Search Institute: Archives

By Eugene C. Roehlkepartain

A Major New Study Examines the Faith and Experiences of LCMS Youth and Adults

Like congregations in denominations in the United States, many LCMS congregations face declining membership or a widespread sense of apathy among members. There is often a sense of hopelessness with the feeling that nothing can be done to change circumstances or reverse trends. So many congregations simply seek to maintain or not slide too quickly.

However, a new study of 2,314 LCMS adults and youth in 151 LCMS congregations by Search Institute gives a glimpse of the faith lives of LCMS adults and youth, and their experiences in their families and congregations. It also pinpoints qualities in congregations that contribute to growth in faith among youth and adults. In so doing, it becomes a call to action to churches to focus energy and vision on strengthening the quality of congregational life.

The Faith and Beliefs of LCMS Members

Any effort to name the characteristics of a person with a mature, dynamic faith is difficult, if not impossible. After all, faith is a gift from God. At the same time, Christians believe faith shapes what we do-what we believe, how we live our lives in the world.

Aware of the dangers, this study explores how youth and adults in The LCMS express and live out their faith. The findings show that most LCMS members have solid, orthodox LCMS beliefs, but few live out those beliefs in their daily lives.

Faith maturity-Through several national studies in other denominations, Search Institute has developed a framework called "faith maturity," which seeks to capture the extent to which individuals embody the priorities, commitments, and perspectives that grow out of a dynamic and life-transforming faith. At its core, the Faith Maturity Index measures two basic dimensions of the Christian faith.

The vertical dimension indicates a life-transforming relationship with a loving God. The horizontal dimension indicates a consistent devotion to serving others in the world. Ideally, people would score high on both these dimensions, indicated what we call an "integrated" faith.

Among LCMS adults, 43 percent experience this kind of integrated faith. About 29 percent of adults express an undeveloped faith (low in both dimensions). Among youth, 25 percent experience an integrated faith, while 38 percent experience an undeveloped faith.

Although there is strength in the experience of faith in LCMS congregations compared to many other denominations that Search Institute has studied, a majority of LCMS youth and adults do not express the kind of life-transforming faith that congregations seek to nurture. Further analyses yield additional insights:

Faith maturity increases with age: 62 percent of people 65 or over have an integrated faith, compared with 28 percent of adults in their 20s.
Women (47 percent) are more likely than men (37 percent) to evidence integrated faith. This same pattern has been found in every denomination Search Institute has studied.
Faith maturity tends to decline between middle school and high school graduation.

Christian beliefs and knowledge-The faith maturity framework focuses on how people live their faith. Another dimension of the Christian tradition is the theology, beliefs, and doctrines that guide understanding. Several areas of Lutheran theology were examined in the study, and relative strength was found in many areas:

We worked with LCMS theologians to develop 10 new indicators that suggest a correct understanding of the Law-Gospel doctrine. Among adults, 56 percent answered at least seven out of the 10 items correctly; among youth, 45 percent.
We also asked about several other important Christian beliefs such as life after death, the resurrection, the reality of the devil, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and an active God who created the universe. Nearly all LCMS adults (95 percent) and youth (92 percent) affirm this set of beliefs.
Finally, we sought to measure people's familiarity with scripture, using multiple-choice questions about where things are in the Bible and related items. If we assume that seven or more correct answers out of 10 indicates basic familiarity, we find that nearly seven out of 10 adults (69 percent) and 50 percent of youth have this level of familiarity.

Drawn together, the findings on Law-Gospel, orthodox beliefs, and biblical knowledge suggest that LCMS adults do relatively well in understanding theological doctrines and beliefs. The strength may not be a surprise, given the denomination's historical emphasis on education in Lutheran theology and doctrine.

Loyalty to the church-Another way people express their faith is through their commitment to their congregation and denomination. Among adults, 63 percent express a high loyalty to their congregation, and 68 percent indicate high denominational loyalty. Among youth, 40 percent express high loyalty to their congregation, and 56 percent express a high denominational loyalty.

Faith in action-Finally, the study measured how people express their faith through their actions. Though worship attendance is relatively high among those we surveyed (70 percent of adults and 68 percent of youth indicated they attending church "about once a week or more") other expressions of faith are much less common:

Thirty-three percent of youth and 43 percent of adults say they spend three our more hours volunteering at church in a typical month.
Only 25 percent of LCMS adults claim that they frequently spend time helping others in their community. Thirty-three percent of youth say they spend one or more hours per month "helping people who are poor, hungry, sick, or unable to care for themselves."
Forty-seven percent of adults and 35 percent of youth indicate that they have shared their faith with others at least six times in the past year.
While 43 percent of adults and 23 percent of youth say they read their Bible at least once per week on their own, only 12 percent of adults and 3 percent of youth say they read their Bible daily.

These findings on faith and beliefs offer both reason for celebration and challenge. The celebration is that faith and beliefs are significant guiding forces in the lives of members of the LCMS. The challenge is that too many youth and adults do not live out their faith in their daily lives. While that may be somewhat discouraging, the study also identified some of the reasons for this gap, suggesting specific ways congregations and families can respond.

Qualities of Faith-Enhancing Congregations

Congregations have a great deal of influence on the shape of faith, beliefs, and actions of youth and adults. In this study, we scientifically identified 30 qualities of congregational life that correlate with an integrated faith, growth in faith, and loyalty to their congregation and denomination. When people experience more of these qualities, they are more likely to experience a life-transforming faith.

These qualities can be grouped into eight major categories, which are summarized in Figure 1 Due to space, we cannot explore each of these characteristics here. However, when taken as a whole, the list presents a useful portrait of LCMS congregations.

One way to illustrate the power of these 30 characteristics is to compare adults' growth in faith with the 30 characteristics they experience. Those who experience few of these qualities are much more likely to have developed an integrated faith. For example, 29 percent of LCMS adults who experience 0 to 10 of these qualities have an integrated faith. Yet, if they experience 21 to 30 of these qualities, 64 percent have an integrated faith. The same relationship is true for youth.

Unfortunately, most LCMS youth and adults do not experience these qualities. The average LCMS adult experiences only 13.5 of the 30 characteristics, and the average LCMS youth experiences only 12.2 of the 34 characteristics (which include four factors that affect only youth). Thus, a majority of LCMS church members do not experience many of the qualities of congregations that contribute to a growing, dynamic faith.

These 30 qualities are certainly not the only things that are important in congregations. But the list does provide an important place to start in thinking about what it means to be a faith-nurturing congregation. By seeking to build these characteristics into their life, congregations have great potential for renewing and enhancing the faith and commitments of members to live their faith and share that faith with others through acts of evangelism, outreach, and service.

Faith in the Home

In addition to examining qualities of congregations that nurture faith, our study also looked at how families nurture faith. Consistent with other research, we identified four family practices are particularly important for helping young people grow in faith (both in childhood and adolescence): talking about faith with your mother; talking about faith with your father; having family devotions or prayer; and doing family projects to help other people.

While these family practices are vital, they are rare. Fewer than one-third of youth report that any of the activities happen often-either in the past or present-in their homes. If we separate the recollections of faith experiences into the two age groups (childhood and adolescence), the average LCMS youth has experienced 1.2 of the eight factors, and 45 percent report none of the eight factors. The average adult experienced 1.3 of the eight, and 57 percent of adults experienced none of the eight factors in growing up.

The power of these family practices for nuturing life-long faith-and their relative absence in most families-underscores the importance of congregations placing a priority on equipping parents to be the primary Christian educators for their children.

Implications for Congregations

Just as people each see something different when they look at a photograph, there are many different ways to view this study's findings. However, we suggest that there is an underlying theme in the findings that needs careful reflection, discussion, and action within each congregation as well as the larger church: The LCMS's traditional strength in doctrine and beliefs is not being experienced and lived out in the lives of members in congregations.

Many dynamics contribute to this reality. However, an underlying cause appears to be that most congregations have a culture that emphasizes cognitive beliefs, not putting faith and beliefs into action. Christian education is dominated by passive learning, and congregations depend on a few leaders to do the work of the church.

Several significant changes-perhaps a fundamental culture change-need to occur to addres these dynamics. We offer several questions to begin the dialogue about these issues:

How can LCMS congregations shift from teaching to "know" to teaching to "do"? We believe such a shift requires nurturing a caring, thinking community and an interactive style of education, not just more leader-centered teaching.
How can congregations become communities of faith that are more consistently encourage and nourish caring among members and toward people in the community?
What can be done to reform Christian education away from the passive, leader-center styles that dominate both youth and adult education-especially in light of the central importance of Christian education in nurturing faith?
Like other studies of congregations, two groups stand out as having particular strength: women and the elderly. How can congregations provide more opportunities for women and the elderly to contribute more fully to strengthen the church?

One Church at a Time

While this study is national in scope, its findings and implications are primarily local. They call for each congregation to reflect on its mission and discover what God is calling that congregation to be and do in its community and the world. This interpretation highlights and affirms the trend in many denominations-including The LCMS-toward focusing attention at the congregational level, rather that concentrating on national programs and initiatives.

The findings also highlight that the church is composed of thousands of individual Christians, each with her or his own faith journey and experience. In recognizing the uniqueness of each person and nurturing faith and commitment in youth and adults, LCMS congregations will discover new energy and focus for seeking to fulfill Christ's mandate to make disciples who are transformed by their relationship with God to be God's hands and feet in the world.

Eugene C. Roehlkepartain is Search Institute's Director of Communication and Education. Other authors on the complete report are Dr. Peter L. Benson, president, and I. Shelby Andress, Director of Consulting Services.

This study was conducted in 1994 in partnership with the LCMS Conference of Congregational Services and Lutheran Brotherhood. It was completed in conjunction with the Faithful Christians, Faithful Congregations initiative which provides LCMS congregations with services and resources to support congregations as they engage in a visionary planning process.