Ideas Have Consequences

Lack of Disciple-Making = Lack of Cultural Impact | Dr. George Barna

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 2 • Episode 72

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Are we experiencing a spiritual revival—or facing a full-blown discipleship crisis in the American church? In this powerful conversation, renowned researcher Dr. George Barna shares alarming new data and challenges us to rethink how we measure spiritual health and make disciples in a post-Christian culture.

Main Topics

  • The Decline of Belief in the God of the Bible
    • The fastest-growing spiritual segment in America is now the “don’ts”—those who don’t know, don’t believe, or don’t care if God exists.
    • Barna reveals a 30-year decline in belief in the God of the Bible.
  • Why Discipleship Metrics Are Failing
    • Most churches track attendance, programs, and budgets—but not spiritual transformation.
    • Barna outlines six biblical criteria for true discipleship based on Jesus’ teachings.
    • Only 1 in 10 born-again Christians actively disciples others.
  • The Crucial Role of Children’s Ministry and Worldview Formation
    • A child's worldview is largely formed by age 13, starting as early as 15–18 months.
    • Only 12% of children’s pastors have a biblical worldview themselves.
    • Barna’s "Seven Cornerstones" research shows that rejecting even one foundational belief drops the likelihood of a biblical worldview from 83% to just 2%.

What if the greatest threat to the church today isn’t cultural hostility—but our failure to make true disciples?

Scott Allen:

Well, welcome again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by friends and team members Luke Allen, John Bottimore, Dwight Vogt, and today we're thrilled to have with us a very respected and well-known Christian poster researcher, George Barna. George, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today. That's good to be with you. Thanks for having me. It's a thrill. Honestly, we've been looking forward to this for quite a while. For those of you, probably almost everyone knows George, but if you don't, just a little about him, I've got a little bit of your bio, George.

Scott Allen:

George is a professor at Arizona Christian University in Phoenix and he is the director of research at the Cultural Research Center, which is a part of the ministry of Arizona Christian University, and it focuses on biblical worldview, or worldview assessment and development, and cultural transformation. Dr Barna has an extensive career. He's provided research and strategy for hundreds of parachurch ministries, thousands of churches, as well as the US military and Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of 60 books. That's incredible 60 books addressing topics of social and religious trends, worldview leadership, development and spiritual development, church dynamics and cultural transformation. His most recent book is a bestseller titled Raising Spiritual Champions Nurturing your Child's Heart, Mind and Soul, and that was just released in 2023. Would love to have a talk just on that book alone, Dr Barner. We're going to be veering into other ground, but thanks for writing that book. That sounds amazing.

Dr. George Barna:

Yeah, I'd love to have a chance just to talk about that. You know, when you talk about life's work, you know that for me that's certainly one of those books that comes into that category, absolutely.

Scott Allen:

You know, I just feel like the discipleship in biblical worldview most naturally happens there in families, and you know you have to obviously give Christians a vision for doing that, and you know you have to obviously give Christians a vision for doing that, and so anything kind of practical, practical help, like I'm sure this book would provide, is most welcome. Just a little bit more. Dr Barna has a degree from graduated summa cum laude from Boston College and earned master's degrees from Rutgers University and from Dallas Baptist University. So again, thanks for being with us today, george, thank you. Yeah, we're going to talk specifically today about one of your research documents that came out earlier this year, came out from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, titled Faith and Culture Trends 2025, 12 Trends that Will Shape Faith and Culture in the New Year 2025, the year that we're into right now. And, anyways, there was a lot of things we could talk about, but I just thought I'd jump right in with the top line, the findings that you have here.

Scott Allen:

You say that there's been a steep decline over the past 30 years in the percent of adults who believe in the God of the Bible, a God who is personal, loving, omniscient, omnipotent, but also morally unyielding and expects us to take seriously the standards and boundaries that he gave us. You go on and you say currently about half of US adults believe in the God of the Bible, but less than half choose to worship or follow that deity, and the fastest growing segment in the nation are what you call don'ts, or somebody calls don'ts. These are people who don't know, don't believe and don't care whether a supernatural deity of any kind, such as the God of the Bible, exists. I think when I read that, dr Barna, I was a little bit taken Part of me.

Scott Allen:

Of course I wasn't surprised, but we read a lot now and I think in many ways many of us have experienced there's kind of a shift that's happening as well, you see it. For example, I mean a lot of examples, but the huge crowds of young men, particularly attending Jordan Peterson conferences where he's talking about the Bible, his ARC conferences, that recent Pew study that showed that there's now kind of a flat line or a decline among, you know, nuns, the people that you know had, you know, said they had no religious affiliation, aren't interested, increased sale of the Bible, etc. I've almost, you know, wondered if we're into kind of a revival of some sorts. I guess my question here is did you see any of that as you were looking at some of these previous trends that you talk about?

Dr. George Barna:

Yeah, we see that there's an increase in interest, particularly among those in what's often referred to as Gen Z, those who are 21, down to their early teen years, to their early teen years a rising interest in spirituality, particularly compared to the prior generation, the millennials, who didn't have that same kind of interest for many years.

Dr. George Barna:

And so there is that that shows up on the radar. But what we're not seeing, that a lot of people I think are jumping to the conclusion of, is a deeper and abiding interest in Jesus Christ as a personal savior for people, admission of personal sin and the need to do something about that. Belief in absolute moral truth, trust in the Bible those things really haven't taken hold of the younger populations yet. They may in the coming years, but at this point in time there's kind of a flirtation with many different faith groups. I just put out a report last week talking about the decline in Christianity in America and how we see a rise in people associating themselves with things like Buddhism, Islam, even Judaism, but Christianity losing about 10% of the population over the last 10 or 15 years. So yeah, I think it's probably premature to say that we're in a period of spiritual revival.

Scott Allen:

Okay, okay, so you're looking at some of these new trends through kind of the lens of your extensive research over the last 10 years, and what I'm hearing you say is let's you know, let's wait and see. Yeah.

Dr. George Barna:

And I'm hopeful. I mean the fact that there is that heightened spiritual interest gives us an open door to walk through.

Dr. George Barna:

Absolutely but at the same time, we've got to have people who are ready to do that, and so you know when the scriptures talk about. You know the fields are white with the harvest, but we need those who are going to go out and harvest it. I think that's as much our problem as anything else. We don't have that many individuals who, by Jesus' criteria, will be considered disciples in America and frankly, as I'm sure you know, the only people who can make disciples are disciples because you reproduce who you are. So we've got some challenges in that regard.

Scott Allen:

Let's jump down to discipleship. Since you brought it up, you write in this report. You say that the Cultural Research Center estimates that only about one out of every ten born-again adults who represent just one-third of US adults is an active disciple of Jesus Christ. Only about one in every ten. Again, and surprisingly, a surprisingly small proportion of them are discipling other people. Thousands of the nation's Christian churches say that they're committed to discipleship, but strikingly few do much beyond encouraging note-taking during sermons, independent Bible reading during the week or attending church-initiated small groups, which research indicates are generally ineffective at making disciples. You know, when I read that, that resonated with my own experience attending evangelical churches for my entire adult life. Why is there so little intentionality, do you think, dr Barna, in making disciples at churches beyond those things that you just mentioned, which seem to be very common?

Dr. George Barna:

Yeah, you know, one of the things that I teach my students is you get what you measure. Right, what churches measure? One of the things that fascinates me and, frankly, disappoints me is that almost no churches in America measure discipleship in any meaningful way. When we've interviewed national samples of senior pastors of Christian churches across the country, what we've discovered is that they do measure things, which is good, but you get what you measure. So what are they measuring?

Dr. George Barna:

We found there are five things that a majority of churches in the country measure how many people show up, how much money is raised, how many programs are offered, how many staff people are hired and how much square footage on the campus has been built out. And it's great that they're measuring those things. But frankly, Jesus didn't die for any of those. So I would contend that we're throwing ourselves at the idea of developing and having a megachurch, and those are the things we measure how many people show up, how much money, how many staff, how many programs, etc. And we're not really looking at what kind of spiritual transformation is happening in the lives of those people who are coming to church services and church events, looking at the six criteria that Jesus gave us for a disciple and trying to figure out. Are we doing anything proactively and positively to move people toward truly becoming genuine disciples of his? If we did that, I think we'd see very different kind of ministries in our country.

Scott Allen:

What are those six criteria? Quickly, if you don't mind, now that you mentioned it In the book of John.

Dr. George Barna:

He's got three statements he makes where you will be my disciple if and in John 8, he says you will be my disciple if you obey my teachings. In John 13, he says you will be my disciple if you love other disciples. And in John 15, he talks about you will be my disciple if you produce a lot of spiritual fruit. And then in Luke 14, he takes a different approach and he says you cannot be my disciple unless first he says you know God is first and foremost in your life. I think that's verse 26.

Dr. George Barna:

I think it's verse 27, where he says and you cannot be my disciple unless you pick up your cross and follow me, which in that Roman context basically meant unless you attach yourself to my agenda, not your agenda or the culture's agenda. And then I think it's in verse 33, he said and you cannot be my disciple unless you surrender everything for me. And so if you look at those six criteria, we just recently finished a national survey where we tried to evaluate how many people are following that set of standards and what we find is it's somewhere on the order of 2 or maybe 3 percent of our population is intentionally and consistently pursuing that kind of lifestyle.

Dwight Vogt:

And that was a Christian population, a church-attending population.

Dr. George Barna:

That's the population at large. If we look at theologically identified born-again Christians, it's roughly double that. It's probably in the 6% to 8% range. And by theologically identified born-again Christians I not people who call themselves born-again Christians. Necessarily Some of them do, but many of them don't because that label born-again Christians has so much negative cultural baggage. So instead we don't depend on people identifying themselves that way. We look at individuals who say that they believe that when they die they know they will go to heaven or they'll spend eternity in God's presence, but only because they've confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their Savior.

Scott Allen:

You know, dr Barna, I'd like to hear your thoughts. I'm thinking there's pastors, leaders of churches and ministries that are hearing this and going gosh. I really agree and I want to do better. You've been a part of churches, many churches, helped to lead them, been on elder boards, started churches. In your experience personally or with other churches, have you seen a church that's done this well and, if so, what are some of the fundamentals you know or some basic building blocks that you would encourage churches to put into place in order to change this and to do discipleship really well? I mean, you mentioned one, I assume, which is just measuring it. Do you have some way of knowing that you're getting at it? But what else would you encourage in terms of churches that really aren't doing much beyond those things you mentioned taking notes during sermons, etc. And really want to start discipling their people?

Dr. George Barna:

Well, I'd say, first and foremost, the most effective churches are those that are actually built around their children's ministry. There's a tendency in America to think that adults are where everything happens and that's most important. It's not. Most adults don't change very much, if at all. So, starting with children, what we know is that a person's worldview starts developing at 15 to 18 months of age and is generally completed and starts to solidify by the age of 13. And so the more resources and emphasis and energy we can put into ministering to children, the better off not only will those children be, but the church at large will be and the future of the church will be. So I would start with children. Secondly, we find that it's imperative that, with those children, we're not doing what most children's ministries do, which is, you know, stuff that basically makes the kids happy so that they want to come back again. Basically, what most churches do is treat children as bait, and the idea is to make the children happy so that their parents think it's important to come back, so that their children can have that fun experience, the idea of a church-based experience for a child. Yes, we want them to have fun, yes, we want them to be happy about the experience, but we want to do that in the context of teaching them a biblical worldview. And so, whatever curriculum and exercises and games and songs and relationships, all the different things that are done with the children, it needs to be done with the end goal of facilitating a biblical worldview in the mind and heart and soul of each of those children. Amen. And then what we want to do is think about so what are we going to do with the adults? Well, we want to focus on the parents and the grandparents, that role that they fill, and the idea is for that church body to be preparing them, as a family, to actually take the lead in developing the worldview of the children. It's not the local church's job no, I love that. It's the parent's and grandparent's job, the family's job. And so what we want to do is be equipping those individuals to know what should we be doing with those children. How should we be doing this? How do we measure and evaluate this, all those kinds of issues? And when we find churches that are doing that, what we find is an extraordinary explosion of gospel-oriented ministry, and those churches have a big impact on their communities. They have a huge impact on the children on the family, but then that expands out into the community, and that's what you want to see. But that also then has to come back to. But then, what is discipleship? Because that's what we're talking about doing.

Dr. George Barna:

The only reason that you develop a biblical worldview in somebody is because that's the precedent to them becoming a disciple of Jesus. A disciple of Jesus is someone who thinks like Jesus, and that's important, because then they're able to act like Jesus, because you do what you believe. So it's important that you get the beliefs right, but not for its own sake. You're doing that so that then, as they are thinking about all the decisions that they're going to make, that will flow through their worldview, whatever it is, because your worldview is your decision-making filter. That's why everybody needs to have one and that's why it develops early, because you start making decisions so early in your life Just to get through the day. You've got to figure out yeah, who am I? What do I believe? Who do I want to become? What kind of a mark do I want to make on the world? All those kinds of big life questions. That's what develops. The answers are what develops into your worldview, and that's why it's so important that we work with children.

Scott Allen:

You know this is a question I've always wanted to ask you, dr Barnes, so I'm just going to jump in and ask you this. I've, you know, been a student of your research. Obviously, our ministry is biblical worldview discipleship, and one of the things that we teach is that you know, as Jesus said, you know them by your fruit very much, like you just said, you see somebody's worldview, whatever it is, based on their decisions, choices and actions, not necessarily based on what they say. You know, because we can be confused. You know about things and say we believe something, but it actually isn't especially, I think, this is true for Christians but it actually isn't really driving us. You know it's something else and so you have to go. Okay, it's really determined not so much by what they say but by how they're living. You know the choices that they make and how do you, as probably the preeminent worldview researcher, how do you handle that? I guess?

Dr. George Barna:

is my question how do you research it? You?

Scott Allen:

mean, how do you research that exactly?

Dr. George Barna:

Yeah, we're, as far as I know, first of all, the only place that consistently researches worldview in America, which is shocking. We research what kind of underwear people buy and what kind of fast food restaurants they want to go to.

Scott Allen:

Well, at least we've got our priorities straight.

Dr. George Barna:

So it's shocking to me that we don't treat worldview as a serious topic. If we did, everybody should be researching it because really it's so critical. But in addition to that, one of the things that I've learned over studying this for more than 40 years is that you cannot simply measure people's beliefs. You have to measure the kinds of behaviors that would come out of those beliefs, and when you find contradictions that would come out of those beliefs, and when you find contradictions, what that tells us is that they don't really believe what they said. They believe they know that that may be the right answer, they know that that might be a socially desirable answer, they know that it may be a biblical answer, but do they do it?

Dr. George Barna:

Well, if they don't do it, they don't really believe it, because you know, if you believed it and you did something that was contradictory to it, you'd be living with constant anxiety, constant cognitive dissonance, all kinds of issues that would essentially paralyze you every moment of every day. And so what human beings do is they try to bring those two things into harmony, so that they're comfortable with who they are and how they live, and so that's why essentially half of our research is okay. What do you believe in relation to these worldview issues? But the other half is how do you demonstrate that you believe that through your behaviors. And so when we put out statistics about the incidence of biblical worldview, for instance, I mean that's based on looking at both behavior and beliefs.

Scott Allen:

Okay, so you are trying to get at both of those in your methodology then. It's not just simply kind of questions about doctrine.

Dr. George Barna:

No, because that becomes very misleading and I think that's one of the reasons why so many churches don't understand what's going on in the culture. They teach doctrine, they teach biblical theology. They see people take notes. They assume, okay, good, they got it, but then they're not looking at. But what are they doing about it? What are they doing with it? Because that's where it's breaking down, and part of what I try to get pastors to understand is people are confused about how to translate biblical truth into a biblical lifestyle. So it's imperative that you not just tell them what truth is, but that you also do two things you explain to them how to convert that truth into a lifestyle and, secondly, a vital part of discipleship is demonstrating it for them, because we learn as much about what we believe and what kind of lifestyle we adopt by observing people we know and trust as simply listening to information about what we ought to believe I just violently agree with you here on all of that you're saying Let me jump in because you're scratching an itch here.

Dwight Vogt:

I'm on our elder board, dr Barnum, and every year we talk well, how are we going to review our church? And it usually goes back to your five numbers. And I'm no, that's absolutely not it. I work for a worldview organization. So here's my question it's terribly important what you talked about. So are you developing a tool for pastors to use? It gets down past the theology to the how do you measure action? You get what you measure. So how are you going to help pastors?

Dr. George Barna:

Yeah, within the past month, we actually released something called the ACU Worldview Assessment and you can take that online. We've developed it for different age groups, so we've got a fourth grade version, an eighth grade version, a twelfth grade version and the adult version, and it's accessible to anybody. It's online, and I think pastors and elder boards need to take it first. And elder boards need to take it first Because one of the things that we discovered it's about a year and a half ago now we did this with a national sampling of pastors and what we found is that only 37% of all currently working at churches, pastors, actually have a biblical worldview.

Dr. George Barna:

So when people say, well, how is it possible that people who are in churches don't wind up getting a biblical worldview, well, you have to understand that in almost two out of three cases, the people who are teaching them don't have a biblical worldview.

Dr. George Barna:

And and the thing that broke my heart the most was look, we broke it out by five different types of pastors, you know senior pastor, teaching pastor, associate pastor, children's pastor and executive pastor, and to me, the single most important pastor in any church is the children's pastor, because of what we talked about earlier, and what we discovered is that only 12% of children's pastors just one out of every eight children's pastors has a biblical worldview. Which then leads me to tell parents, you know what? It might actually be more dangerous to take your child to a Christian church than not to take them there, but for you to take the responsibility to make sure that they develop that biblical worldview and they develop a lifestyle of worship, you know, and so on and so forth. So, yeah, we have developed that tool that I'm hoping that a lot of churches will use it. We also created a function in that where, if you have your congregation use it, we can provide a group report that lets you know what's happening, statistically speaking, with that congregation.

Scott Allen:

We'll definitely direct our listeners to that assessment. Just quickly, though how do you get there, dr Barna?

Dr. George Barna:

I wasn't expecting you to ask that I should know the website. That's okay.

Scott Allen:

That's okay. That's okay, we'll post it If you go to the ACU website. Arizona Christian University. Yeah, ArizonaChristianUniversityedu.

Dr. George Barna:

Okay, I know there's a page there for it. It has its own page. It's something like ACU World View Assessment.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I think people can probably find it just by searching for that. Okay, well, thank you for all your work and for putting that out there and making that available. Yeah, guys, as we wrap up, any final questions or follow-ups here for dr Barn. I wish we had more time, but thanks for the time you're giving us, dr Barnum just a dr Barnum, just a hearty amen to everything you've said.

John Bottimore:

All, all of us have been believers for decades and decades and decades and we observe a lot of what you are saying. And I'm saying observe on the unfortunate side of what you are saying, we all have a great desire to be along with you as ambassadors for the Lord and instruments for his kingdom to turn this around. So what you've told us here is just encouraging to do within our own churches, within our ministry, and this time with you has been a blessing. So thank you.

Dr. George Barna:

Oh, thank you. I hope at some point I get to come back and talk with you some more about the research we've done with children and how to disciple children. We're in the midst right now of putting together two huge research projects on discipling adults in America and I know this is kind of in your bailiwick, so I'd love to come back and talk with you about that in the future.

Scott Allen:

Well, we'll take you up on that. Do you point anyone to organizations or curriculum that you think are really excellent? If they wanted to put their hands on some curriculum that would help them in this area with children and biblical worldview, dr Barna.

Dr. George Barna:

We're doing a lot of that research right now, looking at it through the lens of biblical worldview and discipleship. And yeah, hopefully very near the future.

Scott Allen:

Well, I know some really excellent curriculum my colleague Dwight Vogt developed, called Footings for Children. So I'll put a quick plug in for that and maybe, luke, we can put that in the show notes as well. So let me just wrap up. Today I want to quote the end of your report. I was very moved by it, dr Barna. You said parents, churches and other cultural influencers would serve those they influence most effectively by returning to these basic questions of life, clarifying the worldview options we face, pointing people towards the truth and helping them to find peace and passion in life through that clarity. In the end, it's all about worldview and for those who seek a worldview based on truth, it's all about pursuing the God of the Bible for the answers and the connections that we deeply desire. I thought that was just really well said. I just really agree with that.

Dr. George Barna:

Thanks. And that comes out of the research we did on something called the seven cornerstones of the biblical worldview, where we found there are seven particular beliefs that if you really own them, you live them. They're central to who you are. You've got an 83% probability of developing a full biblical worldview.

Scott Allen:

What is that research called there, or that piece you just mentioned?

Dr. George Barna:

It's called Seven cornerstones of a biblical worldview, but we found that if you reject even one of those seven, the probability of you then developing a full biblical worldview drops to just 2%. So they're a great foundation to build on, and that's one of the things that I talk with parents about. It's like a lot of you don't have a biblical worldview. You're scared of this, you don't know where to start. Start with the seven cornerstones. They're simple, they're easy, they're biblical, they're fundamental, and if you and your kids really own these, you're gonna be on the right path.

Scott Allen:

Wow. Well, thank you so much for all of your incredible wisdom and research that you have put out there for the good of the church and for the discipling of the nation. We are deeply grateful, dr Barna, for you and for your ministry and for this time that we had together today with you. Thanks so much.

Dr. George Barna:

Thanks to all of you.

Scott Allen:

All right. Well, we are going to have a little bit of an after show today, just because it was such a special opportunity to get time with Dr Barna, and so I'm here still with John Bottimore in Washington DC, luke up here with me in Oregon and Dwight down in Arizona, sunny Arizona.

Dr. George Barna:

Rainy today.

Scott Allen:

Scott, rainy, rainy, arizona. Ok, it does rain in Arizona and, for those of you who aren't from Oregon, there is desert in Oregon. I know most people freak out when I say that, but it's not all rainforest here, it's actually mostly high desert. So, anyways, not that we heard from Dr Barna or things that you picked up that we didn't geta chance to talk about from his report, or anything you'd like to share. I thought that was a terrific conversation. So who wants to get us started?

John Bottimore:

I'll share something, scott, from almost the very beginning, something that he said that then became kind of the thread throughout of uh, starting with uh, children and churches and everything. When he, when, when you asked a bit about the encouragement that we're, you know, seeing from young men and that sort of thing and he talked about after he talked about a steep decline in the belief of the god of the bible, he, uh, he's, he acknowledged and said, yes, indeed, there's a increase in in Gen Z versus Millennials. But he defined that as spirituality, not things of a deeper interest in Jesus as our Savior, sin and our need for a Savior, absolute truth, the inerrant word of the Bible and all of that. And just then I was thinking, well, these things don't happen. These things happen through, typically through nurturing from childhood, and it takes a long time. These things don't normally happen as a quick kind of thing.

John Bottimore:

And then he dove right into the thing of saying you really need to have this, you really need a church really needs to focus on children, because most of them have their worldview shaped very early and almost fully shaped by age 13. So that was so powerful it's not to say that we don't have hope and working in adults and leading them to Christ and discipling them and things. But that importance of really working things from the ground up, if you will, with children was just struck me as so powerful and so important when he said that with the Gen Z kind of the interest that we're seeing, you know, and that research, like Pew, is showing, in a real increase in the Bible and Christianity amongst especially young men.

Scott Allen:

He said it wasn't translating into things like you know, questions about personal salvation or decisions for Jesus or something like that. And when I thought, you know it's right, it doesn't seem to me that that's what's kind of starting. It's not really where the discussion is. It's not at that very personal spiritual level as much as it is people seeing that culture is breaking down in some really fundamental ways and if it continues on these trajectories it'll really break down.

Scott Allen:

And then what was it that allowed for a largely kind of free and tolerant society in the first place, where there was love and forgiveness and grace and some of these things? And people are going, oh wow, it looks like that was coming from the Bible, you know. So there's this kind of connection to cultural things and the Bible. This is my own observation but it hasn't gotten very personal yet. You even see this with Jordan Peterson, like he talks a lot about the Bible as it relates to a kind of culture, but you know he's uncomfortable when you get too personal, you know, with this about his own faith, you know. So I thought that will probably come and it should come, it needs to come, but I'm not upset or disappointed that that's not where people are at. I guess those were some of the thoughts going through my head on that part of the discussion.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many 18-year-old men who are coming to church for the first time are thinking about the civilizational consequences of Christianity on the building of the West. But even though Peterson does articulate that really helpfully for us, I think there's, just like he said, interest in spirituality and this in a way, that we didn't see, uh, five years ago. Um, and I think that's because of a good shake-up that happened with covid, I think, a lot of people are pointing back to that.

Luke Allen:

That scared people that kind of knocked our secular human pride uh a little bit to the side and uh made people open up, maybe to to to thoughts that they wouldn't have considered previously. I also look at some of the big cultural influences on young men. You mentioned Jordan Peterson. I think of people like Joe Rogan.

Luke Allen:

And there's just an overall openness to ask hard questions right now that I didn't see so much maybe five, 10 years ago, and just kind of wrestle and say, you know, I don't understand this concept, but I'm curious to think about it and to talk about it with people and there's nothing wrong with that. I think that's great, that's a great trend. Uh, when Elisa Childers was on a few months ago with us, um, she mentioned that as one of the reasons why there's this kind of rebirth and she called it the vibe the vibe change uh a newfound interest in Christianity.

Luke Allen:

I would say, though, to echo Dr Barna, it's more just general spirituality, not exactly Christianity. I heard I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but witchcraft is the fastest growing religion in America right now, apparently, not to mention New Age, you know all stuff is is growing rapidly as well in interest. So it's, it's all of those things, but you know the new atheists got it wrong. As far as the they were trying to take us in 15 years ago, it's definitely not going the direction they were hoping. Yeah, so yeah, I mean all that. To consider, there's more young men coming to church right now than young women for the first time in American history. That's amazing.

Scott Allen:

Yeah.

Luke Allen:

And has that translated to biblical worldviews being formed or real discipleship happening? Probably not yet, but Well, something's going on, that's right?

Scott Allen:

Yeah, something's clearly happening, dwight. How about you? What did you hear or what did you take away from his study that we looked at?

Dwight Vogt:

What I heard and what I took away. My takeaway was I've heard this before, but what gets measured gets done, and I really do think that that helping the church figure out how to measure discipleship is is like would be super helpful.

Scott Allen:

Yeah absolutely.

Dwight Vogt:

Um, even if you can't answer the question, even if you can't come up with a nice five point survey and you probably can't but how do you? How do you get people thinking about do I trust god more now than I did 12 months ago? Do? Am I willing to take risks for the lord now that I didn't take 12 months ago? Is my faith stronger in that respect? Those kinds of questions would be amazing, um to think about and measure if you, without getting too tech, you know, without, without making Christianity a technique, which it isn't, it's a life, it's a.

Scott Allen:

the other thing is that was one of the most powerful parts of the conversation. You know, just it's, it's, it's it's shocking.

Scott Allen:

You know that, that we're in the situation that we're in in my mind. You know where churches still have these faulty measurements about what it is I mean. To me, it's just a complete failure in terms of understanding what is the church and what's the mission of the church. It's not just to grow you know or put people you know in pews or whatever it is you know it's interesting, but even then it's like the mission of my church is perfect.

Dwight Vogt:

I mean, it's a very deep, profound mission statement. But I think it's because we don't have a clue how to measure a mission statement, so we go back to, we default to what's easy. How many people are in the pews, right? You know how much?

Scott Allen:

money did they give? It's kind of that ties into the part of our discussion where we were talking about worldview and it's not enough to just say what is your worldview, because you can have a right answer but you're not living it out Like so it ties directly to churches.

Scott Allen:

They have a great mission statement or statement of faith or whatever it is, but they're not. You know, what gets measured at the end of the day are those same kind of four or five metrics that are numbers-based, and we talk a lot about this. In the DNA, you know that there's more lies that are coming into the culture and destroying the culture, destroying our institutions educationally and every other way, and meanwhile the church is kind of on the sidelines. You know it's just not having the kind of impact on society and culture because it doesn't get measured, it's not talked about. So yeah, he was completely on point. I thought at that part of the conversation.

Luke Allen:

Just real quick before your second point there, Dwight. I mean, how do we measure discipleship? What is discipleship? Can you give me your?

Dwight Vogt:

smallest definition. Well, I liked his six.

Luke Allen:

I did too actually.

Dwight Vogt:

I started writing them down and lost track, but I thought those were six great points of saying. Well, if I had to summarize, I'd summarize it around the Scripture of Jesus and his words.

Scott Allen:

I like the way, too, he differentiated discipleship and worldview. You know that worldview was kind of the field that needed to be plowed, so to speak, in order for discipleship to grow. You know that it was. You have to think correctly about certain basic things and live in that. I mean, they're not. There's not a hard and fast separation, but but kind of one comes before the other. What did you guys make of that? How can you really be a follower of Jesus if you don't have a basic understanding of who God is and what does it mean to be human? Some of these more fundamental worldview questions? If you got those really fundamental questions wrong, then it's just hard to be, you know, a disciple according to those characteristics of discipleship that he listed. Isn't it Dwight?

Dwight Vogt:

No, yeah, he had the I, the flow is correct and we preach the same in the DNA. If you change the mind, you can change the heart, you can change the action. Right, it doesn't always go in that order, but those three have to happen, be transformed by the renew of your minds. We love that verse in Romans 12. So, yeah, that's spot on. I think it's just really challenging once you get past the theological understanding which is so critical to well.

Dwight Vogt:

Now, how do I measure the heart and the action, apart from anecdotally, and so we'll have testimonies in church. You know that person will get up and share. This is what the Lord did in my life and this is what, how I was following him. This is the test of my faith and I, you know whatever. We love anecdotes and I think, john, you alluded to this. I don't know if it was offline or online, but the DNA is now going through an impact evaluation exercise ourselves and we need to have a podcast on what we find, because we're really working hard to see. How do you measure the heart and the action that comes from ideas.

Scott Allen:

And you can, can't you? I mean, none of this is perfect. You know it's not, but there's ways of getting at this, isn't there? There's ways of saying you know it's not, but there's ways of getting at this. Isn't there there's ways of saying you know, are we doing what we're setting out to do? Go ahead.

John Bottimore:

Yeah, yeah, our application of the heart triangle that we're doing, remember it's about knowledge, behaviors, becomings, and loves and commitments. So it's very similar to what we talked about here loves and commitments so it's very similar to what we talked about here. A disciple is one who who knows and learns, gets a biblical worldview and then knows. But that's a precedent to becoming a disciple of one who does, and, of course, one of the definitions of a disciple is one who makes disciples. So it's not a one-time thing and it's very similar to what we're talking about in our DNA work. We have kingdomizers and we have kingdomizers who make kingdomizers, either one-on-one or in a movement bigger type of an approach. So there's a lot of really rich learning that we're having from our impact analysis. That I think is very relevant to what we're talking about here and I absolutely echo that. We need to have probably several podcasts on that.

Luke Allen:

I was listening to Arturo Cuba, who's one of our core trainers here at the DNA, and a talk. Actually well, this was our last episode that I posted. It was a special episode last week where he was talking about biblical principles and the importance of those. And one thing that he said is he said people don't live out of theologies. People live out of what makes sense to them and what he was saying. There is a lot of times theologies don't.

Luke Allen:

Actually it's hard for people to take a theology type truth and then apply that into a practice of their life. And he said that's where a principle comes in. And he said this is why biblical principles are handy, because you can take the theology and then you can transform it into what makes sense in someone's life and how to live it out. And he's the perfect person to talk about this because he's been teaching biblical worldview for over almost 30 years now over 20 years to indigenous tribes in Latin America almost 30 years now over 20 years to indigenous tribes in Latin America. And he takes a theological concept that's true and then he turns it into a principle about how they're living their life as rural, agrarian farmers or whatnot. And I thought that was so interesting because, in the simplest terms, discipleship is the process of learning and then doing and then eventually teaching and the one, two, three, and so often we just stay at the learning stage knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.

Luke Allen:

Great, very important wisdom, uh, but. But sometimes it's hard to take that theology it in and transfer it into our lives not to mention that a lot of churches don't mention the importance of living out a biblical worldview in all areas of life but just the application steps of how do we do this. So we're not getting to that second stage of do. And then, of course, you're not going to get to the stage of teach, because you have to be a practitioner to be a teacher.

Dwight Vogt:

That's so well said, luke, you know, but it's also it's a triangle, luke, like John said, because I'm thinking of here's an example. You teach male and female are equal. That's a principle. You treat them alike. They have an equal place in the world. All men are created equal Declaration of independence. That's a principle, but it grows out of a theology which is and God created them, male and female, in his image. In the image of God created them. So the theology is like it's there God created you, male and female. He created both of you and made you in his image. Out of that you say well then, you must be equal, you must treat each other with respect and dignity. And what I see in the world now is and we see this in the DNA is, we see the principle actually taking root in society. But they've lost sight of the theology. And so, of course, men and women are equal in the US, but they're not in India.

Dwight Vogt:

You know well, because India never had our theology. We actually had that theology. Now we've lost that theology. So in a sense he's saying we need to go back to the biblical worldview at the theological level as well. And I'm going, yeah, because if you lose that, eventually you will lose the principle. I think Absolutely. So it's a tricky thing you know, yeah 100%.

Scott Allen:

But I like the way he said. I think for me the most powerful thing that he said today was that you know that you get at somebody's worldview not by what, exclusively what they say, what's in their head, but by looking at their actions, choices and behaviors. And I've always I've always wondered about that with his research because it seemed to me when I've seen some of his questionnaires, it probed more on you know kind of core doctrine questions about God or whatever it was, and if you got the answers right, then you had a biblical worldview. And I always struggled a little bit with that because I thought you can get the right answers, but you may not have a biblical worldview.

John Bottimore:

you know, next podcast Scott.

Scott Allen:

Well, but he put me at ease today by saying exactly what I thought, which is it has to be a worldview is known by its fruits, by what people do with it, how they live it out, and that he's trying to get at that as well with his research. So I really appreciated that. I don't know exactly how he does much harder. It's much easier just to say you know, answer me these questions about your theology. It's much harder to see how you're living that out or what you're doing with it. But he recognized that and he's doing something with it and he said you know to your point, luke, we've got to help people not just know, but we've got to help them translate that knowledge into something that they can apply or to live with, or do you know? And we're not doing well at that. So I thought that was a really powerful part of the conversation.

John Bottimore:

It was and it made me think at that time about you know the saying about. Well, if you want to find out what somebody's priorities are, just look at their checkbook kind of thing. You know behaviors like this and I thought of the first corinthians, 8, one verse where it talks about knowledge puffs up but love builds up. And if you look at the six criteria of a disciple that, um, after obeying the teaching, it's they really are love oriented. Uh, actions they're love oriented things that can be measured love. Other disciples john 13, 34 and 35 produce spiritual fruit. A lot of that's through love and the luke 14 verses he talked about of loving god first and foremost, first and foremost, and, of course, love your neighbor as yourself and pick up your cross. How much more love is there than that of surrendering and taking on God's agenda instead of ours? Again, it's other-centered loving others. So not easy to measure, but at least we know categorically they are things about self-sacrifice, other-centeredness and love that are the real measures that really measure the fruit of a biblical worldview.

Scott Allen:

Luke, what's going on in your head right now?

Luke Allen:

I mean, yeah, we're kind of going back and forth between, I think, my two favorite parts of the—well, the two main things we hit on, which were what is a worldview and the importance of understanding it in totals so that we can apply it into our lives, and then also the importance of understanding it in totals so that we can apply it into our lives, and then also the importance of discipling children.

Luke Allen:

So I'd love to talk a little bit more about that, but I just I, I we talked about this a few weeks ago on the show, but the the quote from Francis Schaeffer that I think fits well into the discussion at this point is the basic problem of Christianity in this country, the United States, is that we see things in bits and pieces instead of in totals, and I would love to go over the seven pillars that he was talking about of things, the seven cornerstones sorry of a biblical worldview, and I took a brief look at those, and essentially, those are the truths that make sense of the totality of life. Those are the truths that make sense of the totality of life, not in bits and pieces, that can be applied into all of life, the things that you can really live out of, and when you understand those and not just understand them, but truly believe them it's going to affect your worldview. And that's what he was saying about. If you get these seven cornerstones right, you will ultimately live out a biblical worldview.

John Bottimore:

These seven cornerstones right, you will ultimately live out a biblical worldview. And to your point about totality, Luke, it was fascinating to say that if you have all seven of them right, you've got whatever 83%, but if you even have one not right, he said it was down to 2%. Well, I'd be interested in knowing if all of them are equally problematic to get down to 2%, or some of them more than others. But in any case, it just substantiates what you're saying. It's really about a totality of life and having that full kind of belief system, Because otherwise it's bits and pieces and that's not a disciple, and that's not a biblical worldview in bits and pieces.

Luke Allen:

And that's what we're seeing in the report. Again, he talks a lot about this, and they do at the Cultural Research Center. Is synchronicity, is that how you say it? Syncretism, Syncretism, yeah.

Scott Allen:

Synchronicity was a great album by the police in the police and sting you know back in the day.

John Bottimore:

Right, remember that yeah yeah, I do, oh, that's, that's a classic luke.

Scott Allen:

You got to go back and listen to that one man?

Luke Allen:

yeah, I've heard that, that's where that came from.

John Bottimore:

That's funny that was a little bit of syncretism anyways where do I find the?

Luke Allen:

seven luke. What was that? Where do I find the seven Luke? What was that? Where do we find the?

Scott Allen:

seven again, the seven cornerstones of a biblical worldview.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, barna Research, yeah, we'll have this all in links in the show notes, but the Cultural Research Center that works under Arizona Christian University. It's pretty easy to find all of their research there. They have a nice library. Anyways, what we're, oh yeah, Syncretism. Syncretism, that's a hard word.

Luke Allen:

It's just this idea that you hold multiple worldviews at the same time. The problem is when you do see our faith in bits and pieces and you don't understand how the Bible applies to something like your work or to politics or media, then you're going to fill it in with some other worldview's response to those areas of life and you're going to have a syncretic worldview in a way.

Scott Allen:

And his research points to 96% of Americans have a syncretistic worldview I mean to me, all that is is a worldview where you're at the very center of it. There is no God above. You're at the center of everything and you're picking and choosing what makes sense to you. So it is kind of coherent. The coherence of it falls around you and what you think is true and what works for you. You know, I mean that that in a sense it's coherent worldview.

Luke Allen:

It's a false worldview because you're not the center of the world, but that's the way people are living you know right, yeah, and the rise in that is probably due to the effects of post-modernism, for sure, yeah.

Scott Allen:

Culture today yeah, for sure oh, this is what I was going to say. I loved it. You know, the worldview is something that really has to be in some ways caught and not taught. I mean, it has to be taught too, but we do pick up our worldviews by just watching and observing the culture around us and especially people that are influential in our lives. And that, you know, if you want to disciple your kids to have a biblical worldview, they're going to learn a lot more based on just how you live and the choices that you make, as opposed to what you didactically teach them.

Scott Allen:

That's just a great reminder, and I think of Darrow often in that, and Bob, our two founders, because they were so good at living out these truths in ways that were really appealing to people and they didn't just teach them, they really embodied them, they lived them out, and people around the world saw that and they were like wow, you know that. You know that came out of my research that we're doing right now on our impact is just how many people were impacted that I talked to not just by the teaching of the DNA, but by the example of the teachers, and I thought, oh, that's a good, good reminder. You know, just for myself. You know, these aren't just ideas. These are things that we pick up by watching people that we love and respect.

Dwight Vogt:

I think when I heard that I thought, yeah, I agreed that that made sense to me. My 13-year worldview is pretty much set. It was also a little bit depressing because I'm thinking, wow, that's really young, you know. But the other thing is that the message of the gospel is that we can change worldview.

Scott Allen:

Well or God, can you know right? Yeah, I mean we meaning.

Dwight Vogt:

God can work in and through us.

Scott Allen:

Absolutely.

Dwight Vogt:

I've got a good friend that he's really struggling to see the world differently now and he's working to reprogram his whole heart and mind in a biblical way, and it's working. But it wasn't set that way at the age of 12 and 13. It was set different and it wasn't his. He didn't choose that, it just got set.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, no, it absolutely can change. And it is't his, he didn't choose that, it just got said. Yeah, no, it absolutely can change and it is a miracle. It's not to say that it's not a powerful, miraculous thing, but people well beyond 13 can have a renewal of their mind, their heart and their mind. That's what it means to be born again in many ways, guys. Any final thoughts as we wrap up? This has been great Just having a little post discussion.

Scott Allen:

There was a lot to talk about. I was really encouraged and I was appreciating his resources. Again, you know we'll post those at the end of the podcast for you to. You could just pick them up and start using them. Some of these assessments, the seven cornerstones what are we going to be doing with children? And I think and it's not just children, it's also parents Parents are key in this because they're the ones who are discipling the kids. They can't just pass them off to the church and say you do it Especially. That was shocking. You know how few pastors and he mentioned specifically children's pastors have a biblical worldview based on his assessment, which is kind of shocking to me actually. So, anyways, final thoughts, guys.

Luke Allen:

Well, and there's a role for the grandparents to come in and disciple the grandkids. He pointed to that as well. Hey, that's good news for the three of us, isn't it? You've got to have them first. You've got to have them, you still have a very important role.

Scott Allen:

We don't just get to play golf all day now.

Luke Allen:

Hey guys, thanks again for listening. To this fascinating discussion.

Dr. George Barna:

With Dr George. Barnum.

Luke Allen:

As we mentioned a few times during today's discussion.

John Bottimore:

This episode was full of Practical and helpful resources For all of us to look into, including the worldview assessment Offered by Arizona Christian.

Luke Allen:

University. In the seven cornerstones of a biblical worldview which you can find at the Cultural Research Center which is part of Arizona Christian University.

Scott Allen:

All of these resources including a lot of others that we also mentioned will be included in this episode's landing

Luke Allen:

page, and the best way to get over to that is just click the link in the show notes, or you can also find that page on the homepage of our website, which is DiscipleNationsorg. So, again, make sure to check out this episode's page, as it is full of practical resources for all of us. If this is your first time listening to this show Ideas have Consequences then, as you heard, this is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance, which is a ministry that has worked around the world for the last 28 years, training now over a million people in over 100 countries in the transformative power of a biblical worldview. If you would like to learn more about our ministry or check out any of our biblical worldview training courses, then you can find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is, again, disciplenationsorg. That's it for today, guys. Thanks again for joining us for this discussion. We truly appreciate your time and attention, as always, and we hope that you'll be able to join us again next week here on Ideas have Consequences.

People on this episode

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Scott Allen

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Darrow Miller

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Dwight Vogt

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Shawn Carson

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Tim Williams

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Luke Allen

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