Red Alert

Only Radical Change Can Avert the Mass Exodus of the Next Christian Generation

When it comes to the future of the faith and its impact on our culture, Christians have to ask ourselves some difficult questions. 

• Are we effectively preparing our young people to become leaders of the church and vibrant influences in our culture? 

• If we are, then why are 64% of young adults (Barna Group, 2019) who grow up in Christian schools, churches, and homes leaving the faith and few come back?  The exodus is more than 1 million young people per year (Pinetops Foundation, 2018). 

• Only 35% of born-again Christians believe in absolute moral truth and only 6% of all Americans hold what is called a Biblical Worldview (Barna, 2022). 

What is happening?

Assumptions Institute has discovered that 95% of students with a Christian parent and who are involved in Christian schools, churches, and ministries, state they are Christ-followers like their parent(s).

It is extremely important to 100% of these parents that their child remains a Christ-follower in their young adult life.  Yet, as important as this is, only 38% of these same parents were confident that their student would remain a Christ-follower when they left home for the university, the military, or the workforce. 

Christian parents have their children in Christian schools, home schools, and church youth groups because they are intentional about their children remaining Christ-followers as young adults. These parents also tend to have home Bible study, devotions, and conversations with their students about what the Bible says about contemporary cultural issues. 

Some parents also try to train their students in theology and apologetics through retreats, conferences, and various Christian media. 

All these are great activities, yet why is there a disconnect?  While doing what seems to be the right thing to raise the next generation of Christian leaders, why do parents have so little confidence that this will happen?  All these great activities are intended to expose students repeatedly to the truth from God and the Bible. 

Parents expect that once students encounter the truth most will accept it and incorporate it into their lives.  The problem is that the parents may understand that God, the Bible, and the Gospel are true.  Their students likely don’t. 

A paltry 35% of “born-again” Christians believe in absolute truth.  If they are under 30 it is even fewer. 

Our culture has indoctrinated so many to believe that Christianity is true if one accepts it as true.  It isn’t true on its own.  The Bible is the word of God if one accepts it as the word of God.

The disconnect occurs when parents, churches, and schools expose students to truth with no training in how to recognize truth as truth. 

Exposing students to biblical truth without intentional training in how to recognize truth is proving to be fruitless.

Without deliberate coaching to recognize what is true, students will continue to think truth is relative, and they will only appropriate biblical truth if they accept it as “true for them.” And the trend will continue as most of them will exit Christianity in ever-increasing numbers.

A well-developed discernment skill requires training and practice. 

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil (Hebrews 5:14 NASB1995).

It is not an innate skill. Yet, parents, pastors, and teachers think that it is.  Why else has this basic training been so neglected? Are they assuming that students already know how to discern truth?  The statistics prove that they don’t. 

Do most adults find it too difficult to train students how to discern what is true?

Assumptions Institute has a powerful solution to this pressing need.  It is an innovative assumptions-based system for discernment that is:

• Simple – so parents and students can both learn it.

• Practical – so it can help recognize and apply biblical truth in real-world situations and issues.

• Fast – with practice a parent or student can use it to discern truth in the classroom, media, or culture in 30 seconds or less, making discernment both real-world and real-time.  A complicated system cannot be used in only 30 seconds.

• Reliable – it can reliably identify truth from God and the Bible, honors it as authoritative, and demonstrates WHY it is true.

• Avoids the relativistic quagmire of worldview, a common pitfall in traditional apologetics.

This is what we do.

Assumptions Institute hones Christ-followers to discern truth so they can flourish in their faith and engage the culture to influence others for Christ.