Following our introductory post on David Kinnamon’s book “unChristian,” here’s the next post covering Chapter 1. David Kinnamon is president of The Barna Group, which provides research and resources that facilitate spiritual transformation in people’s lives. The book is the culmination of a three year statistical study of thousands of interviews and surveys. The stated purpose is to understand non-Christian’s unvarnished perceptions of Christians so that they may be effectively engaged and pointed to Jesus based on what they really think, not what we assume about them.
The studies by Kinnamon focused on the 16–29 year-old segment of the U.S. population (approximately 24 million people). Forty percent of this age-group are not Christians—that is, they do not self-identify as Christians. This is a far higher percentage than in the older generations.
In addition, those of this age-group inside the church are also skeptical of present-day Christianity. Apparently, not only is the church failing to effectively communicate the “good news” of Jesus Christ to those outside the Christian faith, it is failing to disciple it’s own young generation.
Kinnamon states that he does not advocate that the church or individual Christians try to become more popular, but rather understand how to to be effective agents of spiritual transformation in people’s lives. By carefully considering how firmly people reject—and feel rejected by— Christians, we might become inspired with ways we can make a difference.
Posted under Book review
Submitted by Phil, 2:30 pm
