LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Research Paper Final
Submitted to Dr. Dan Burrell
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
DSMN 610 – B01
Family Discipleship
by
Brian Mclaughlin
June 30th, 2019
i
Thesis Statement
In this paper will be the concentration of locating and researching of the concerning
falling away of the youth in Jesus Christ. It will debate on whether the overview of discipleship
in the family is the reason, or that the church is what is causing the decline. Then shifting to the
decline of the youth walking away from Jesus Christ.
Introduction
In modern days, the way people look at church has greatly changed compared to times
when the Bible was so much of a priority that it had to be taught in schools. Yet, even though that
there has been a turn around to move away from the church from the youth, there is an
interchangeable way that young people see their ‘spiritual’ side of things now. The way
Christianity is viewed now, is counter-cultural to the accepted modern views. The interesting
topic at hand is showing opposites of declining youth attendance is giving rise to worldly
spiritual attendance instead. Regrettably, too many churches are not ready for the correct way to
be apologetic in their gospel teachings. When this occurs, the church is overreactive to try and
fix the issue or, they try too hard to modernize their church where it should have never been done
in the first place. The results of this are almost epidemic as it reveals how the people who lead
the church have no regard of their need for growth spiritually and even worse, put off God’s
command of the Great Commission to baptize and teach all as commanded by Christ in
(Matthew 28:18-20).1
Youth often feel the pull to gravitate towards something or someone that is of a higher
power. It is the priority of the parents to prevail over their curiosity by pointing their children to
Jesus Christ. The truth is many of these young children are not just abandoning church, they are
leaving Christianity as a whole, at an alarming rate. The need for the leadership in the church and
parents to fix this issue is now. This paper will attempt to convey the identification and test the
issues at hand of the overwhelming fall of the youth in Christ and will debate the need to begin
with proper Bible teaching. Growing up them to be disciples of Jesus in their homes first, then
1 Unless otherwise noted, all scripture passages are taken from the English Standard Version.
church, with the intent to turn around what has meant for harm to them. Then leading down the
path of righteousness shaping their worldview to be Godly instead.
The Change in Young Adults
What a young person goes through in life, greatly influences the way they behave later as
adults. In reality, their worldview is being shaped daily by the choices that are made good or bad
right in their home, and it affects everything on how they view life. There is a constant battle, or
tug-of-war of their souls taking place in the spiritual realm. They have to go through and deal
with all of the pressures of life that increase with a violent speed of intensity the older they get.
As it is, the life of a young person is difficult enough. They transition from teenager to
young adult and face constant struggles that their parents never had to face as much. However, a
Christian young person has to deal with ridicule and persecution even more so in the postmodern
culture that we live in today. Youth will hear scripture that challenges them but, it also should
encourage them. The truth though is that they can easily be consumed by their ‘toys’ or things
they see other kids their age has, that their parents do not give to them. But the scriptures that are
taught still need to be adhered to. Such as this one, “4 You adulterous people![a] Do you not know
that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of
the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4). Crossing over from youth to adult can
be interesting and exciting but, it would be unfair to think that they will easily cross from one
part of life to the next without issues. Youth have differing opinions of church goers as well.
Some are fed wrong information and leave them to believe church is something that is not. For
example, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in their book UnChristian… correlate how young
people see church with this statement, “…young people’s perceptions, we encountered a great
deal of confusion. For instance, many outsiders thought born-again Christians were former
believers who had left the church and subsequently returned, hence born again. Evangelicals
were often thought to be Christians who are political activists. But beyond misunderstanding the
terms, most young outsiders pay little attention to the specific theological perspectives…”2
Another example from their book is when the church shuns them for asking a deep, probing
question that could help them believe more in Jesus, “You can biblically defend the fact that
Christians should be against homosexuality; then you interview a young person who describes
how her experience in churches led her to believe that Christians have absolutely no compassion
or answers for her gay friend.”3
Parents and leaders in the church live under the false assumption that young people
understand what being an adult is like. Sue Roffey in her book School Behavior and Families…
explains how parents are the role models and how it affects their children in school too, “Parents’
own parenting experiences and expectations of both their own role and their children’s behaviour
are influential factors in home-school interactions. There were clearly differences between
families on these constructs of their parental role, particularly in the varying emphases on
functions.”4 The ways that young people are handling issues today are a direct result of the way
they are shown to handle issues by their parents. They are the biggest influence in a young
person’s life.
Moral Individualism
2 David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons 2007. UnChristian : What a New Generation Really Thinks about
Christianity... and Why It Matters. Grand Rapids: Baker Books. Accessed June 14, 2019. ProQuest Ebook
Central.18.
3 Ibid, 30.
4 Roffey, Sue. School Behaviour and Families: Frameworks for Working Together. London;New York;:
Routledge, 2002;2013.43.
The morals that young people have today are completely different from past generations.
What they experience Christian Smith, author of Lost in Transition, conducted a survey about a
young adult’s approach to morality and six out of ten emerging adults expressed the belief that
“moral rights and wrongs are essentially matters of individual opinion” and one “should not be
judged by anyone else.”5 A variety of young people choose their own personal code of morality
depending on their life circumstances at the time, which could be slightly impacted by parents,
teachers, friends, social media, or religion.
The idea of guessing what is morally right or not seems too difficult a task for young
people, positions Smith. “A strong theme among these moral individualists, is a belief that it is
wrong for people to morally judge other people.” The group of young adults that were
interviewed for Smith’s study believe that there is so much change occurring in a young person’s
life, one cannot possibly know how to navigate the transition flawlessly; moreover, they argue
that the desire to be authentic with peers often clashes with the need to point out another’s moral
success or failure.6 The overall expression is that moral judgement from others about their
changing lifestyle is synonymous with domination and control, which they believe “violates
other people’s dignity and rights” leading them to abandon moral institutions like church.
5 Christian Smith, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, 4.
6 Ibid., 6.
Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
The Change in Young Adults ……….............................................................................. 2
Moral Individualism …….................................................................................................. 3
Decline in Church Participation ................................................................................................. 4
Profile of People Who Do Attend ...................................................................................... 4
Reasons for Decline of Young Adults ................................................................................ 5
Trends in Belief Systems ………................................................................................................. 6
Rejection of Traditional Beliefs ………….......................................................................... 7
Modern Spiritual Practices of Young Adults ……............................................................... 9
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 10
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 1
Bibliography
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Passed Down across Generations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Borcherdt, Bill. Making Families Work and what to do when they Don't: Thirty Guides for
Imperfect Parents of Imperfect Children. New York: Haworth Press, 1996.
Brodzinsky, David M., Daniel W. Smith and Anne B. Brodzinsky. Children's Adjustment to
Adoption: Developmental and Clinical Issues. 38 vols. Developmental Clinical
Psychology and Psychiatry Series. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1998.
Gandolfo, Anita. Faith and Fiction: Christian Literature in America Today. Vol. 1. Westport,
Conn: Praeger Publishers, 2007.
Kinnaman, David, and Lyons, Gabe. 2007. UnChristian : What a New Generation Really Thinks
about Christianity... and Why It Matters. Grand Rapids: Baker Books. Accessed June 14,
2019. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Peters, Shawn Francis. When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008.
Roffey, Sue. School Behaviour and Families: Frameworks for Working Together. London;New
York;: Routledge, 2002;2013
Tripp, Tedd, and Margy Tripp. Instructing a Child’s Heart. Wapwallopen: Shepherd Press. 2008.
Tripp, Tedd. Shepherding a Child’s Heart. Wapwallopen: Shepherd Press. 1998
Wray, Bruce, and Lynn Wray. Charting a Course for Your Family’s Future – A Purposeful Guide
to Parenting. 2013.
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