Faith in Context

The Divorce Rate is Down

There are still preachers proclaiming that the divorce rate is up, but all the data say otherwise. This week the United States Census released a new report entitled "Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces" (P70-125). It provides several important facts:

The divorce rate peaked in the cohort that was born in the 1950s and got married in the 1970s. From 1996 to 2009, the percentage of divorced people has gone up for Americans over 50 years of age, while it has gone down for those younger than 50. In fact more than 80 percent of married couples today are still in their first marriage. It appears that the divorce surge was particular to one generation, the early wave of Baby Boomers.

But, the decrease in divorces may simply be the result of a change in patterns about getting married. The age at which Americans get married has increased significantly in recent decades. Most now get married in their late 20s and early 30s, instead of in their late teens and early 20s. The majority are married by the time they are 35; two-thirds of men and three quarters of women. (Yes, women are more likely to marry than are men.) The percentage of women still unmarried at age 30 has nearly doubled since 1986.

There has been a large increase in the percentage of inter-ethnic marriages. The portion of Americans in a marriage where each partner is of a different race or ethnicity has more than tripled in the last four decades.

What Does This Mean?

Divorce is less of a problem, but a much larger percentage of young adults are delaying marriage and living together as if they were married for several years before the wedding. Even in conservative, Evangelical churches, two-thirds or more of church-member young adults engage in sex before marriage. (Although a much smaller percentage actually cohabit before the wedding.) This has become such a well-established pattern that most pastors now say privately they are afraid to ask couples who come to them to prepare for a wedding about their situation in terms of sexual activity. Those religions that have historically taught that sex is reserved for married couples must now face a new reality among their own members, furthermore among nonbelievers. Sexuality, family and faith are such basic things in the lives of almost all people that this is not a situation can simply be ignored.

How the Recession Impacts Families

No issue creates more tension in marriages these days than does money. A recent survey commissioned by American Express shows that it is the number one topic that couples fight about. It was cited three times as often as the next two items on the list, sex and children. More than 90 percent of the respondents said that they try to avoid talking about family finances with their spouse. Nearly a third say they have lied to their spouse about how much they spent on a purchase. (Research Alert, July 2, 2010)

Pastors can tell you that the economy puts a lot of wear and tear on marriages. It is another way in which the materialistic culture of America is at war with the followers of Jesus. And Princeton economist Paul Krugman reported last week that because national governments are giving in to political pressures, this is likely to become a long depression, the third significant Depression in the history of the last few hundred years. It will be more like the Long Depression that started in 1873 and lasted for more than a decade than the Great Depression of the 1930s, he says. He predicts that "tens of millions of unemployed workers ... will go jobless for years, and some ... will never work again." (New York Times, June 28, 2010)

What Does This Mean for Your Ministry?

Pastors and congregations need to be prepared for a long spell of both increased demand for help and decreased resources. We need more bold, Biblical teaching to help people straighten out their values relative to finances. It is essential that churches find expanded ways to help families suffering from the down economy. Those who ignore it, who cut back on social services and family life education while investing more in other areas are revealing through their corporate body language a message that is unChristlike and defames the character of God at a time when more and more people are turning to faith for answers. This is a moment of missional opportunity for those who care enough to deal with the real needs of families.

Why Do Pastors' Kids Leave the Church?

It is a heart-wrenching thing to spend one's life in ministry and then have one's children leave the faith when they become adults. Yet, pastors' kids often see the least attractive features of church life and are exposed to the greatest amount of cynicism and doubt.

My friend Martin Weber has completed research for his doctoral dissertation (which won't be defended until May) on this topic, the result of interviews and a survey of 113 clergy with adult children in a Midwest judicatory of the Adventist denomination. He finds that the most significant factors in avoiding adult children of clergy leaving the faith are (1) being able to discuss church problems in the parsonage while also (2) managing to sustain joy and togetherness in the family circle and (3) giving teens the freedom to develop their own faith experience without the expectation of being super-saints because they live in a parsonage.

Some other interesting findings:

• Parents who are conservative about lifestyle is not statistically significant in predicting dropouts.
• Legalism regarding soteriology is moderately significant.
• Legalism regarding practicing the principles of the gospel is highly significant.
• Clergy parents who hold their children to a higher behavioral standard is one of the most significant correlations with dropouts.
• Lack of relationality in the clergy family is the most significant correlation with dropouts. Pastors with the highest retention rate among their own adult children managed to provide the most positive and fun family experience and were close enough to talk about anything in an atmosphere of freedom that allowed their children and teens latitude in developing their own faith.
• Closely related with family relationality is the freedom and trust to discuss controversial issues. A major cause of dropouts is to attempt to shield the children of clergy from or resist discussing with them conflicts in the congregation or the denomination.
• The most significant predictor of adult children of pastors who are still in the faith is whether the child took initiative in approaching a clergy parent to discuss spiritual things.
• When members of the congregation criticize the children of the pastor, they are contributing to the future lack of faith on the part of those children.

Keep your eyes open for more good information. Weber tells me that he's been asked to write an article about his research for Adventist World and Jim Gilley, the new president of the Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN) has asked him to tape a short series. I hope that 3ABN will produce that in DVD. Of course, his complete dissertation will be available from University Microfilms by the end of the year. Weber is a pastor and communication director for the Mid-America Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church with offices in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Christian Parents & Popular Media

There is a profound tension between the wish of Christian and other parents to teach values to their children (especially teens) and the tremendous power of the popular media to insinuate itself into the privacy of the home and manipulate immature minds. Never before in history have human beings been so exposed and unprotected from the manipulations of faceless, unscrupulous promoters and producers. How can parents relate to this without seeking to either discourage art or disconnect their children from the real world in ways that may end up being crippling?

A survey recently released by the Barna Group sheds some light on how difficult this is for the average Christian family. Four out of five Christian parents buy DVDs of popular movies for their children and 26 percent are not happy with what is on the DVDs they buy. Six in ten buy music CDs for their children and 33 percent are worried about these CDs. Half of them buy video games for their kids and 39 percent are concerned about these games. Half buy popular magazines for their young people and 31 percent worry about the content of these publications. A third get computer software for their kids and 24 percent are not comfortable with the content. In each case you can see that the majority of the parents who do purchase popular media for their children are really worried about the things they are getting for their kids, but they go ahead and do it anyway. Why?

Parents are completely manipulated by the publishers. These things are promoted directly to the children. The strategies are designed to get word-of-mouth and peer pressure going among children and teens, and the parents realize that if they take try to impose a total ban, then the older children will simply get access to these materials through covert methods.

There are a couple of strategies that can be used to counter this manipulation, but Barna didn't ask about these nor try to measure how widespread their use is or the perceptions of their effectiveness. One is for parents to view content with their children and help the child develop critical skills and make choices based on the values that the parents want the child to develop. Another is to find publishers that provide materials consistent with your values and support them buy purchasing those materials for your children. The free market can work if parents will work it.

A New Generation of Women

Additional light on the values and attitudes of the Millennial generation comes from a new survey published in the October issue of Cosmopolitan. This is a nationwide random sample of 18 to 34-year-old women.

• 82% believe their generation will have a higher divorce rate
• 81% say they would rather stay single their entire lives than marry a man that is not the right one for them
• 93% would rather be in an exclusive relationship than date around
• 65% want to live with a man before they decide to marry him
• 41% feel that it is OK to have a one-night stand occasionally
• 87% think that women are just as ambitious as men when it comes to careers
• 54% want to be established in a career before they get married

The researchers used cluster analysis to create a segmentation model for this generation of American women:

• A third are Go-For-It Girls - these are career-focused young women who say they would rather never marry than have to get a divorce because they married the wrong man
• Another third are Housewife Hopefuls who are family-focused and do not have much interest in a fulfilling career; they want to get married and have children
• One in five are Restless Explorers who have not made up their mind as yet on major issues about their life and don't want to commit to any relationship or alternative right now
• About 16% are Pleasure Seekers and see themselves as "sexy" and "fun-loving," spend most of their time and energy on recreation and believe it is OK to have relationships that are just about sex

These young women are in your congregation, volunteering in your ministry, part of your family. Which segment is most likely to respond to your approach to ministry? How do we convey the message of Christ to this new generation of American women?

Weddings - New Research

The majority of American couples (57%) are living together before the wedding. The average age of brides is 27 and for grooms 29 in 2006. Some 79% of couples pay for their own honeymoon, but only 3% enter into prenuptial legal agreements. More than 80% of brides still take their husband's last name despite the fact that in some states this now requires filling out an extra form and paying an additional fee when they get the marriage license.

Weddings occur at relatively the same rate among all 12 months of the year and spending on weddings has nearly doubled in the last 15 years. The average cost of a wedding in the U.S. last year was $27,852 as compared to $15,208 in 1990. Wedding rings cost 60% more than they did fifteen years ago. Currently the average reception is about $10,000. A third of couples pay the entire cost themselves, and in another third of weddings the costs are shared by the couple and both sets of parents.

The hottest trend in weddings is a "destination wedding." That is a location for the wedding that is not where the bride, the groom or either set of parents lives. Often it is a resort area. This actually costs a little less than the average because the attendance is reduced significantly; wedding guests have to pay for their own travel and lodging is the protocol now.

What does this mean?

1. Clergy asked to officiate should not feel it is an imposition to require several pre-marriage sessions, serious homework, etc.; everybody else thinks its normal to exact a massive price tag.

2. Many middle class and lower middle class couples are going into debt to pay for a one-day or one-weekend event. Pastors should discourage this! Christian couples should be told that they do not have to go along with the extravagant spending that social and cultural pressure is pushing up and and up.

The data noted above is proprietary market research completed earlier this year by Conde Nast Bridal Group, a major media company that helps businesses market to brides, grooms and families around this event. They are in the business of manipulating families to spend way more than is necessary; clergy ought to fight back!

Is a new Evangelical parenting guru emerging?

Jim Fay, a former school principal, and his son, Charles, a family therapist, appeared on Good Morning America last Friday (Dec. 9) to be interviewed by Claire Shipman about their book, Parenting with Love and Logic. The book is published by NavPress, a major Evangelical publisher and these men are committed Christians.

They work out of Love and Logic Institute, "an organization that provides practical tools that help adults achieve respectful, healthy relationships with their children [and] helps parents raise responsible kids and establish healthy control without resorting to anger, threats, nagging or exhausting power struggles." You can get a taste of their material at www.NewsReleaseWire.com. The book is coming out in April from NavPress.

Does this mark the emergence of a new Evangelical guru on discipline and family life? Remember that about 30 years ago, James Dobson's first big introduction to the world was a book entitled, Dare to Discipline. The contrast between Dobson's approach and the Fay's approach is very interesting. Dobson, of course, has built what is considered to be one of the most powerful institutions in the Evangelical world and has come to be very active in right-wing politics, to the point that he is considered to have had one of the most influential roles in determining who will fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court. New generations of Christian parents may be wondering what all that has to do with practical, Godly advice on how to raise kids.