Through more than a decade of interviewing teens and young adults, Barna researchers have continued to encounter a small but significant number of young Christians who run counter to the overall church dropout trend. Using the same research parameters as in his 2011 book You Lost Me (18–29-year-olds with a Christian background), Barna president David Kinnaman and team dedicated a new study to learn more about this countertrend.
In Faith for Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon, Kinnaman and his coauthor, Mark Matlock, get to know the one in 10 young Christians whom they call “resilient disciples.” But they also take a long look at three other paths chosen by young adults with a Christian background. Taken together, there are four kinds of twentysomething “exiles” making their way in our current day and age, which Kinnaman calls “digital Babylon.”
Prodigals, or ex-Christians, do not identify themselves as Christian despite having attended a Protestant or Catholic church as a child or teen, or having considered themselves to be Christian at some time.
Nomads, or lapsed Christians, identify themselves as Christian but have not attended church during the past month. The vast majority of nomads haven’t been involved with a faith community for six months or more.
