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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Allen (00:06):
Well, welcome again to another episode of Ideas
have Consequences.
This is the podcast of theDisciple Nations Alliance.
I'm Scott Allen, I'm thepresident of the DNA and I'm
joined today by friends and teammembers Luke Allen, John
Bottimore, Dwight Vogt, andtoday we're thrilled to have
with us a very respected andwell-known Christian poster

(00:28):
researcher, George Barna.
George, thank you so much fortaking 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 lookingforward to this for quite a
while.
For those of you, probablyalmost everyone knows George,
but if you don't, just a littleabout him, I've got a little bit
of your bio, George.
George is a professor at ArizonaChristian University in Phoenix

(00:51):
and he is the director ofresearch at the Cultural
Research Center, which is a partof the ministry of Arizona
Christian University, and itfocuses on biblical worldview,
or worldview assessment anddevelopment, and cultural
transformation.
Dr Barna has an extensivecareer.
He's provided research andstrategy for hundreds of

(01:13):
parachurch ministries, thousandsof churches, as well as the US
military and Fortune 500companies.
He is the author of 60 books.
That's incredible 60 booksaddressing topics of social and
religious trends, worldviewleadership, development and

(01:33):
spiritual development, churchdynamics and cultural
transformation.
His most recent book is abestseller titled Raising
Spiritual Champions Nurturingyour Child's Heart, Mind and
Soul, and that was just releasedin 2023.
Would love to have a talk juston that book alone, Dr Barner.

(01:53):
We're going to be veering intoother ground, but thanks for
writing that book.
That sounds amazing.

Dr. George Barna (01:59):
Yeah, I'd love to have a chance just to talk
about that.
You know, when you talk aboutlife's work, you know that for
me that's certainly one of thosebooks that comes into that
category, absolutely.

You know, I just feel like the discipleship in
biblical worldview mostnaturally happens there in
families, and you know you haveto obviously give Christians a
vision for doing that, and youknow you have to obviously give
Christians a vision for doingthat, and so anything kind of

(02:32):
practical, practical help, likeI'm sure this book would provide
, is most welcome.
Just a little bit more.
Dr Barna has a degree fromgraduated summa cum laude from
Boston College and earnedmaster's degrees from Rutgers
University and from DallasBaptist University.
So again, thanks for being withus today, george, thank you.
Yeah, we're going to talkspecifically today about one of

(02:54):
your research documents thatcame out earlier this year, came
out from the Cultural ResearchCenter at Arizona Christian
University, titled Faith andCulture Trends 2025, 12 Trends
that Will Shape Faith andCulture in the New Year 2025,

(03:15):
the year that we're into rightnow.
And, anyways, there was a lotof things we could talk about,
but I just thought I'd jumpright in with the top line, the
findings that you have here.
You say that there's been asteep decline over the past 30
years in the percent of adultswho believe in the God of the
Bible, a God who is personal,loving, omniscient, omnipotent,

(03:37):
but also morally unyielding andexpects us to take seriously the
standards and boundaries thathe gave us.
You go on and you say currentlyabout half of US adults believe
in the God of the Bible, butless than half choose to worship
or follow that deity, and thefastest 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

(04:02):
whether a supernatural deity ofany kind, such as the God of the
Bible, exists.
I think when I read that, drBarna, I was a little bit taken
Part of me.
Of course I wasn't surprised,but we read a lot now and I
think in many ways many of ushave experienced there's kind of

(04:22):
a shift that's happening aswell, you see it.
For example, I mean a lot ofexamples, but the huge crowds of
young men, particularlyattending Jordan Peterson
conferences where he's talkingabout the Bible, his ARC
conferences, that recent Pewstudy that showed that there's
now kind of a flat line or adecline among, you know, nuns,

(04:45):
the people that you know had,you know, said they had no
religious affiliation, aren'tinterested, increased sale of
the Bible, etc.
I've almost, you know, wonderedif we're into kind of a revival
of some sorts.
I guess my question here is didyou see any of that as you were
looking at some of theseprevious trends that you talk

(05:06):
about?

Yeah, we see that there's an increase in
interest, particularly amongthose in what's often referred
to as Gen Z, those who are 21,down to their early teen years,

(05:29):
to their early teen years arising interest in spirituality,
particularly compared to theprior generation, the
millennials, who didn't havethat same kind of interest for
many years.
And so there is that that showsup on the radar.
But what we're not seeing, thata lot of people I think are
jumping to the conclusion of, isa deeper and abiding interest
in Jesus Christ as a personalsavior for people, admission of

(05:55):
personal sin and the need to dosomething about that.
Belief in absolute moral truth,trust in the Bible those things
really haven't taken hold ofthe younger populations yet.

(06:16):
They may in the coming years,but at this point in time
there's kind of a flirtationwith many different faith groups
.
I just put out a report lastweek talking about the decline
in Christianity in America andhow we see a rise in people
associating themselves withthings like Buddhism, Islam,

(06:40):
even Judaism, but Christianitylosing about 10% of the
population over the last 10 or15 years.
So yeah, I think it's probablypremature to say that we're in a
period of spiritual revival.

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

And I'm hopeful.
I mean the fact that there isthat heightened spiritual
interest gives us an open doorto walk through.
Absolutely but at the same time,we've got to have people who
are ready to do that, and so youknow when the scriptures talk
about.
You know the fields are whitewith the harvest, but we need
those who are going to go outand harvest it.
I think that's as much ourproblem as anything else.

(07:33):
We don't have that manyindividuals who, by Jesus'
criteria, will be considereddisciples in America and frankly
, as I'm sure you know, the onlypeople who can make disciples
are disciples because youreproduce who you are.
So we've got some challenges inthat regard.

Let's jump down to discipleship.
Since you brought it up, youwrite in this report.
You say that the CulturalResearch Center estimates that
only about one out of every tenborn-again adults who represent
just one-third of US adults isan active disciple of Jesus

(08:15):
Christ.
Only about one in every ten.
Again, and surprisingly, asurprisingly small proportion of
them are discipling otherpeople.
Thousands of the nation'sChristian churches say that
they're committed todiscipleship, but strikingly few
do much beyond encouragingnote-taking during sermons,

(08:37):
independent Bible reading duringthe week or attending
church-initiated small groups,which research indicates are
generally ineffective at makingdisciples.
You know, when I read that,that resonated with my own
experience attending evangelicalchurches for my entire adult

(08:58):
life.
Why is there so littleintentionality, do you think, dr
Barna, in making disciples atchurches beyond those things
that you just mentioned, whichseem to be very common?

Yeah, you know , one of the things that I teach
my students is you get what youmeasure.
Right, what churches measure?
One of the things thatfascinates me and, frankly,
disappoints me is that almost nochurches in America measure
discipleship in any meaningfulway.

(09:33):
When we've interviewed nationalsamples of senior pastors of
Christian churches across thecountry, what we've discovered
is that they do measure things,which is good, but you get what
you measure.
So what are they measuring?
We found there are five thingsthat a majority of churches in
the country measure how manypeople show up, how much money

(09:55):
is raised, how many programs areoffered, how many staff people
are hired and how much squarefootage on the campus has been
built out.
And it's great that they'remeasuring those things.
But frankly, Jesus didn't diefor any of those.
So I would contend that we'rethrowing ourselves at the idea

(10:17):
of developing and having amegachurch, and those are the
things we measure how manypeople show up, how much money,
how many staff, how manyprograms, etc.
And we're not really looking atwhat kind of spiritual
transformation is happening inthe lives of those people who
are coming to church servicesand church events, looking at

(10:41):
the six criteria that Jesus gaveus for a disciple and trying to
figure out.
Are we doing anythingproactively and positively to
move people toward trulybecoming genuine disciples of
his?
If we did that, I think we'dsee very different kind of
ministries in our country.

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

He's got three statements he makes where you
will be my disciple if and inJohn 8, he says you will be my
disciple if you obey myteachings.
In John 13, he says you will bemy disciple if you love other
disciples.
And in John 15, he talks aboutyou will be my disciple if you

(11:28):
produce a lot of spiritual fruit.
And then in Luke 14, he takes adifferent approach and he says
you cannot be my disciple unlessfirst he says you know God is
first and foremost in your life.
I think that's verse 26.
I think it's verse 27, where hesays and you cannot be my

(11:48):
disciple unless you pick up yourcross and follow me, which in
that Roman context basicallymeant unless you attach yourself
to my agenda, not your agendaor the culture's agenda.
And then I think it's in verse33, he said and you cannot be my

(12:10):
disciple unless you surrendereverything for me.
And so if you look at those sixcriteria, we just recently
finished a national survey wherewe tried to evaluate how many
people are following that set ofstandards and what we find is

(12:33):
it's somewhere on the order of 2or maybe 3 percent of our
population is intentionally andconsistently pursuing that kind
of lifestyle.

Dwight Vogt (12:44):
And that was a Christian population, a
church-attending population.

That's the population at large.
If we look at theologicallyidentified born-again Christians
, it's roughly double that.
It's probably in the 6% to 8%range.
And by theologically identifiedborn-again Christians I not
people who call themselvesborn-again Christians.
Necessarily Some of them do,but many of them don't because

(13:12):
that label born-again Christianshas so much negative cultural
baggage.
So instead we don't depend onpeople identifying themselves
that way.
We look at individuals who saythat they believe that when they
die they know they will go toheaven or they'll spend eternity
in God's presence, but onlybecause they've confessed their

(13:32):
sins and accepted Christ astheir Savior.

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 thisand going gosh.
I really agree and I want to dobetter.
You've been a part of churches,many churches, helped to lead
them, been on elder boards,started churches.

(13:58):
In your experience personallyor with other churches, have you
seen a church that's done thiswell and, if so, what are some
of the fundamentals you know orsome basic building blocks that
you would encourage churches toput into place in order to
change this and to dodiscipleship really well?
I mean, you mentioned one, Iassume, which is just measuring

(14:20):
it.
Do you have some way of knowingthat you're getting at it?
But what else would youencourage in terms of churches
that really aren't doing muchbeyond those things you
mentioned taking notes duringsermons, etc.
And really want to startdiscipling their people?

Well, I'd say, first and foremost, the most
effective churches are thosethat are actually built around
their children's ministry.
There's a tendency in Americato think that adults are where
everything happens and that'smost important.
It's not.
Most adults don't change verymuch, if at all.

(14:57):
So, starting with children,what we know is that a person's
worldview starts developing at15 to 18 months of age and is
generally completed and startsto solidify by the age of 13.
And so the more resources andemphasis and energy we can put

(15:21):
into ministering to children,the better off not only will
those children be, but thechurch at large will be and the
future of the church will be.
So I would start with children.
Secondly, we find that it'simperative that, with those
children, we're not doing whatmost children's ministries do,

(15:42):
which is, you know, stuff thatbasically makes the kids happy
so that they want to come backagain.
Basically, what most churchesdo is treat children as bait,
and the idea is to make thechildren happy so that their
parents think it's important tocome back, so that their
children can have that funexperience, the idea of a

(16:06):
church-based experience for achild.
Yes, we want them to have fun,yes, we want them to be happy
about the experience, but wewant to do that in the context
of teaching them a biblicalworldview.
And so, whatever curriculum andexercises and games and songs
and relationships, all thedifferent things that are done

(16:28):
with the children, it needs tobe done with the end goal of
facilitating a biblicalworldview in the mind and heart
and soul of each of thosechildren.
Amen.
And then what we want to do isthink about so what are we going
to do with the adults?
Well, we want to focus on theparents and the grandparents,

(16:49):
that role that they fill, andthe idea is for that church body
to be preparing them, as afamily, to actually take the
lead in developing the worldviewof the children.
It's not the local church's jobno, I love that.
It's the parent's andgrandparent's job, the family's

(17:10):
job.
And so what we want to do is beequipping those individuals to
know what should we be doingwith those children.
How should we be doing this?
How do we measure and evaluatethis, all those kinds of issues?
And when we find churches thatare doing that, what we find is

(17:30):
an extraordinary explosion ofgospel-oriented ministry, and
those churches have a big impacton their communities.
They have a huge impact on thechildren on the family, but then
that expands out into thecommunity, and that's what you
want to see.
But that also then has to comeback to.
But then, what is discipleship?

(17:51):
Because that's what we'retalking about doing.
The only reason that you developa biblical worldview in
somebody is because that's theprecedent to them becoming a
disciple of Jesus.
A disciple of Jesus is someonewho thinks like Jesus, and
that's important, because thenthey're able to act like Jesus,
because you do what you believe.

(18:12):
So it's important that you getthe 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 goingto make, that will flow through
their worldview, whatever it is, because your worldview is your
decision-making filter.
That's why everybody needs tohave one and that's why it

(18:32):
develops early, because youstart making decisions so early
in your life Just to get throughthe 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 wantto make on the world?
All those kinds of big lifequestions.
That's what develops.
The answers are what developsinto your worldview, and that's

(18:53):
why it's so important that wework with children.

You know this is a question I've always wanted to
ask you, dr Barnes, so I'm justgoing to jump in and ask you
this.
I've, you know, been a studentof your research.
Obviously, our ministry isbiblical worldview discipleship,
and one of the things that weteach is that you know, as Jesus
said, you know them by yourfruit very much, like you just
said, you see somebody'sworldview, whatever it is, based

(19:18):
on their decisions, choices andactions, not necessarily based
on what they say.
You know, because we can beconfused.
You know about things and saywe believe something, but it
actually isn't especially, Ithink, this is true for
Christians but it actually isn'treally driving us.
You know it's something elseand so you have to go.

(19:38):
Okay, it's really determinednot so much by what they say but
by how they're living.
You know the choices that theymake and how do you, as probably
the preeminent worldviewresearcher, how do you handle
that?
I guess?

is my question how do you research it?
You?

mean, how do you research that exactly?

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

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

So it's shocking to me that we don't
treat worldview as a serioustopic.
If we did, everybody should beresearching it because really
it's so critical.
But in addition to that, one ofthe things that I've learned
over studying this for more than40 years is that you cannot
simply measure people's beliefs.

(20:37):
You have to measure the kindsof behaviors that would come out
of those beliefs, and when youfind contradictions that would
come out of those beliefs, andwhen you find contradictions,
what that tells us is that theydon't really believe what they
said.
They believe they know thatthat may be the right answer,
they know that that might be asocially desirable answer, they
know that it may be a biblicalanswer, but do they do it?

(20:59):
Well, if they don't do it, theydon't really believe it, because
you know, if you believed itand you did something that was
contradictory to it, you'd beliving with constant anxiety,
constant cognitive dissonance,all kinds of issues that would
essentially paralyze you everymoment of every day.

(21:22):
And so what human beings do isthey try to bring those two
things into harmony, so thatthey're comfortable with who
they are and how they live, andso that's why essentially half
of our research is okay.
What do you believe in relationto these worldview issues?
But the other half is how doyou demonstrate that you believe

(21:43):
that through your behaviors.
And so when we put outstatistics about the incidence
of biblical worldview, forinstance, I mean that's based on
looking at both behavior andbeliefs.

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

No, because that becomes very misleading and
I think that's one of thereasons why so many churches
don't understand what's going onin the culture.
They teach doctrine, they teachbiblical theology.
They see people take notes.
They assume, okay, good, theygot it, but then they're not
looking at.
But what are they doing aboutit?
What are they doing with it?
Because that's where it'sbreaking down, and part of what

(22:32):
I try to get pastors tounderstand is people are
confused about how to translatebiblical truth into a biblical
lifestyle.
So it's imperative that you notjust tell them what truth is,
but that you also do two thingsyou explain to them how to

(22:52):
convert that truth into alifestyle and, secondly, a vital
part of discipleship isdemonstrating it for them,
because we learn as much aboutwhat we believe and what kind of
lifestyle we adopt by observingpeople we know and trust as
simply listening to informationabout what we ought to believe I

(23:14):
just violently agree with youhere on all of that you're
saying Let me jump in becauseyou're scratching an itch here.

I'm on our elder board, dr Barnum, and every year
we talk well, how are we goingto review our church?
And it usually goes back toyour five numbers.
And I'm no, that's absolutelynot it.
I work for a worldvieworganization.
So here's my question it'sterribly important what you
talked about.
So are you developing a toolfor pastors to use?

(23:42):
It gets down past the theologyto the how do you measure action
?
You get what you measure.
So how are you going to helppastors?

Yeah, within the past month, we actually
released something called theACU Worldview Assessment and you
can take that online.
We've developed it fordifferent age groups, so we've
got a fourth grade version, aneighth grade version, a twelfth
grade version and the adultversion, and it's accessible to

(24:15):
anybody.
It's online, and I thinkpastors and elder boards need to
take it first.
And elder boards need to takeit first Because one of the
things that we discovered it'sabout a year and a half ago now
we did this with a nationalsampling of pastors and what we

(24:35):
found is that only 37% of allcurrently working at churches,
pastors, actually have abiblical worldview.
So when people say, well, how isit possible that people who are
in churches don't wind upgetting a biblical worldview,
well, you have to understandthat in almost two out of three

(24:56):
cases, the people who areteaching them don't have a
biblical worldview.
And and the thing that broke myheart the most was look, we
broke it out by five differenttypes of pastors, you know
senior pastor, teaching pastor,associate pastor, children's
pastor and executive pastor, andto me, the single most

(25:16):
important pastor in any churchis the children's pastor,
because of what we talked aboutearlier, and what we discovered
is that only 12% of children'spastors just one out of every
eight children's pastors has abiblical worldview.
Which then leads me to tellparents, you know what?
It might actually be moredangerous to take your child to

(25:39):
a Christian church than not totake them there, but for you to
take the responsibility to makesure that they develop that
biblical worldview and theydevelop a lifestyle of worship,
you know, and so on and so forth.
So, yeah, we have developedthat tool that I'm hoping that a
lot of churches will use it.
We also created a function inthat where, if you have your

(26:01):
congregation use it, we canprovide a group report that lets
you know what's happening,statistically speaking, with
that congregation.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I think people can probably find it just
by searching for that.
Okay, well, thank you for allyour work and for putting that
out there and making thatavailable.
Yeah, guys, as we wrap up, anyfinal questions or follow-ups
here for dr Barn.
I wish we had more time, butthanks for the time you're
giving us, dr Barnum just a drBarnum, just a hearty amen to

(27:04):
everything you've said.

John Bottimore (27:05):
All, all of us have been believers for decades
and decades and decades and weobserve a lot of what you are
saying.
And I'm saying observe on theunfortunate side of what you are
saying, we all have a greatdesire to be along with you as
ambassadors for the Lord andinstruments for his kingdom to
turn this around.

(27:25):
So what you've told us here isjust encouraging to do within
our own churches, within ourministry, and this time with you
has been a blessing.
So thank you.

Oh, thank you.
I hope at some point I get tocome back and talk with you some
more about the research we'vedone with children and how to
disciple children.
We're in the midst right now ofputting together two huge
research projects on disciplingadults in America and I know
this is kind of in yourbailiwick, so I'd love to come

(27:56):
back and talk with you aboutthat in the future.

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

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

Well, I know some really excellent curriculum my
colleague Dwight Vogt developed,called Footings for Children.
So I'll put a quick plug in forthat and maybe, luke, we can
put that in the show notes aswell.
So let me just wrap up.
Today I want to quote the endof your report.
I was very moved by it, drBarna.
You said parents, churches andother cultural influencers would

(28:43):
serve those they influence mosteffectively by returning to
these basic questions of life,clarifying the worldview options
we face, pointing peopletowards the truth and helping
them to find peace and passionin life through that clarity.
In the end, it's all aboutworldview and for those who seek

(29:04):
a worldview based on truth,it's all about pursuing the God
of the Bible for the answers andthe connections that we deeply
desire.
I thought that was just reallywell said.
I just really agree with that.

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

(29:36):
worldview.

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

It's called Seven cornerstones of a biblical
worldview, but we found that ifyou reject even one of those
seven, the probability of youthen developing a full biblical
worldview drops to just 2%.
So they're a great foundationto build on, and that's one of
the things that I talk withparents about.

(30:01):
It's like a lot of you don'thave a biblical worldview.
You're scared of this, youdon't know where to start.
Start with the sevencornerstones.
They're simple, they're easy,they're biblical, they're
fundamental, and if you and yourkids really own these, you're
gonna be on the right path.

Wow.
Well, thank you so much for allof your incredible wisdom and
research that you have put outthere for the good of the church
and for the discipling of thenation.
We are deeply grateful, drBarna, for you and for your
ministry and for this time thatwe had together today with you.
Thanks so much.

Thanks to all of you.

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

Rainy today.

Scott, rainy, rainy , arizona.
Ok, it does rain in Arizona and, for those of you who aren't
from Oregon, there is desert inOregon.
I know most people freak outwhen I say that, but it's not
all rainforest here, it'sactually mostly high desert.
So, anyways, not that we heardfrom Dr Barna or things that you

(31:25):
picked up that we didn't getachance to talk about from his
report, or anything you'd liketo share.
I thought that was a terrificconversation.
So who wants to get us started?

I'll share something, scott, from almost
the very beginning, somethingthat he said that then became
kind of the thread throughout ofuh, starting with uh, children
and churches and everything.
When he, when, when you asked abit about the encouragement
that we're, you know, seeingfrom young men and that sort of
thing and he talked about afterhe talked about a steep decline

(31:58):
in the belief of the god of thebible, he, uh, he's, he
acknowledged and said, yes,indeed, there's a increase in in
Gen Z versus Millennials.
But he defined that asspirituality, not things of a
deeper interest in Jesus as ourSavior, sin and our need for a
Savior, absolute truth, theinerrant word of the Bible and

(32:22):
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 longtime.
These things don't normallyhappen as a quick kind of thing.
And then he dove right into thething of saying you really need

(32:43):
to have this, you really need achurch really needs to focus on
children, because most of themhave their worldview shaped very
early and almost fully shapedby age 13.
So that was so powerful it'snot to say that we don't have
hope and working in adults andleading them to Christ and
discipling them and things.

(33:04):
But that importance of reallyworking things from the ground
up, if you will, with childrenwas just struck me as so
powerful and so important whenhe said that with the Gen Z kind

(33:31):
of the interest that we'reseeing, you know, and that
research, like Pew, is showing,in a real increase in the Bible
and Christianity amongstespecially young men.

He said it wasn't translating into things like you
know, questions about personalsalvation or decisions for Jesus
or something like that.
And when I thought, you knowit's right, it doesn't seem to
me that that's what's kind ofstarting.
It's not really where thediscussion is.
It's not at that very personalspiritual level as much as it is
people seeing that culture isbreaking down in some really

(34:08):
fundamental ways and if itcontinues on these trajectories
it'll really break down.
And then what was it thatallowed for a largely kind of
free and tolerant society in thefirst place, where there was
love and forgiveness and graceand some of these things?
And people are going, oh wow,it looks like that was coming
from the Bible, you know.

(34:29):
So there's this kind ofconnection to cultural things
and the Bible.
This is my own observation butit hasn't gotten very personal
yet.
You even see this with JordanPeterson, like he talks a lot
about the Bible as it relates toa kind of culture, but you know
he's uncomfortable when you gettoo personal, you know, with

(34:49):
this about his own faith, youknow.
So I thought that will probablycome and it should come, it
needs to come, but I'm not upsetor disappointed that that's not
where people are at.
I guess those were some of thethoughts going through my head
on that part of the discussion.

Luke Allen (35:06):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many 18-year-old
men who are coming to church forthe first time are thinking
about the civilizationalconsequences of Christianity on
the building of the West.
But even though Peterson doesarticulate that really helpfully
for us, I think there's, justlike he said, interest in
spirituality and this in a way,that we didn't see, uh, five

(35:27):
years ago.
Um, and I think that's becauseof a good shake-up that happened
with covid, I think, a lot ofpeople are pointing back to that
.
That scared people that kind ofknocked our secular human pride
uh a little bit to the side anduh made people open up, maybe to
to to thoughts that theywouldn't have considered
previously.

(35:48):
I also look at some of the bigcultural influences on young men
.
You mentioned Jordan Peterson.
I think of people like JoeRogan.
And there's just an overallopenness to ask hard questions
right now that I didn't see somuch maybe five, 10 years ago,
and just kind of wrestle and say, you know, I don't understand
this concept, but I'm curious tothink about it and to talk

(36:08):
about it with people and there'snothing wrong with that.
I think that's great, that's agreat trend.
Uh, when Elisa Childers was ona few months ago with us, um,
she mentioned that as one of thereasons why there's this kind
of rebirth and she called it thevibe the vibe change uh a
newfound interest inChristianity.
I would say, though, to echo DrBarna, it's more just general

(36:28):
spirituality, not exactlyChristianity.
I heard I mentioned this a fewweeks ago, but witchcraft is the
fastest growing religion inAmerica right now, apparently,
not to mention New Age, you knowall stuff is is growing rapidly
as well in interest.
So it's, it's all of thosethings, but you know the new

(36:51):
atheists got it wrong.
As far as the they were tryingto take us in 15 years ago, it's
definitely not going thedirection they were hoping.
Yeah, so yeah, I mean all that.
To consider, there's more youngmen coming to church right now
than young women for the firsttime in American history.
That's amazing.

Yeah.

Luke Allen (37:10):
And has that translated to biblical
worldviews being formed or realdiscipleship happening?
Probably not yet, but Well,something's going on, that's
right?

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

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

Yeah absolutely.

Um, even if you can't answer the question, even
if you can't come up with a nicefive point survey and you
probably can't but how do you?
How do you get people thinkingabout do I trust god more now
than I did 12 months ago?
Do?
Am I willing to take risks forthe lord now that I didn't take
12 months ago?
Is my faith stronger in thatrespect?

(38:11):
Those kinds of questions wouldbe amazing, um to think about
and measure if you, withoutgetting too tech, you know,
without, without makingChristianity a technique, which
it isn't, it's a life, it's a.

the other thing is that was one of the most
powerful parts of theconversation.
You know, just it's, it's, it'sit's shocking.
You know that, that we're in thesituation that we're in in my
mind.
You know where churches stillhave these faulty measurements
about what it is I mean.
To me, it's just a completefailure in terms of

(38:46):
understanding what is the churchand what's the mission of the
church.
It's not just to grow you knowor put people you know in pews
or whatever it is you know it'sinteresting, but even then it's
like the mission of my church isperfect.

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

money did they give ?
It's kind of that ties into thepart of our discussion where we
were talking about worldviewand it's not enough to just say
what is your worldview, becauseyou can have a right answer but
you're not living it out Like soit ties directly to churches.
They have a great missionstatement or statement of faith
or whatever it is, but they'renot.
You know, what gets measured atthe end of the day are those

(39:37):
same kind of four or fivemetrics that are numbers-based,
and we talk a lot about this.
In the DNA, you know thatthere's more lies that are
coming into the culture anddestroying the culture,
destroying our institutionseducationally and every other
way, and meanwhile the church iskind of on the sidelines.

(39:59):
You know it's just not havingthe kind of impact on society
and culture because it doesn'tget measured, it's not talked
about.
So yeah, he was completely onpoint.
I thought at that part of theconversation.

Luke Allen (40:13):
Just real quick before your second point there,
Dwight.
I mean, how do we measurediscipleship?
What is discipleship?
Can you give me your?

smallest definition .
Well, I liked his six.

Luke Allen (40:26):
I did too actually.

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

I like the way, too , he differentiated discipleship
and worldview.
You know that worldview waskind of the field that needed to
be plowed, so to speak, inorder for discipleship to grow.
You know that it was.
You have to think correctlyabout certain basic things and
live in that.
I mean, they're not.
There's not a hard and fastseparation, but but kind of one

(41:02):
comes before the other.
What did you guys make of that?
How can you really be afollower of Jesus if you don't
have a basic understanding ofwho God is and what does it mean
to be human?
Some of these more fundamentalworldview questions?
If you got those reallyfundamental questions wrong,
then it's just hard to be, youknow, a disciple according to

(41:23):
those characteristics ofdiscipleship that he listed.
Isn't it Dwight?

No, yeah, he had the I, the flow is correct and
we preach the same in the DNA.
If you change the mind, you canchange the heart, you can
change the action.
Right, it doesn't always go inthat order, but those three have
to happen, be transformed bythe renew of your minds.
We love that verse in Romans 12.
So, yeah, that's spot on.

(41:47):
I think it's just reallychallenging once you get past
the theological understandingwhich is so critical to well.
Now, how do I measure the heartand the action, apart from
anecdotally, and so we'll havetestimonies in church.
You know that person will getup and share.
This is what the Lord did in mylife and this is what, how I
was following him.
This is the test of my faithand I, you know whatever.

(42:09):
We love anecdotes and I think,john, you alluded to this.
I don't know if it was offlineor online, but the DNA is now
going through an impactevaluation exercise ourselves
and we need to have a podcast onwhat we find, because we're
really working hard to see.
How do you measure the heartand the action that comes from

(42:33):
ideas.

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

Yeah, yeah, our application of the heart
triangle that we're doing,remember it's about knowledge,
behaviors, becomings, and lovesand commitments.
So it's very similar to what wetalked about here loves and
commitments so it's very similarto what we talked about here.
A disciple is one who who knowsand learns, gets a biblical
worldview and then knows.
But that's a precedent tobecoming a disciple of one who

(43:11):
does, and, of course, one of thedefinitions of a disciple is
one who makes disciples.
So it's not a one-time thingand it's very similar to what
we're talking about in our DNAwork.
We have kingdomizers and wehave kingdomizers who make
kingdomizers, either one-on-oneor in a movement bigger type of
an approach.
So there's a lot of really richlearning that we're having from

(43:36):
our impact analysis.
That I think is very relevantto what we're talking about here
and I absolutely echo that.
We need to have probablyseveral podcasts on that.

Luke Allen (43:49):
I was listening to Arturo Cuba, who's one of our
core trainers here at the DNA,and a talk.
Actually well, this was ourlast episode that I posted.
It was a special episode lastweek where he was talking about
biblical principles and theimportance of those.
And one thing that he said ishe said people don't live out of
theologies.
People live out of what makessense to them and what he was

(44:10):
saying.
There is a lot of timestheologies don't.
Actually it's hard for people totake a theology type truth and
then apply that into a practiceof their life.
And he said that's where aprinciple comes in.
And he said this is whybiblical principles are handy,
because you can take thetheology and then you can
transform it into what makessense in someone's life and how

(44:31):
to live it out.
And he's the perfect person totalk about this because he's
been teaching biblical worldviewfor over almost 30 years now
over 20 years to indigenoustribes in Latin America almost
30 years now over 20 years toindigenous tribes in Latin
America.
And he takes a theologicalconcept that's true and then he
turns it into a principle abouthow they're living their life as
rural, agrarian farmers orwhatnot.

(44:52):
And I thought that was sointeresting because, in the
simplest terms, discipleship isthe process of learning and then
doing and then eventuallyteaching and the one, two, three
, and so often we just stay atthe learning stage knowledge,
knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
Great, very important wisdom, uh, but.

(45:12):
But sometimes it's hard to takethat theology it in and
transfer it into our lives notto mention that a lot of
churches don't mention theimportance of living out a
biblical worldview in all areasof life but just the application
steps of how do we do this.
So we're not getting to thatsecond stage of do.

(45:33):
And then, of course, you're notgoing to get to the stage of
teach, because you have to be apractitioner to be a teacher.

That's so well said , luke, you know, but it's also
it's a triangle, luke, like Johnsaid, because I'm thinking of
here's an example.
You teach male and female areequal.
That's a principle.
You treat them alike.
They have an equal place in theworld.
All men are created equalDeclaration of independence.
That's a principle, but itgrows out of a theology which is

(46:00):
and God created them, male andfemale, in his image.
In the image of God createdthem.
So the theology is like it'sthere God created you, male and
female.
He created both of you and madeyou in his image.
Out of that you say well then,you must be equal, you must
treat each other with respectand dignity.
And what I see in the world nowis and we see this in the DNA

(46:22):
is, we see the principleactually taking root in society.
But they've lost sight of thetheology.
And so, of course, men andwomen are equal in the US, but
they're not in India.
You know well, because Indianever had our theology.
We actually had that theology.
Now we've lost that theology.

(46:42):
So in a sense he's saying weneed to go back to the biblical
worldview at the theologicallevel as well.
And I'm going, yeah, because ifyou lose that, eventually you
will lose the principle.
I think Absolutely.
So it's a tricky thing you know, yeah 100%.

But I like the way he said.
I think for me the mostpowerful thing that he said
today was that you know that youget at somebody's worldview not
by what, exclusively what theysay, what's in their head, but
by looking at their actions,choices and behaviors.
And I've always I've alwayswondered about that with his
research because it seemed to mewhen I've seen some of his

(47:18):
questionnaires, it probed moreon you know kind of core
doctrine questions about God orwhatever it was, and if you got
the answers right, then you hada biblical worldview.
And I always struggled a littlebit with that because I thought
you can get the right answers,but you may not have a biblical
worldview.

you know, next podcast Scott.

Well, but he put me at ease today by saying exactly
what I thought, which is it hasto be a worldview is known by
its fruits, by what people dowith it, how they live it out,
and that he's trying to get atthat as well with his research.
So I really appreciated that.
I don't know exactly how hedoes much harder.
It's much easier just to sayyou know, answer me these

(47:59):
questions about your theology.
It's much harder to see howyou're living that out or what
you're doing with it.
But he recognized that and he'sdoing 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 tohelp them translate that
knowledge into something thatthey can apply or to live with,
or do you know?

(48:19):
And we're not doing well atthat.
So I thought that was a reallypowerful part of the
conversation.

It was and it made me think at that time about
you know the saying about.
Well, if you want to find outwhat somebody's priorities are,
just look at their checkbookkind of thing.
You know behaviors like thisand I thought of the first
corinthians, 8, one verse whereit talks about knowledge puffs
up but love builds up.
And if you look at the sixcriteria of a disciple that, um,

(48:53):
after obeying the teaching,it's they really are love
oriented.
Uh, actions they're loveoriented things that can be
measured love.
Other disciples john 13, 34 and35 produce spiritual fruit.
A lot of that's through loveand the luke 14 verses he talked
about of loving god first andforemost, first and foremost,

(49:15):
and, of course, love yourneighbor as yourself and pick up
your cross.
How much more love is therethan that of surrendering and
taking on God's agenda insteadof ours?
Again, it's other-centeredloving others.
So not easy to measure, but atleast we know categorically they
are things about self-sacrifice, other-centeredness and love

(49:38):
that are the real measures thatreally measure the fruit of a
biblical worldview.

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

Luke Allen (49:50):
I mean, yeah, we're kind of going back and forth
between, I think, my twofavorite parts of the—well, the
two main things we hit on, whichwere what is a worldview and
the importance of understandingit in totals so that we can
apply it into our lives, andthen also the importance of
understanding it in totals sothat we can apply it into our
lives, and then also theimportance of discipling
children.
So I'd love to talk a little bitmore about that, but I just I,
I we talked about this a fewweeks ago on the show, but the

(50:12):
the quote from Francis Schaefferthat I think fits well into the
discussion at this point is thebasic problem of Christianity
in this country, the UnitedStates, is that we see things in
bits and pieces instead of intotals, and I would love to go
over the seven pillars that hewas talking about of things, the
seven cornerstones sorry of abiblical worldview, and I took a

(50:35):
brief look at those, andessentially, those are the
truths that make sense of thetotality of life.
Those are the truths that makesense of the totality of life,
not in bits and pieces, that canbe applied into all of life,
the things that you can reallylive out of, and when you
understand those and not justunderstand them, but truly
believe them it's going toaffect your worldview.

(50:59):
And that's what he was sayingabout.
If you get these sevencornerstones right, you will
ultimately live out a biblicalworldview.

These seven cornerstones right, you will
ultimately live out a biblicalworldview.
And to your point abouttotality, Luke, it was
fascinating to say that if youhave all seven of them right,
you've got whatever 83%, but ifyou even have one not right, he
said it was down to 2%.
Well, I'd be interested inknowing if all of them are
equally problematic to get downto 2%, or some of them more than

(51:26):
others.
But in any case, it justsubstantiates what you're saying
.
It's really about a totality oflife and having that full kind
of belief system, Becauseotherwise it's bits and pieces
and that's not a disciple, andthat's not a biblical worldview
in bits and pieces.

Luke Allen (51:44):
And that's what we're seeing in the report.
Again, he talks a lot aboutthis, and they do at the
Cultural Research Center.
Is synchronicity, is that howyou say it?
Syncretism, Syncretism, yeah.

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

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

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

Luke Allen (52:08):
yeah, I've heard that, that's where that came
from.

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

Luke Allen (52:17):
seven luke.
What was that?
Where do I find the seven Luke?
What was that?
Where do we find the?

seven again, the seven cornerstones of a biblical
worldview.

Luke Allen (52:26):
Yeah, barna Research , yeah, we'll have this all in
links in the show notes, but theCultural Research Center that
works under Arizona ChristianUniversity.
It's pretty easy to find all oftheir research there.
They have a nice library.
Anyways, what we're, oh yeah,Syncretism.
Syncretism, that's a hard word.

(52:49):
It's just this idea that youhold multiple worldviews at the
same time.
The problem is when you do seeour faith in bits and pieces and
you don't understand how theBible applies to something like
your work or to politics ormedia, then you're going to fill
it in with some otherworldview's response to those

(53:11):
areas of life and you're goingto have a syncretic worldview in
a way.

And his research points to 96% of Americans have
a syncretistic worldview I meanto me, all that is is a
worldview where you're at thevery center of it.
There is no God above.
You're at the center ofeverything and you're picking
and choosing what makes sense toyou.
So it is kind of coherent.

(53:37):
The coherence of it fallsaround you and what you think is
true and what works for you.
You know, I mean that that in asense it's coherent worldview.

Luke Allen (53:45):
It's a false worldview because you're not the
center of the world, but that'sthe way people are living you
know right, yeah, and the risein that is probably due to the
effects of post-modernism, forsure, yeah.

Culture today yeah, for sure oh, this is what I was
going to say.
I loved it.
You know, the worldview issomething that really has to be
in some ways caught and nottaught.
I mean, it has to be taught too, but we do pick up our
worldviews by just watching andobserving the culture around us
and especially people that areinfluential in our lives.
And that, you know, if you wantto disciple your kids to have a

(54:18):
biblical worldview, they'regoing to learn a lot more based
on just how you live and thechoices that you make, as
opposed to what you didacticallyteach them.
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 waysthat were really appealing to
people and they didn't justteach them, they really embodied

(54:41):
them, they lived them out, andpeople around the world saw that
and they were like wow, youknow that.
You know that came out of myresearch that we're doing right
now on our impact is just howmany people were impacted that I
talked to not just by theteaching of the DNA, but by the
example of the teachers, and Ithought, oh, that's a good, good

(55:02):
reminder.
You know, just for myself.
You know, these aren't justideas.
These are things that we pickup by watching people that we
love and respect.

I think when I heard that I thought, yeah, I
agreed that that made sense tome.
My 13-year worldview is prettymuch set.
It was also a little bitdepressing because I'm thinking,
wow, that's really young, youknow.
But the other thing is that themessage of the gospel is that
we can change worldview.

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

God can work in and through us.

Absolutely.

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

Yeah, no, it absolutely can change.
And it is't his, he didn'tchoose that, it just got said.
Yeah, no, it absolutely canchange and it is a miracle.
It's not to say that it's not apowerful, miraculous thing, but
people well beyond 13 can havea renewal of their mind, their
heart and their mind.
That's what it means to be bornagain in many ways, guys.

(56:22):
Any final thoughts as we wrapup?
This has been great Just havinga little post discussion.
There was a lot to talk about.
I was really encouraged and Iwas appreciating his resources.
Again, you know we'll postthose at the end of the podcast
for you to.
You could just pick them up andstart using them.
Some of these assessments, theseven cornerstones what are we
going to be doing with children?

(56:43):
And I think and it's not justchildren, it's also parents
Parents are key in this becausethey're the ones who are
discipling the kids.
They can't just pass them offto the church and say you do it
Especially.
That was shocking.
You know how few pastors and hementioned specifically
children's pastors have abiblical worldview based on his
assessment, which is kind ofshocking to me actually.
So, anyways, final thoughts,guys.

Luke Allen (57:09):
Well, and there's a role for the grandparents to
come in and disciple thegrandkids.
He pointed to that as well.
Hey, that's good news for thethree of us, isn't it?
You've got to have them first.
You've got to have them, youstill have a very important role
.

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

Luke Allen (57:24):
Hey guys, thanks again for listening.
To this fascinating discussion.

With Dr George .
Barnum.

Luke Allen (57:29):
As we mentioned a few times during today's
discussion.

This episode was full of Practical and helpful
resources For all of us to lookinto, including the worldview
assessment Offered by ArizonaChristian.

Luke Allen (57:41):
University.
In the seven cornerstones of abiblical worldview which you can
find at the Cultural ResearchCenter which is part of Arizona
Christian University.

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

Luke Allen (57:56):
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 checkout this episode's page, as it
is full of practical resourcesfor all of us.
If this is your first timelistening to this show Ideas
have Consequences then, as youheard, this is brought to you by

(58:18):
the Disciple Nations Alliance,which is a ministry that has
worked around the world for thelast 28 years, training now over
a million people in over 100countries in the transformative
power of a biblical worldview.
If you would like to learn moreabout our ministry or check out
any of our biblical worldviewtraining courses, then you can
find us on Instagram, facebookand YouTube, or on our website,

(58:41):
which is, again,disciplenationsorg.
That's it for today, guys.
Thanks again for joining us forthis discussion.
We truly appreciate your timeand attention, as always, and we
hope that you'll be able tojoin us again next week here on
Ideas have Consequences.

All Episodes

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

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Lack of Disciple-Making = Lack of Cultural Impact | Dr. George Barna