The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Strategies to increase the retention of the children of members - with Al James
There are three different ways that the adult population of churches can grow:
- Adults being saved.
- Christians transferring from another congregation within your denomination of switching from another denomination.
- Children of members growing up in the church and taking on their parents faith for themselves.
Most evangelical churches - even growing churches - are underperforming in the first and third ways.
In the Sydney Anglican Church parents report that an average of only 65% of their children who grew up in church are currently professing Christ. That number hasn’t changed in ten years - despite a targeted effort to increase it to 70%.
The second way is people switching from another church within your denomination, or transferring from another denomination.
Sydney Anglican Youthworks Consultant Al James says key focuses are deep discipleship, deep connection and authentic discussions at home with parents about faith.
To watch Al James' Seminar on helping young people stick with Jesus, click this link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/b8d6fc0e
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it's the pastor's heart, dominic steel and today, the retention of the children of members. With al james there are essentially three different ways that the adult population of a church can grow. The first way we want to see conversion growth, adults being saved. The second way is the switching of people from another church, from a different denomination, or the transfer of people from within your denomination. But the third way is the children of members growing up in the faith and taking on their parents' faith for themselves. It's what we want most for our children. Al James is with me from Sydney's Anglican Youth Works and Al I take it. If we think about your pastor's heart, that is a key heartbreak for a youth pastor's heart that well, here in Sydney we've only got 65% of those in late teenagehood going on in the Christian faith and that number hasn't really budged in the last 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been stubborn, and you're right. And thinking about my kind of you know what do I want? Where's my pastor's heart? Well, the very same thing that drives me to want to see churches do well in evangelism and conversion and that kind of thing for young people and for all people is the thing that drives me to also want to see young people retain their faith, you know, lifelong, and that is I want to see people in the kingdom. I want to see them kind of come into the kingdom and then stay in the kingdom as well. You know, what breaks my heart is to see young people falling away from faith, and so what I want to see is young people retaining faith, having a long-term, a lifelong, robust, coherent faith that extends and goes until their dying days, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:What are the problems working against us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. I mean there's been lots of research, sort of both overseas and a lot of research, I guess, in the States, coming out of the States, and a little bit in the UK as well. And although it's hard to kind of bring it all together, I kind of see three big themes I guess, and the first one of those is, I guess, shallow discipleship. So when young people don't have a sense of the kind of robust, the meaningful in faith, where they don't have a coherent faith that makes sense of the world and that kind of thing that will lead to young people dropping out of faith.
Speaker 1:And are you rolling from statistics in working that out, or is this just kind of anecdote and gut feel?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, no, this is coming from big studies that we're conducting in the States looking at what resilient disciples look like.
Speaker 1:Amongst the teens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people that were in college, so reflecting back on their life, right, okay?
Speaker 1:Okay, so if we want to have deep discipleship, what do we do in the? I mean, what do I try to make sure happens in the youth groups under me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. I mean, the first thing I think is just thinking about inviting young people into a substantial faith community. So we want to be making sure that it's really clear that this group, this ministry, is about Jesus. You know that occasionally you'll sort of see a youth group where you're not sure what it's about until about halfway through when you know they have the Bible reading or whatever it is. And so I guess we want to be making sure that in our programs but more than just our programs, also kind of in the discipleship that we are engaging in we want to see that it is substantially about Jesus. It's a robust and a coherent faith. The discipleship that occurs doesn't ignore doubts or questions, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, you work as a consultant to youth groups and I take it you must have in the one side of your brain knowledge that this is a bad way to go shallow discipleship and another side you must sometimes go into groups and think I think I'm seeing what I don't want to be seeing. Go into groups and think I think I'm seeing what I don't want to be seeing.
Speaker 2:Is that right? Well, I mean, you see all sorts of things. There's a lot of good things going on in youth groups and there's room in every youth group to kind of deepen the discipleship and that kind of thing as well.
Speaker 1:So do you think we've got a?
Speaker 2:problem. I think I want to say it's broader than just a youth ministry program. I think a shallow discipleship extends into all kinds of areas as well, so it would be across the church, across the church, into the home as well.
Speaker 1:So you might have we'll just think church for a minute. The church might in the adult group say National Church Life Survey. Not much of a score in growth in faith in this church this year and then the same thing going on in the youth group. Is that what you'd expect?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we want to have an integrated approach to young people and their faith. So some of the markers that you might see of that kind of shallow discipleship might be where a young person's doubts or questions are ignored. So if you know they've raised an issue or they've come to a pastor or a youth group leader or a youth pastor or whoever it is, and they kind of say, oh, I'm really struggling with it, like is other Gospels true? What do I do about sexuality and gender, whatever it is? And where those kind of are either not engaged with at a deep level or where they're dismissed, that can lead to, I guess, a real sense of isolation for a young person. So I guess we want to be having robust discussions around these kinds of things, ensuring that young people have a coherent faith that works in the world.
Speaker 1:How do you run towards that? How do you encourage people to run towards that issue?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. I think part of that is making sure that young people have a sense of what is the Christian faith. How does that compare to the world around? So one study looked at the idea of cultural discernment, so kind of understanding what the culture of the king looks like and comparing that to the culture that is around them and being able to know the difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so what would you say I should do? Turn that into I'm a youth group leader. What are you saying for me to do?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think you're asking questions like you know, where do we see the gospel in our world, Like as things arise. You know, as questions from the culture arise, we're engaging with them and we're saying, okay, things like where do we see hope and redemption in, say, a TV show or a movie, that kind of thing? Where do we see hope and redemption in, say, a TV show or a movie, that kind of thing, when do we see hope and redemption? How does that compare to the gospel? How does the world work in this kind of this system or this TV show or whatever it is? How does the world work? What are the kind of things that this show is saying about the way the world works, and how does that compare to what the Bible says about how the world works and that kind of thing? So intentionally, kind of doing comparisons between the culture and the culture of the kingdom.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, give us that in the Marvel universe.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, I can give it to you in Star Wars, for example.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that you might see in Star Wars, for example, is that you know, like question, let's ask who or what is God? Like, what's the prime thing in Star Wars? And the obvious answer is kind of the force. Right, and what do we say about the force? Well, it's this sort of impersonal kind of impersonal, you know, know, movement, this impersonal force, that sort of is in everything and around everything and part of everything. Um, how does that compare to what the gospel says? What about about what the bible says about kind of who god is? Well, god's not impersonal, um, he's not able to be kind of manipulated for either good or evil. Actually, he has a view on what good or evil is and we are subservient to God, whereas in Star Wars they'll kind of utilise the force, in the Bible, actually, god is over all and he is ruling all, and so we're subservient to that, we submit ourselves to that.
Speaker 1:I think you were saying the next question after a lack of deep discipleship, or the next problem? After a lack of deep discipleship is relational disconnection. I guess that could mean either disconnection within the youth group or disconnection as the child is feeling part of the church as a whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And in particular I guess it's that second one, that sense of decreased sense of belonging in the bigger church, in the body of Christ and having a meaningful connection to the body of Christ.
Speaker 1:I was kicking myself on Saturday I was talking to a young woman who was we were at a wedding reception and she was one of the girls from our church and she was serving at the wedding reception and I couldn't remember her name and I thought you know, that was really bad, dominic, because she's been part of our church for a while, quite a while you know, and I mean she's come, she's been converted here, her parents aren't here and it was really important that she feel accepted and valued by me.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I was so annoyed with myself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean that is certainly one of the things that can be done in this disconnection kind of with this problem is this idea of intergenerational discipleship, where young people have a sense that there are other adults that care about their discipleship.
Speaker 2:So, you know, one of the kind of 10 years old or a little bit older than that now. The idea of the it's kind of 10 years old or a little bit older than that now that the idea of the five to one ratio, where every young person has five interested adults, people that are interested in their discipleship in a kind of deep way, and that's really significant. I think. I mean the other, the other thing that sort of is related to that is the idea of serving as well. So you know, where young people feel that they have a deep sense of being able to contribute to the life and faith of others in the church, that's really significant. So Chap Clark, who wrote Sticky Faith in 2009, he talks about the idea of contributing purpose, and so where young people really feel like they're able to make a contribution to the life and faith of others, then they're much more likely to buy into the body of Christ in a big way, and that then correlates with young people sticking with faith long term.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've got deep discipleship connection. And then the third thing is what's going on at home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. One of the things that the research kind of uncovers is where families are not kind of vibrant hubs of faith. That can be a real issue, I guess, for young people in terms of faith retention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as you look around Sydney and you think we've stuck at 65% for 10 years and it would seem from what you're arguing that they're the three levers deep discipleship, connection and what's going on at home. How are you trying to, if you like, push those inputs in order to change that output?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean in terms of parents, like just starting with that kind of the family being that vibrant hub.
Speaker 2:One of the things that the research has shown quite recently actually so 20, I think it was 2020 or 2021, christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk had a.
Speaker 2:You know they published something called Handing Down the Faith. It looked at what kind of practices led to long-term retention and the key factor in that was when religion was talked about at home and their sort of best guess as to what was going on there was that there was, it was evidence, I guess, or it was showing to the young people that there was an integrated life. So it wasn't just church on Sunday and then, you know, the rest of the time it's an irrelevance. Actually, they're kind of, in informal ways and ad hoc ways, taking up the opportunity to talk about faith and show that this is a coherent. You know this is more than just you know once a week, and you know kids were able to see, or young people were able to see, that this is a robust kind of, I guess, way of life and a really deep thing, not just a kind of shallow thing that we do once a week kind of thing. So what do you?
Speaker 1:reckon it looks like in terms of family life at home? I mean, you've talked about ad hoc conversations. What are the rhythms you want to see built into the families?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I guess I mean most people, I suspect have good moments and bad moments. Good weeks and bad weeks, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think part of what that is is the idea that parents themselves have a deep and real and coherent faith themselves, and so I think what young people are looking to see, or what young people need to see, I guess, is a consistency that you know a parent is living the life of faith in a real way, and so I think it's really easy for us to kind of go well, you've got to do your family devotions, and I want to say, yeah, absolutely Read the Bible in a formal way at home, for sure, but the thing that is most helpful is just to be talking about faith when you come home from church, rather than talking about the logistics of the day what are we going to do next? Who's coming over for lunch? Whatever? That, those kinds of things, kind of saying, you know, oh, what was, how was church today? You know, what did you think about the way in which the service leader said, whatever it is, and just sort of informally, um, one of the great quotes in um in that book was, uh, in the book by Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk was that, you know, conversations about faith very rarely started there, but they often or you know, they always ended up there, if you know what I mean. So it wasn't a kind of oh I'm going to talk about this, but being ready as a parent to kind of engage in, you know, the big things of faith and showing that it's part of life, not just a kind of isolated thing.
Speaker 2:So that's tricky for pastors and youth pastors and youth leaders, because there's often a disconnect between parents and between youth ministries and children's ministries and the home. And actually I think what this kind of research is showing, that maybe we need to bring the two together a little bit more. There should be a bit more of a connection between the two. How would you see that? Well, I think first of all where parents and youth leaders know each other, you know that's not always the case.
Speaker 2:I think youth leaders are a bit afraid of parents and sometimes parents are a little bit afraid of youth leaders as well. And I want to say, you know, smile and say hello, that's a really good start. But kind of keep that connection going and making sure because we want parents to be engaged in the ministry, not kind of off to the side, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I mean the youth leader is going to be generally significantly younger than the parent. And so I mean at one level, how does the youth leader influence the parent while not, I don't know, being Without seeming like they're kind of overreaching in a sense, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean my number one suggestion in that is where a youth leader asks you know a parent? Hey, is there anything I can pray for you? Because what that's doing is actually just, it might be on an email, might be a text message, whatever Can I be praying for you and your family? It's not kind of teaching anything about faith or about parenting or that kind of thing, but it's raising the issue of faith and it's asking for feedback and it's a meaningful thing to do, and so it just establishes that connection on a, I guess, on a faith basis and on a discipleship basis, and that's a really easy thing that can be done.
Speaker 1:And if the youth leader is younger than the parent what can I, as the senior minister, be doing to encourage the parent in these practices?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think it is a tricky one because parents again, they can kind of be disconnected. But I guess, as a senior leader, you want to be kind of, you want to be spruiking the vision that you know that youth ministry is. It's not just a thing we do off to the side. We're actually partnering with parents in the way in which this discipleship occurs. The ministry is the ministry of the parent in the most kind of significant sense. So is the ministry of the parent in the most kind of significant sense. So you know, the research bears out that parents are the most influential on the faith of their children, and so we don't want to be kind of siloing, we actually want to be saying to parents you know what this is, your ministry, we want to help you in any way we can. And so where you're kind of spruiking the vision that this is a partnership ministry rather than just a thing that is outsourced by the parents to youth leaders, Okay, you mentioned five to one ratio and you kind of just plonked that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the story there, and is that from research, or is that from an anecdote, or what's going on there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Chap Clark and Kyra Powell they wrote Sticky Faith, I think it was 2009.
Speaker 2:And in their research they sort of said there's no silver bullet to young people sticking with faith long term.
Speaker 2:But if there was silver shavings it would be intergenerational discipleship and young people serving. And so with that intergenerational discipleship, that is, according to their research, the number one correlation to long-term faith. And so when they talk about the five-to-one ratio, that's kind of putting flesh on the bones of the idea of intergenerational discipleship. So young people having, you know, it doesn't really matter the number, but having a number of interested adults, adults that are interested in the discipleship, a range of kind of ages and stages, that kind of thing, but where the young person knows that there are people in the body of Christ, in this faith community that care about my discipleship, it correlates with long-term faith retention. They're brought into the body of Christ, they're kind of recognised as a valued member. And so you know you talked about a moment ago forgetting the name of where they're known. You know their name is known that's a really significant thing for a young person. And so, yeah, that five-to-one ratio is just putting flesh on the bones of the intergenerational discipleship idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I made a note that next time I see her. I'm going to make an effort to have a proper conversation with her and show her that I've remembered her name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I guess also valuing the contribution that she's making and all that kind of thing as well. I guess it's a package altogether.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Your next one, I think, was making sending a key metric in the youth ministry. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I guess what I mean by sending as a key metric in the youth ministry is, I guess we measure the things that we value and we wouldn't want to kind of see youth ministry as a thing that kind of.
Speaker 2:Is this ministry as a thing that kind of, you know, is this little bubble and is, you know, isolated and then we send them out into something else? But the idea of kind of going, we care about the retention of faith of young people long-term. So what can we do to kind of, you know, pay attention to that and kind of say, okay, well, you've been part of this youth ministry, which is an integrated part of the church ministry as well. How can we, you know, how can we pay attention to the idea that we want these young people to be kind of whatever is next for them, you know, and that next might, you know, happen while they're still in youth ministry, but making sure that we're sending young people onto a robust and a coherent and a lifelong faith. So I guess I'm just sort of saying let's pay attention to that.
Speaker 1:So you're saying, count the number of people who land out of youth ministry into the young adult ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean not necessarily the young adult ministry. It depends on the church. You know like not every church has specific ministries, but is landing in a deep sense as part of the body of Christ and is, you know, a valued member and a contributing member of the body of Christ, If I count it, I'll work out that actually we've done better or worse than we did last year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean the stats that we are bouncing off here in terms of retention of faith. In the Sydney Diocese we're actually measuring the retention of kids from Christian families in faith.
Speaker 1:We don't really. That's because the question in the National Church Life Survey is what percentage of your kids are. So it's a question asked of parents. Yes, we're not asking who are attending that church.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because we can't ask well, did you leave? Because they're not filling in the survey, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, I guess in that sense us paying attention to, you know, the young people, whether they're from Christian families or whether they've come into the ministry, come into faith kind of not from a Christian family. Let's pay attention to that as well. Come into faith kind of not from a Christian family let's pay attention to that as well.
Speaker 1:What else have you got in terms of correlations between, if you like, the DNA of the youth ministry and I'm particularly thinking from the National Church Life Survey and children going on to substantial faith?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so interestingly, I mean we talked about the idea of shallow faith discipleship being a kind of a problem in faith retention. I guess our strongest correlations when it comes to practices and characteristics of youth ministry and children's ministry is when young people were displaying a deep theological understanding. So the strongest correlation I think the first or second of the strongest correlation was when young people have an understanding of the fatherhood of God. There were other things like have an understanding of the resurrection of death and resurrection of Christ or our own resurrection, a whole bunch of different, I guess, variables that were related to theological understanding. So where a youth or children's ministry could kind of recognise in their kids that there was a display of, I guess, a deeper theological understanding, those were the churches that typically saw retention of faith as a higher metric.
Speaker 2:So you would say their syllabus is more serious about the scriptures or yeah, I mean I'm not sure that I would necessarily the research doesn't get behind exactly what's going in terms of the syllabus, but I guess it's recognising a display of that understanding in the young people themselves. Okay, so a youth or a kids minister is noting down, I reckon our kids in our ministry have an understanding of X, y, z, and so I guess what that's pointing to is that through the whole integrated kind of system, both in youth ministry practices and kids ministry practices, but also in the home and that kind of thing, the whole ecosystem I guess is producing kids that have a deeper, more robust understanding of faith.
Speaker 1:What about kids reading the Bible at home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, that was so. This is. You know, I guess in a. You know there were a bunch of variables that were kind of responses, you know, I guess displayed responses, actions, that kind of thing. And so kids reading the Bible at home, kids praying at home, you know there was a strong correlation between that and retention of faith.
Speaker 1:What is the one thing you'd want youth ministers to do differently?
Speaker 2:I think we see young people more likely to retain their faith long term when they are valued, when they're taken seriously, when their contribution to the life and faith of others is taken seriously, where they're given opportunity, I guess, to just in a really holistic way, take part in the body of Christ. And so I would love to see youth ministries, children's ministry, giving young people opportunities that might look like opportunities to serve. It might look like you know the five to one ratio, you know their names being known, that kind of thing when young people can really meaningfully embed themselves in the body of Christ through service, through intergenerational discipleship, through that kind of display where they see integrated faith, you know. So, where their doubts and their questions are taken seriously, they're more likely to retain faith long term. So I guess if there was one thing, it would be to take young people seriously as a ministry of the church. Yeah, to take young people seriously as a ministry of the church.
Speaker 1:Al James, thanks for coming in.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Dominic.
Speaker 1:My guest on the Pastor's Heart, Al James. He's a consultant with YouthWorks, Anglican YouthWorks, here in Sydney. My name is Dominic Steele and we'll look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon on the Pastor's Heart.
