Welcome to Season 6 of the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson, and I am here to encourage you in your walk with the Lord, and I'm glad you've joined.

Our program continues to be sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John is a good friend and he's helped me and my family in everything

from stock and mutual fund investing to annuities, life insurance, and retirement planning.

I certainly commend him to you if you have needs in any of those areas. You can reach him at

205-326-7364. Thank you again for your ongoing encouragement and support. Let's get started.

Hey, welcome back to part two of a short series based on a series of articles written by a friend of

mine, Wilson Adams, titled 12 thinking shifts among millennials and Gen Z Christians.

We covered the first six of those last week. I will very briefly recap those in a little while,

and then we'll cover the back half of that series. Before we do, I really feel like I need to share

with you some very direct things, things that you may not like, realities that you

may not be prepared to face, or you may instantly push back on. But there are some sobering

tendencies among our fellowship that need to be acknowledged, not so we can get discouraged or

wallow in self-pity, but so that we can see how crucial it is to those in the Gen Z and millennial

time frame, that is Christians, faithful Christians in the church, ages 15 to 45, that they

are heard and engaged. So let me set it up this way. I am a part of what is a nationally recognized

group of people called non-instrumental churches of Christ.

I know that not every listener of this podcast is in that group, but I think most of us are,

and I think it's fairly obvious from research done over the past 20 years that churches of Christ are,

quote, on the decline. In other words, overall, on average, there are fewer members

who identify as non-instrumental churches of Christ and fewer churches than there have been in years

past. After a period of exceptional growth in the mid-20th century, most suggest that

1985 was the high watermark, and it's come down since then.

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