The Prodigals, The Nomads, and the Exiles

I’ve been reading “You Lost Me” by David Kinnaman for class and I’ve been really taken with his concepts of millennials finding themselves in three groups: The Prodigals, the Nomads, and the Exiles.

Kinnaman offers this brief description of each group:

• Nomads walk away from church engagement but still consider themselves Christians. 
• Prodigals lose their faith, describing themselves as “no longer Christian.” 
• Exiles are still invested in their Christian faith but feel stuck (or lost) between culture and the church.

I’ve encountered someone from each of these groups while I was in college. The names that Kinnaman gives to each group is fits the attitudes I’ve encountered perfectly.

Kinnaman also describes three issues that can be either obstacles or opportunities  involved in reaching out to these groups. These are:

• Access
• Alienation
• Authority

I’ve really appreciated how Kinnaman highlights the potential obstacles in each of these areas, but offers some solutions and challenges for the Christian community. It is often easy to look at a Nomad or and Exile and say “You’re lost. You’re hopeless. I can’t reach you.” But Kinnaman encourages us to see the growing use of technology as a means of communication as a challenge to be taken, not something to run from.

In Diversity Culture, Raley describes a post-modern individual who is skeptical about religion and a lot of other things too. The picture that Kinnaman paints is very similar.

Raley’s image left me afraid of potentially encountering his hypothetical post-modern individual. Kinnaman has challenged me to see this growing skepticism as a opportunity to make meaningful connections.

So far, I’m ready to take the challenge and make those connections.