Faith For Exiles By David Kinnaman And Mark MatlockSample

Day One: Digital Babylon and Resilient Exiles 

Scripture: Deuteronomy 31:6, Jeremiah 32:27

Faith for Exiles is a sustained and up-close look at five hand-crafting, soul-shaping observable practices, patterns of intentional behavior to guide disciples in the making. What does an engaged faith-follower look like? Seeds of hope are germinating and our research shows this is happening globally. What we find confirms what Christianity’s long history records: the roots of faithfulness often sink deeper in anxious, unsettled times. Faith can grow even—and sometimes especially—in the darkest of places.

Our research shows that resilient faith is tougher to grow today using the cultivation methods we relied on throughout the twentieth century. This leads to our central claim in Faith for Exiles: young non-Christians are avoiding Christianity, and young Christians are abandoning church; however, by cultivating five practices, we can form and be formed into disciples of Jesus who thrive as exiles in digital Babylon.*

As part of our research with young resilient disciples, we kept probing the data to discern the story behind their resilience. If these are the kinds of Christians we hope to raise, support, and emulate, what can we learn from them? What practices seem to distinguish these powerful examples of faith from the norm?

Our research shows that, in the face of a coercive, spirit-depleting, screen-obsessed society, cultivating the following practices helps to form resilient faith. Again, these are not simple formulas; they are guidelines and guardrails for the formation of the soul. Think of these as the spiritual scaffolding around a young soul that enables the Holy Spirit to access the life inside.

• Practice 1: To form a resilient identity, experience intimacy with Jesus.

• Practice 2: In a complex and anxious age, develop the muscles of cultural discernment.

• Practice 3: When isolation and mistrust are the norms, forge meaningful, intergenerational relationships.

• Practice 4: To ground and motivate an ambitious generation, train for vocational discipleship.

• Practice 5: Curb entitlement and self-centered tendencies by engaging in countercultural mission.

These five practices summarize a decade of work, research, thinking, and listening to discover hopeful ways forward. As we study and engage with one another, you will discover how resilient faith marks itself upon those living in a culture that grows increasingly distant and oppositional to faith-followers.

Pray: Father, open my mind this week to understand the practices that invite a younger generation to seek You, choose You, and serve You. In Jesus’s name, amen.

*We at Barna adopted the phrase digital Babylon to describe our accelerated, complex culture that is marked by phenomenal access, profound alienation, and a crisis of authority.