Canadian Youth and Christianity

Recently Ed Stetzer released some of his research regarding Canadian young adults and their view of Christianity & the church. After taking a look at some of the data, there were a couple of things that were interesting to me:

1. Unchurched[1] Canadian youth are far less hostile toward the church than their American counterparts
2. They’re far more open to a Christian sharing their faith than you’d think (89% responded positively), but far less likely to examine the Bible for themselves (51% say they’d be willing to study the Bible if a friend asked them, and only 32% would be willing to join a small group to learn about Jesus and the Bible)

Now, I get that stats and numbers aren’t all that compelling or even all that interesting for most of us; however, there’s something important for us to learn:

If people are willing to listen to us share our faith, shouldn’t we be doing so?

This has been the experience of some friends from church who are a part of our evangelism team. Every week, they’re out talking to people, sharing the gospel whenever they can, praying with people…

And the people they’re talking to are willing to listen.

So, what would happen if today—and I’m just saying if—we asked a random person if we could talk about our faith with them?

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

That they ignore you—or that they say, “yes”?

1: The “unchurched” are defined as those who do not belong to or participate in a local church