Articles for tag: Relevance

October 19, 2018

Christian Standard

How the Baby Boomers Introduced One of the Gravest Spiritual Dangers of Our Era

By Haydn Shaw The traditionalists (those born before 1945) were loyal to the churches they grew up in—or at least, if relocating, they were loyal to their denomination. Certainly some traditionalists left one church for another when they became upset, but they were the last generation to largely stay put within the same church. The boomers (born 1946–64) introduced church hopping and it has stunted spiritual growth as much as anything the past 50 years. I realize this is a bold claim, so let me back up and explain two things that have changed and how they led to church

March 31, 2018

Christian Standard

How Easter Got Hacked

Why the Good News of the Death, Burial, and Resurrection Is More Relevant Than Ever   By Haydn Shaw Malware can mess up your life by allowing hackers free access to your computer. That’s exactly what has happened to Christianity; it’s being replaced by something that looks similar to Christianity but without the power of Easter. It wasn’t until sociologist Christian Smith and his team talked to teenagers that it became obvious how badly Christianity had been hacked. As detailed in his book Soul Searching (2005), Smith and his team interviewed more than 3,000 millennials, ages 13 to 18, to

February 16, 2018

Jerry Harris

The Dot.

By Jerry Harris Whether it happens intentionally or accidentally, every church fashions a product that is more effective with at least one subset of people. Every church has a target. It may not be a deliberate target, as traditions tend to take on lives of their own, but it’s there just the same. Consider the style of your music and worship. Who is attracted to it? Scan the church budget. Who gets the most money? Study the use of the building. Who gets the most space? Assess the style of the building and its furniture. Is it antique? Do the

January 14, 2018

Christian Standard

What We Can Learn from Traditionalists about Money

By Haydn Shaw People now live 30 years longer than they once did. In 1900 the average life span was 48; today it’s 78. But as people live longer—for which we’re all grateful—it presents new challenges that previous eras didn’t face. In previous eras, there were only three generations. The oldest generation had the money and made the decisions, and the younger generation of adults raised the children and did what the older generation asked them to until their parents died, and then their turn came to be in control. Changes in families and churches came slowly and naturally, with

September 8, 2017

Christian Standard

If We Want to Reach Millennials, We Must Think Like Veronica

By Haydn Shaw My writing collaborator and I put together most of my book Generational IQ while occupying a corner table at a local Smashburger restaurant. We spent so much time there that the entire staff got to know us. One afternoon, the manager, Veronica, asked how the book was coming along. She said she reads business books, so we talked about my first book, Sticking Points. When I told her Generational IQ was a look at the spiritual lives of the generations, she lit up and told us her grandmother was a devout Catholic. Her mother had been raised

February 17, 2016

Christian Standard

The Limits of Relevance

By Jim Tune Relevance is a good thing. Relevance is about trying to communicate the gospel in an understandable way to a particular culture. It”s absolutely essential if we are going to reach people who don”t know Jesus. But relevance has its limits. In his new book Disappearing Church, Mark Sayers describes three cultures. The first is pre-Christian. The second is a culture that”s shaped by Judeo-Christian values. The third is post-Christian. To communicate the gospel to the first culture (pre-Christian), we need to find relevant ways to speak the gospel. The same also applies when we speak into the

September 7, 2015

Christian Standard

Baker Knew Speaker Choice Was Unconventional

By Darrel Rowland “I did not set out to do radical stuff,” says this year”s NACC president, Mike Baker. But he knew “it was going to be a bit of a risk to our tradition” to schedule a woman to preach at a main session, for one of the very few times in convention history. “There”s two things about me,” Baker said. “I”m an old-school Christian churcher, so I know full well that both my dad and my grandfather, who have passed on, would not approve of me having a woman speaker. But I”m also a word guy, and I”m

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