Good Faith Hunting: How Baby Boomers Help Recapture a Biblical View of Faith

Preface

For the past twenty years or so, church leaders in the United States and other western nations have been desperately trying to maintain the organizations they used to know well. Those leaders who are honest with themselves recognize that they have not been able to slow down or reverse the attendance losses. The losses are much greater than can be explained by the simplistic canard, Young people don’t like church. Societal interest in transcendence and spirituality is increasing, so why are people of all ages avoiding church? Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not only young people avoiding our sanctuaries. The losses are particularly noticeable in the baby boomer generation, many of whom grew up with at least some exposure to faith and church.

I too am concerned about this present reality and the future of churches in America, so I dug further into the underlying causes and possible responses during my DMin studies at George Fox University. Much of the basic research for this book comes from my doctoral dissertation exploring baby boomers and faith journeys. In the dissertation, I concluded that baby boomers had shifted to a more postmodern way of thinking much earlier than commonly believed and therefore, process the world more similar to their children rather than their parents. This in turn, carries heavy impact on church attendance. My research findings propelled me to investigate boomer culture and boomers’ unique faith journeys, looking for connections to their desire, or lack of desire to take their place on a pew. I wasn’t satisfied with data analysis, but rather, I wanted to look into people’s eyes and hear their stories.

A number of people generously contributed their time for stories of journeys, interviews, or discussions. These conversations kept me focused on the human capacity and possibilities for connecting with God. They include Bill Burden, Gary Fluharty, Mary Frank, Lorelei Hillman, Norman Johnson, Crystal Miller, Troy Miller, Rick Palmer, Joe Powers, John Rae, Betsy Shirey, Sharon Schaefer, and others who wish to remain anonymous.

Dr. Donna K. Wallace, a New York Times bestselling author, book architect, and fellow George Fox Seminary alum, helped rescue this book project when it desperately needed assistance to make it into print. Her premier sense of flow and storytelling pulled me out of blind alleys of my own construction and myopia.

I want to make special mention of Dr. Michael S. Moore, a First (Old) Testament scholar, Semitic language expert, and a good friend. He opened my eyes to the richness and depth of the wilderness accounts and the entirety of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. He is one of those people who prod the Christian Church to reclaim the full Gospel, which starts at Creation rather than coming into existence ex nihilo, out of nothing, at the birth of Jesus Christ. Dr. Moore’s insightful analysis of the Hebrew people’s journey out of Egypt helped me connect their story with the sojourns of the Iraqi refugees we met in Amman. On the way back to the hotel I realized how God is with all who seek faith across the entirety of human history. Like the refugees, baby boomers follow in the footsteps of the slaves’ flight out of Egypt with doubts, uncertainties, and trials.

When our own journey is lonely or confusing and we fear that Christ has abandoned us, hungry and thirsty in the trackless wilderness, the Apostle Paul reminds us of our eternal hope:

I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (Rom 8:38–39 MSG)

Introduction

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

—Anne Rice,

Important Information about Anne’s Decision.

One Friday morning in the late 1990s I drove to my engineering job by my normal route, listening to country music on the radio and not thinking much about my job. I got out of my old pickup truck, walked into the building and sat down at my desk, then got up to get a cup of coffee. So far, it was a normal sunny day in Mesa, Arizona. After I got my coffee, I sat down to start the day’s work. An hour later, my boss came by and asked to see me in his office. Shortly thereafter, I walked down to his office, unconcerned about what we might discuss.

The moment I walked in, I realized nothing was normal when I saw both my boss and the head of human resources. They dropped a bombshell on me—I had three months to find a new job before mine vanished.

I guess I should have been thankful that I was not terminated on the spot, but thanksgiving was not on my mind as I walked out of the office in a daze. I was not mad, just stunned. In previous positions, I had always been an excellent engineer and a top performer. The company I worked for had recruited me to help them enter a new product area. However, for the last few months nothing seemed to work right. People working for me resigned, peers in the company no longer trusted my judgment, and the management was unhappy with my lack of progress in penetrating the new market.

That night I planned to attend a training class at a local church. Unsure if I wanted to go after such a punch to my gut, I went anyway. The leader asked each of us to introduce ourselves and share some of our journey with the group. When my turn came, I spoke of how I had felt like Jonah, running from God or at least trying to avoid God for many years. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, yet Jonah ran away as fast as possible toward Tarshish, which was at the opposite end of the known world (Jonah 1:1–3). I ran like Jonah, and my Tarshish was California, the opposite coast from where I had started. I did not share anything about what had happened earlier that day.

The leader looked at me and asked, Is Mesa your Ninevah? He was asking me if Christ called me to serve in Mesa. I looked back at him in shock barely stammering out, I don’t know. All my negative thoughts I wanted hidden kept coming to the surface. Could my family and I stay in Mesa? Why had I not been able to perform better? How was I going to tell my wife that I was out of a job? How could I support my family and keep a roof over their heads? What worth did I have as a man if I was not the provider? My inability to solve the problems destroyed my sense of self-worth. I was an engineer, after all, and should be able to solve any problem. I did not expect such a major paradigm shift and I ended up lost at sea without a rudder or anchor.

Since then, I’ve speculated that God was tired of whispering in my ear, and decided to use a 2x4 of a job loss to get my attention. I would not have re-arranged my locus of meaning otherwise. I would have remained happy with leaving Christ on the shelf as fire insurance since I believed there was no point in bothering him with the little stuff. I could handle the details myself.

Was that chapter of my life as dramatic as Jonah being puked up on shore after spending three days in the gut of a giant fish? Perhaps not, but Jonah’s journey remains a powerful metaphor for the experiences God had in mind for my future. I would not have encountered so many new friends on my voyage of exploration had I not been brought to my knees by Christ. I would have missed listening to new friends in other countries as they shared accounts of being tortured for following Christ. I would have missed visiting people in prison. I would have missed sharing tears, hearing wisdom and seeing strength in people as they faced death. I would have missed celebrating great triumphs in life. I would have missed people reaching out to me when I needed help. I would have missed coming face-to-face with Christ, invited by someone who planned to defraud me. Yet none of these intense and profound experiences happened within a church sanctuary or within a church building.

In 1952, I was born into the baby boomer generation. Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are feeling the impact of similar traumatic events like mine such as illnesses, job losses, the deaths of friends and family members, changes in relationships, empty nesting, and the results of earlier decisions that have lifetime effects. We are members of a unique transition generation undergoing redefinitions of the basic nature of knowledge and the ways in which we communicate truth. The changes in boomer lives are inevitable with age and experiences coupled with cataclysmic societal changes. Baby boomers have been forced to re-examine their primary sources of meaning, and this includes their faith.

This cusp generation also set the tone, economics, worship styles, and the political agenda for the United States and indeed much of the western world from the 1960s until the current time. Now baby boomers are looking backward and forward simultaneously, asking if what they did with their life was worth the effort, and what they should spend the rest of their life doing. Many are deeply questioning the definitions of faith, worship, and church as they transition into different phases of their lives. Boomers are asking why they are stuck journeying through an apparent wilderness without visible signposts, sound, water, or the smell of fresh new life for what seems to them an eternity. Together with younger generations, boomers are on a similar quest. In the midst of Good Faith Hunting, many are afraid they have lost the map.

Does belief really remain constant over a lifetime? How does it morph and flower when it strikes events headlong? If a person changes some aspect of his or her life and says, I was wrong, does that not imply one’s faith or understanding of faith changed? When someone leaves a church or stops attending church, has he changed, has she left Christian faith, or is something else occurring?

Several years ago, baby boomer author Anne Rice made headlines when she quit Christianity, announcing it on her Facebook page. Many media commentators stated, or suggested, that she was moving from a belief in Christ into agnosticism or atheism.¹ Is Anne Rice no longer a follower of Christ wandering in a wilderness, or has she merely rejected specific denominational or doctrinal stances? How can someone who abandoned Christian faith make such a deep confession of belief, "Following Christ does not mean following his followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be."² Her powerful statement shows how deeply she accepts being a follower of Christ.

The institution of the western Christian church is in trouble. Attendance is rapidly declining, and I believe the available statistics do not reveal the magnitude of the loss. Many church leaders ignore the problem, attempting to mask the losses with misleading or incomplete data. George Barna writes, After nearly two decades of studying Christian churches in America, I’m convinced that the typical church as we know it today has a rapidly expiring shelf life.

³

Books investigating church decline and death seem to focus on how we might bring the younger generation back or persuade them to come for the first time. This analysis ignores what I believe is the fundamental problem: Churches that cannot empathize with the faith journeys and wilderness times of baby boomers will not survive much longer. If churches cannot offer a safe place to explore faith, then as voyages of exploration become more prevalent with later generations, the less connection the church makes with younger people. Although a person may be a fully devoted follower of Christ over their lifetime, how they express that trust in Christ changes through the different chapters of their life. They are engaging in Good Faith Hunting.

Many churches have modeled themselves as a modernist, corporate organization. This organizational structure encourages the church leadership to approach congregants and attendees as if they were corporate employees. The attendees thus have a lower rank (or caste) than the church management and leadership. People’s fears, questions, struggles, and changing views of faith do not help maintain the church leadership hierarchy as currently structured.

Good Faith Hunting is an age-old challenge and appears repeatedly in the biblical witness. Abram (Abraham), a seventy-five year old man, left his home to sojourn in an unknown land (Gen 12:1) long before he fully grasped all God told him. Moses hid for forty years (what a slacker!) as his father-in-law’s shepherd (Exod 3). A rabble of slaves left Egypt terrified of their own shadows and through an epic adventure with God emerged as a cohesive people group, the Hebrews. Jonah ran from God’s call and tried to vanish off the other end of the earth. Peter’s understanding of following Christ unfolded as he confronted events, frequently stumbling and then being lifted up by Jesus Christ. Paul did not instantaneously become the Roman world’s greatest evangelist after his life-altering Damascus road encounter. He spent time processing the event; studying, learning, and experimenting before he started writing his letters.

This is a book for church leaders and major influencers in a