What Unchurched Kids Think about Christians
By John Eich
Talking to people who aren't Christians about Jesus can seem like you're talking to someone who can't understand English. What's even more frustrating is that we Christians can struggle to understand them.
TrendWatch surveyed a number of unchurched teens (Group publishing, 2000, pg. 118). It found that they have some strange ideas about Christians. For instance, unchurched young adults thought:
- "Church is a way for people to commit a sin, go to confession or communion, be forgiven, and go out and do it again."
- "Many religious people look down on atheists. I do not appreciate being looked down upon as subhuman because of my beliefs."
- "I have learned to not believe, because church has showed me the destructiveness of religion."
- "People who can't think for themselves follow the disease that is religion."
- "I see it as a way to control people."
- "I have learned that everything has a purpose, and that I am allowed to make my own mistakes without serious repercussions on my soul in the afterlife."
Christians would certainly not agree with these statements. However, we do need to ask ourselves: Are we doing something that gives the wrong impression? Is the way we speak about Jesus and the way we live out his friendship with us speaking a language that puts barriers in the way of non-Christians understanding the gospel?