Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, as I travel around the world, the biggest concern on Christians' minds today is their kids and their grandkids. Many of them have already left the church; others are in the process of questioning or deconstructing their faith. Today, we're going to begin talking about how to reach this lost generation with the undeniable truth of the Gospel. Stay with us. There is hope.

Dave Druey: I'm Dave Druey, and this is Living on the Edge. Our regular Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, is stepping aside today for a good friend of his, guest teacher Aaron Pierce. Aaron leads a global ministry called Steiger International, spending decades reaching secular, non-religious young people all over the world with the Gospel.

This week, he's helping Chip kick off a series called Caring Enough to Connect: Building Bridges to Those We Love. Today, we're unpacking just how much our culture has changed and why the next generation you love is not beyond God's reach. Now, here's our guest teacher, Aaron Pierce, with a message titled Understanding the Secular Culture.

Aaron Pierce: How do we engage secular young people in particular who would not walk into a church? I want to start by sharing a story about a girl called Sarah. Sarah was wearing this rainbow-colored resist T-shirt with an equal sign on it. She was at a pro-choice rally with her friends Charlie and Anne. Each of them identified as gender non-binary or non-conforming fluid, and they're active in a local drag queen scene.

That sounds crazy and out there, but here's the thing to understand: those that identify as LGBTQ are exploding in growth, especially among younger generations. It is 20.8 percent, one in five. That is up from 10 percent for Millennials. It's growing, and there's a bunch of reasons for that, which is something we'll talk about when we get to that topic.

The atmosphere in this story was super intense, as you might imagine. You've got this protest atmosphere, and of course, there's the pro-life group that's there, and angry shouts are being exchanged between these two groups. Our team was there. Of course, each of them had a pro-life view, but they were there to build redemptive relationships. They had a sign that would spark a conversation with people. They walked around, prayed, and asked the Lord to show them who to connect with. They found a group of people sitting down, brought their sign, and began to ask them questions.

As they were doing that, they realized that behind the anger and the hostility, there was a lot of hurt and pain. Each of these three people, Sarah, Anne, and Charlie, shared vulnerable, raw, and deeply personal stories of pain they had experienced growing up. It was amazing how open they were, and a lot of their pain related back to experiences they had with the church.

Beneath their seemingly intense moral convictions, it was clear they were actually very confused and broken. They were longing for deep relational connection and belonging. As the conversation progressed, Felipe and his team began to share that their pain actually mattered. As a follower of Jesus, Felipe believed the answer to our problems was not political, but spiritual.

He explained that God was not indifferent to our suffering. A lot of people have this view that if God does exist, he's indifferent. He explained that God is not indifferent to our suffering and that Jesus' death on the cross was proof of that. At the end of the conversation, they were able to pray with these three people. They were visibly moved and eagerly exchanged contact information and have stayed in contact since then.

There are millions of people like Sarah, Charlie, and Anne in the US today. Over the last few decades, we have experienced a profound cultural shift. Despite all its flaws and hypocrisy, for generations, the US was a Christian nation. As recently as 1990, 86 percent of Americans identified as Christian. Of course, they weren't all committed followers of Jesus. Many of them showed up to church only on Easter and Christmas, and they lived lives that were inconsistent with their Christian beliefs.

Still, they viewed Christianity positively. The church was the center of social life. The Bible was a good moral guide. The president was prayed over by a pastor in every inauguration. Christian ethics of sexuality were broadly accepted. These were the people that would attend evangelistic rallies made famous by Billy Graham, Luis Palau, and others. They would draw on favorable views of the church. These preachers could fill stadiums and make arguments using the Bible as an authority.

Times have changed. We now live in a post-Christian culture, and many people have walked away from the church. If you were to take a look at the church and how people view the church today, you're going to see it play out in a few ways. On one side, you have committed followers of Jesus who strive to live their lives in alignment with the Bible. Next, you have people who have a positive view of the church. They see the Bible as a moral guide, but it's often detached from a personal relationship with God.

As we move along the spectrum, you have those who are apathetic. Here, people are not consciously rejecting God; they just don't think about him. Finally, we have those who have a negative or even hostile view of the church. They see the church as a symbol of repression and bigotry. Unfortunately, more and more Americans are moving to the right side of the spectrum, having an apathetic view of the church. That's what we've seen in the last 30 years, especially among the Millennial and Gen Z generations.

We've seen a shift. The challenge for us in the church is that the majority of our efforts to reach people have been geared towards the nominal. That means we use a "come and see and bring your friend" style of evangelism to a church event. Those aren't necessarily bad things to do because they connect well with people on that side of the spectrum. The challenge is that it's a diminishing group. We need to go after those on the right side, and it takes an entirely different paradigm shift to do it.

This is not just a trend or a statistic. This is not just an idea out there. This is deeply personal for many of us because these are our sons and daughters, our grandkids, our friends, and people that we work with. How can we respond to this post-Christian shift? Part of that is we need to understand the culture that we're in and continue to look at it from different ways.

Another way to look at it is from a Christian's spectrum and how it progresses. This is what's happening a lot in our culture. You start with people that have convictional Christianity. They are following Jesus and fully aligning their lives to it. Then you have cultural Christians, people that just have a nominal view of it. They have a positive view, but it doesn't affect their lives.

Then you have progressive Christians, people that still identify as Christian but no longer hold to the authority of the Bible and begin to basically shape their faith according to how they want to see reality. Then you've got post-Christian, which is the natural shift that happens once someone engages in progressive Christianity. They take away the power and eventually move to post-Christian.

Finally, you have non-Christian, which is actually someone that hasn't rejected the church. They don't even really know about it. What's interesting is more and more young people in our country today actually fit in the non-Christian category because it was their parents that rejected the church, and so they essentially grew up in a non-Christian home. When you're engaging people out in the world, you actually find that they fit in one of these categories, and the way you engage them is different. Often, what you find is the progressive and the post-Christian are the most hostile and the hardest to reach because of the baggage that they bring to the table.

We have to take a new approach because the truth is people are actually quite hungry and open, but we can't take the same approach that we did in the past. Essentially, if we're going to engage this generation, if we're going to engage this culture, we've got to become like cross-cultural missionaries in our own city to our own people. That's the way we've got to approach engaging this culture.

If I were called to be a missionary in China, I would learn the language of the place I'm going to. I would learn the culture, the history, the philosophies, and the influences. I would understand the felt needs of the Chinese people, and I would figure out how to contextualize the Gospel in a way that they can understand. That's what I would do if I engaged in classic cross-cultural missions. The same principle applies today if we're going to reach a post-Christian culture.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with guest teacher Aaron Pierce. We'll get back to the message in just a moment, but first, have you checked out the Living on the Edge YouTube channel? It's not just audio; it's a chance to actually sit down and watch Chip teach on his own schedule of series covering marriage, parenting, leadership, and more. New videos post every week, so there's always something fresh waiting for you. If you learn better by watching or you just want to put a face to the voice, search Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram on YouTube and hit subscribe. Now back to today's lesson.

Aaron Pierce: That's what we want to talk about: how do we adopt a missionary mindset when we're engaging post-Christian cultures? First of all, in order to effectively communicate the Gospel to a post-Christian culture, we need to understand three key realities. The first is that secular people have become suspicious of religious institutions and are far less likely to walk into a church.

Trust and confidence in organized religion have plummeted in the last few decades. That affects the way that we engage culture. In fact, one of the key ways it affects is that when we're out in the world engaging culture, whether it's in an intentional outreach or just organically through our relationships, we don't actually want to be a representative of our church. We want to be a follower of Jesus. The fact is, if I'm a representative of my church, that's putting up an extra barrier when I'm communicating because now I'm talking about institutional religion versus just following Jesus.

The second key reality is that secular people today do not have the same assumptions as previous generations. They don't have the same assumptions about morality, truth, the authority of the Bible, or the existence and nature of God. For example, if I would go to the University of Minnesota and ask a random, average secular university student, "If you were to die today and stand before God in heaven and he were to judge your life, would he let you in?" I've just presupposed a whole bunch of things that the average secular young person doesn't hold to be true.

We have to recognize that secular people don't have the same assumptions from which we build. We're going to talk about how we communicate effectively, and the key principle in communication is understanding people's assumptions. The assumptions are not the same today as they were in previous generations.

The third key reality that we need to understand is that, despite all of this, secular people are open to spirituality. While many people no longer hold to a biblical worldview, most are not cold atheists, either. They believe in some form of spirituality, even if it's vague and undefined. To give an example of this, we did a series of focus groups with secular young people, and this is one of the quotes from one of the young women in her early 20s. When we discussed spirituality, this was one of her quotes:

"I'm agnostic, so I don't know. But when I personally think about my own experiences of spirituality, it's a feeling for me. Maybe it's not a being or a person, probably not. But I think that there are human experiences when you feel it, like when you hold a newborn baby. It's common experiences and they're ordinary and really simple, but I think there's energy. Yeah, like there's a force that lives."

This is a really interesting quote to me because it perfectly illustrates that idea of being drawn to something spiritual even as we reject the religious and the institutional version of that. People in this culture are very into meditation and Eastern religious ideas, and a lot of that is because it's spirituality without accountability. You get spirituality without the authority over me. That's a key thing to understand.

All of these key realities are important because if we're going to be good missionaries to our culture, we need to understand the context that we're in and what's shaping and influencing the culture as well. The post-Christian shift that we've experienced in our culture can be traced all the way back to philosophers of the Enlightenment, but it's actually been exploded into mainstream culture through the global youth culture. That is really what shaped and taken it into the mainstream.

We live in a time of unprecedented connectedness, where through mass media, the internet, and all sorts of other ways, we are connected like never before. You have this global youth culture where young people all over the planet are influenced by similar voices. They're playing the same video games, they're listening to the same music, and they're following the same social media influencers. They're connected in similar ways like never before. They're similar on superficial things like fashion and music trends, but they're also similar on deeper things like worldview, morality, and lifestyle. You have this global culture that is incredibly connected, and it's shaping the way that young people all over the planet see the world.

If you were to take a look at these kids and, based on how they look, try to guess where they're from, they look like they could be at a coffee shop down the road. The truth is they're from Beirut, Lebanon, in the heart of the Middle East. You have this global youth culture that is shaping the way people view the world. What are the influences of the global youth culture? There's basically four key influences.

First is the entertainment industry. Music, film, theater, and even sports to some degree. The idea here is that we're not just entertaining; we're shaping a worldview. We're presenting a way of looking at the world and a moral framework. You see that being pushed through the entertainment industry.

Then you've got internet stars, people that are on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, producing content and connecting with audiences all over the world in a massive way. It's incredible the kind of influence that these people are having, and it's unfiltered because there's no corporation, there's no intermediary between the creators and their audience. It's an incredible influence that we have through these internet stars.

Then you've got video games, which is massive, bigger than Hollywood. The average 21-year-old male has spent 10,000 hours playing video games, which is the same amount of time that you need to master a fine art. It's an incredible amount of time being spent in video games. It's where we find our community, our identity, and our sense of accomplishment. You have this incredible influence of video games.

Finally, you've got pornography, which is so common and so pervasive. It's not even something to be ashamed of. People talk openly about pornography, where there's a belief that there's no consequence to viewing pornography, and it comes to a view that sexuality is just a personal pursuit of happiness and pornography is harmless. This is literally rewiring our brains and distorting our view of love, sexuality, and relationships. All of these things come together to influence and shape a worldview.

What's really driving and shaping our culture is the cultural influencers: the artists, the poets, and the philosophers that are shaping the worldview. What are the philosophical pillars? First one is secularism. The idea here is that people are not necessarily atheist; they just believe that faith is private. You can believe whatever you want to believe so long as you don't push that on other people. That's the secular mindset. Faith is private; faith is not something to be brought out into the public.

Of course, that naturally leads to relativism, that there is no absolute moral truth, that morality is about preference. You have your favorites, and I have mine. It's like an ice cream flavor. You have this relativistic mindset, and then that leads to the idea and the value of acceptance. Tolerance is not enough; you must affirm. It's based on the idea of being open-minded, and it's based on this authenticity and inclusion, but it's a paradox because basically it's inclusion for all except the exclusive.

That's the paradox that we find ourselves in where to tolerate someone and to love someone is not enough. We must actually affirm the way that they live their life. That is the message that you're going to hear in the global youth culture. What's interesting is all of these things in some way are just a twist on biblical truth. A lot of these things find their grounding truth and then they're twisted.

In the post-Christian culture that we live in, we're still very much influenced by a biblical worldview, even if we've divorced ourselves from that. The fight for justice, even if it's twisted—even those that are pro-choice—it's based on a framework of morality for them of protecting women. It's a moral framework that they're drawing on, and that moral framework ultimately comes from a biblical worldview, which is there is a transcendent moral framework.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with guest teacher Aaron Pierce and a message titled Understanding the Secular Culture, the first part of a series called Caring Enough to Connect: Building Bridges to Those We Love. If you missed any part of today's message, you can catch up online at livingontheedge.org.

Reaching the next generation starts with becoming a missionary right where we live. That's why we want you to get the Not Beyond Reach participant's guide, a 10-week video-based study built around Aaron's ministry, walking you and your group through how to start spiritual conversations and navigate hard topics with grace. Right now, we're offering it at a discounted price, so get yours today at livingontheedge.org/offers.

Somewhere in your own life, perhaps in your own family, there's someone who feels like they're beyond reach. Reaching them takes clear, solid teaching like what we heard today, going out across airwaves and multimedia week after week. That only happens because listeners like you decide it's worth supporting. You can easily give a generous one-time gift today or set up a recurring donation by going online to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. You can also send your gift by mail to Living on the Edge, P.O. Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. Now here's Chip Ingram with a few thoughts of his own on what Aaron shared with us today.

Chip Ingram: Thanks, Dave. I just want to pause and have just a couple what I think are important comments about something that Aaron said in his message. His key point was what has shaped the youth and actually the culture globally. They just have a different lens. They see life so completely differently. When I talk to friends that are my age or pastors or people that are really seeking to connect with their granddaughter or grandson, I talk about your number one need: empathy.

The only way you get empathy is if you could take their glasses off of them and put them on you and see the world the way they see the world. You need to understand that number one, they don't see the world as this is right and this is wrong. They have been taught in academia and the culture and the music that "how I feel is reality." That's just as true as gravity; it's just as true as two plus two is four. You may not get that, and you may scoff at that, and you may say that's crazy and that's nuts.

But can I tell you something? None of that is going to bring young people to know Jesus—our sons, our daughters, our grandchildren. I'm reminded of the prayer of Saint Francis. It's on my wall. I pray not so much to be understood, but as to understand; to be loved, as to love. What I have found is it really is building this relationship and listening and kind of keeping at times a straight face with real empathy and taking seriously that this is how they see life, this is how they see the world.

You know what? They want to belong. They want to be loved. They want to be accepted. It doesn't mean you agree. It doesn't mean you affirm their views on things, but will you stick with me and Aaron and really learn how to connect with the next generation? Coming up, Aaron Pierce shows us exactly what the next generation believes about where we came from, right and wrong, and what happens when we die. Join us next time here on Living on the Edge.