I had the privilege of attending the 2008 Evangelism Conference of Southern Baptists in North Carolina this week. It was a singular experience in many ways. I hope that in the coming days that I can unpack my experiences for you here. For right now, however, let me give you a little teaser for what I want to talk about at length in tomorrows post.
One of the main plenary sessions of this conference was a presentation by Dr. Thom Rainer. Dr. Rainer is the president of Lifeway Christian Resources. He is a gifted speaker and teacher and we are blessed to have a man of his insight and wisdom at the helm of such an influential organization like Lifeway. In his session, Dr. Rainer presented 12 trends of modern churches and those who attend them. One of the trends that he presented was:
70% of young people between the ages of 18-22 drop out of church and many never return.At the end of his presentation, Dr. Rainer took questions from the floor. As I sat there listening. I knew that this opportunity was too great to pass up, so I motioned to the man with the mic and asked Dr. Rainer my question.
In so many words my questions was: "Dr. Rainer would you not say that the main reason why these students are dropping out is because the church is not lovingly holding parents accountable to disciple their children and then equipping them to do so?" Dr. Rainer's answer was astute and timely...
I will share his answer to my question and some other observations about the conference in tomorrow's post.
