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Dave
Kinnaman
Gabe Lyons
CULTURE, CONVICTION AND
GOOD FAITH
INTERVIEW BY PAUL J. PASTOR PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIMMY HICKEY
From the beginning, Christianity has had cultural
impact. Martyrs and emperors, reformers and rebels
weve left our marks on the world. But the relationships
between Christians and their wider communities are
usually complex. We in the West live in an especially
complicated daythe world is globalizing, pluralistic
and polarized. How can Christians be confident about
core beliefs while offering a way of genuine love that
serves culture and neighbor?
Its been nine years since David Kinnaman, president
of the Barna Group, and Gabe Lyons, founder of Q
Ideas, wrote UnChristian, detailing the changing attitudes of a new generation toward Christian faith. Their
recent release of Good Faith: Being a Christian When
Society Thinks Youre Irrelevant and Extreme marks another step forward in a mission to help Christian leaders move into todays reality with insight and integrity.
Paul J. Pastor caught up with Kinnaman and Lyons
in the wood and leather mezzanine of Portland, Oregons trendy Ace Hotel, to get the story behind Good
OutreachMagazine.com 71
72 May/June 2016
Christian practice
is waning, but even
more precipitous is
the decline in attitudes
of confidence in
Scripture.
David Kinnaman
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OutreachMagazine.com 75
We had blind spots, and needed to face and confess those to move forward.
We all need to acknowledge the past honestly and bravely. We didnt, say,
put a whole chapter on confession in the book, but its a major implication.
Humility and love. We need to call ourselves out for areas where we have
screwed up personally, or where the church has dehumanized others. But
that doesnt diminish the good that weve done in the past tooor the
tremendous potential that Christians have to bring life and love to this
culture.
There is a time for confession and true repentance. But we cant put so
much emphasis on constant apology that we diminish confidence in our
beliefs or the good that we have for the world.
Kinnaman: Yes. Pastorally, this is a huge part of our emphasis. You cant
move forward without a commitment to repentance.
Barna Group has always been willing to be critical, based on data, trends
or expressions of the church that are unhealthy. We try to raise honest
questions. Coming from a market research point of view, were not just
apologists for the church, were apologists for a way of thinking about a set
of human problems that are impacted by Christian theology.
Were just as concerned with self-righteousness within the church as
unrighteousness in the world. We want to be as transparent as we can about
our failuresboth as Dave and Gabe, and as a larger Christian culture.
What are opportunities for living out Good Faith that pastors
often miss?
Kinnaman: How hungry people are for these deeper conversations.
People want to talk about this. But many pastors dont.
I understand the challenges of building a vibrant community. But many
pastors are completely unaware of the level of skepticism and honest conversations happening in their churches. In the digital world, people are
fact-checking your sermons as youre preaching. Sermons from talking
heads are quickly becoming easy to dismiss by a young person as another
voice in the sea of information and marketing demanding their allegiance.
Just one example: We see in our research that an increasing number of
young people think that their youth pastor is paid to be their friend. They
view the youth pastor as church marketing.
We have some soul searching that we need to do about the ministry
industry. How weve done things is going to have to change, while remaining committed to the core beliefs passed down to us. These challenges should lead us to a healthy place of being more capable of building
strong believers.
The dirty little secret of the modern American church is that weve gotten good at producing structures of discipleship and churchgoing, but were
short on transformation. The people in our pews are capable of being in
ministry in the world, theologically and practically, at a much higher level
than most pastors are prepared to accept. How are we equipping them?
Gabe, why do you two see hospitality as a key response?
Lyons: About three years ago, I visited Amsterdam to try to understand
how church leaders there were approaching church planting in a postChristianeven anti-ChristianEuropean context. Hospitality was the
one constant in their thinking and practice. They loved people well, they
built friendships, and they did it in the context of their daily lives. They
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