Dr Paul Allen

Adulthood is not just a function of age—it is an achievement. Throughout human history, young people have aspired to achieve adulthood and have worked hard to get there. The three nearly universal marks of adulthood in human societies include marriage, financial independence, and readiness for parenthood. Now, the very concept of adulthood is in jeopardy. Study after study reveals that young people are achieving adulthood, if at all, far later than previous generations now living. The average age of marriage for young - fifty years ago was in the very early twenties. Now, it is trending closer to age thirty. Why is this important to us all? A stable and functional culture requires the establishment of stable marriages and the nurturing of families. Without a healthy marriage and family life as foundation, no lasting and healthy community can long survive. Clearly, our own society reveals the delay of marriage and its consequences, but we are hardly alone. Many European nations ...

English: Caricature on "The great epidemic of pornography". From 19th-century French illustration (in Courrier Français?). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It is going to take time—decades at least—before we are able to accurately tally the cost of our cultural addiction to pornography . But as Christians we know what it means to tamper with God ’s clear and unambiguous design for sexuality: The cost will be high. It must be high. We all know the cost will be high in fractured families and heartbroken parents, husbands and wives. Already we are seeing far too many of these and each one is its own tragedy. We know the cost will be high in the countless thousands of women who are used and abused in front of cameras so they can be violated for other people’s pleasure. That is a sickening tragedy as well. But an overlooked cost, and one that will only become clear in time, is that porn is stealing the best years from a million young Christian men and women. Porn is dominating ...

Over the years I watched a number of people come and go through the doors of the church . In our mobile, vagabond, anchorless time, people move from job to job, city to city, and church to church. Given the mobility of a culture, say in comparison with a generation ago when a person might work for one company in the same city and live in the same house for his entire life, people move around. So there were some who left the church because of job transfers. In fact, I had a stretch where more than a dozen families relocated because of job transfers over a two-year period. Most of the time I could understand the job relocation. The situation, for the life of me, that I simply have never understood were the families that left the church because their children were not happy. I can remember sitting before a number of families over the years who would come to me, “Pastor, we really love the church and find the preaching to be edifying . . .” On the heels of such a statement, I could hear...

We've Been Hurt: I can actually include myself in this one personally. Sometimes the hurtful act is specific, like when my youth leader threw a Bible at me for asking the wrong questions. Sometimes it's rhetorical, either from the pulpit, in a small group study or over a meal. Sometimes it's physical, taking the form of sexual abuse or the like. But millions claim a wound they can trace back to church that has never healed. Why? In part, because the church rarely seeks forgiveness. Adult Life/University and Church Don't Seem to Mix: There are the obvious things, like scheduling activities on Sunday mornings (hint: young people tend to go out on Saturday nights), but there's more to it. In college, and before that by our parents, we're taught to explore the world, broaden our horizons, think critically, question everything and figure out who we are as individuals. Though there's value in this, it's hyper-individualistic. But Church is more about c...

Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia The Barna Group team spent much of the last five years exploring the lives of young people who drop out of church. The research provides many insights into the spiritual journeys of teens and young adults. The findings are revealed extensively in a new book called,  You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith . The research uncovered five myths and realities about today's young dropouts. Myth 1: Most people lose their faith when they leave high school . Reality: There has been considerable attention paid to the so-called loss of faith that happens between high school and early adulthood . Some have estimated this dropout in alarming terms, estimating that a large majority of young Christians will lose their faith. The reality is more nuanced. In general, there are three ...

Image via Wikipedia I prayed for two young men at a church recently. They outlined their need, and I mentioned a scripture that would guide the prayer I was about to pray. They both had blank looks and had no idea of the famous Old Testament story of Jacob.   What I think is the most glaring deficiency in our movement, this is what it would be: "Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature" ( 1 Corinthians 14:20 ). I'm very glad the ranks of Australian Christian Churches are growing numerically. Many good things about our movement are full of promise and potential.  In order to fulfill that potential, however, this generation of young people desperately need to move past the hip hop stage. Immaturity and unrest are hindrances to spiritual fruitfulness, not virtues. When Paul told Timothy , "Let no one despise you for your youth" ( 1 Timothy 4:12 ), he wasn't suggesting that Timothy should forbid people...