Europe and North America are moving in a progressive and increasingly secular direction. Secularization is a dominant narrative.
The rise of people who say they have no religion represents one in three teenagers, one in four adults. It's the fastest growing "religious" group in the modern western world.
For example in Canada:
...one in two Canadian teenagers never attend religious services today. One in three Canadian teenagers say they have no religion. If you want to know where a religious group is going, you look to your young people. It is very rare that people convert later on in life. It doesn't mean it's impossible and we would all think of anecdotal stories where that's happened. On the whole, you look to your young people.
Another trend pertains to Christian identification. Christianity is the lead religion in Canada. When you ask Canadians, "What religion do you identify with?" 67% of Canadians say, "Christianity." However, over the last decade this has diminished over 10 percentage points. I think the take-home point here is that Christianity is the lead religion in terms of identification, but it is waning. What does that mean for local churches then when fewer and fewer Canadians in your neighbourhoods, in your cities and your communities have even a passing reference to Christianity? A generation ago we could take for granted that people would know who Jesus was, who denied Jesus three times, all these kinds of things. There isn't that cultural memory relative to Christianity. I think that's an important trend to grapple with.
Joel is the Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University in Calgary.Follow Dr. Joel Thiessen on Twitter, his website, or The Flourishing Congregations Institute. And read his intriguing book: "The Meaning of Sunday"
The QT4CM podcast is a peer knowledge sharing initiative for personal and professional development of Christian ministry workers. Quick Tips for Christian Ministry is produced with the support of The Great Commission Foundation… to benefit those who serve in the Name of Christ.
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