, the VAST majority is in Story (Pentateuch, Historical Books, some of the Poetic books, Prophetic Books, and Gospels). We have gone away from this and relied on teaching Scripture primarily systematically. Again, there is nothing wrong with doing this, but if it is our primary focus, then we have misplaced priorities. Scripture is best understood within the the Greater Story frame of reference. If you have not seen this already, watch this YouTube Video of a 11 year old sharing how Jesus is in all of Scripture, and ALL of it points towards HIM. This greater story of Scripture is the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus, and seeing it with this lens will result in much more theological understanding.
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