For this cause, I remind you that you should stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
Losing Jesus in Church: Pastor Keith Nix on Rekindling a Christ-Centered Faith
About this episode
Pastor Keith Nix of The Lift Church in Sevierville, Tennessee joins Philip Cameron to unpack the crisis explored in his book Losing Jesus in the Church — a sobering look at why 70–80% of young people walk away from the faith when they turn 18, and only 35% ever return. That means the church is losing roughly half its next generation, and Keith argues it's not a failure of the gospel — it's a failure of how we present it. Keith traces the problem to a slow drift from genuine encounter to religious routine: "We have focused on how can we entertain our children rather than how can we set them up for a genuine encounter with God." He points to a telling cultural shift — congregations that call the altar a "stage" have already signaled a deeper problem. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 2, he contrasts Paul's deliberate choice to preach "in demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit" over persuasive oratory, and echoes Paul's charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6 to "fan into a flame" a faith that is always in danger of going cold. Whether you are a pastor, a parent, or someone who drifted away yourself, this conversation is a practical and passionate call to intentionality. Get the book and study guide at keithNix.net or losingjesusinchurch.com.
Part of our Church collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“You'll know what kind of church you go to if we call the altar an altar or if we call the stage a stage. Our vocabulary has changed. We now call it a stage. It's where you have a performance. The altar is where you get right with God. The altar is where you encounter God. And we've allowed our vocabulary to change, and that indicates a deeper-rooted issue.”
“We're losing half our kids — roughly almost half our kids are being lost. And it's not because the gospel's wrong. It's not because Jesus isn't Lord. It's not because the Holy Spirit has lost his power. It's not that the blood of Jesus is no longer effective. And we've got more technology and we've got more stuff than we've ever had before. And maybe that's part of the problem. We've leaned on stuff.”
“General Booth of the Salvation Army said, the tendency of fire is to go out. And it's the tendency of every fire. It's the tendency of a relationship, of marriage. And what we have to do is be intentional to add fuel to the fire.”
What's Discussed
Pastor Keith Nix of The Lift Church in Sevierville, Tennessee discusses his book Losing Jesus in the Church, citing statistics that 70–80% of young people leave the church at age 18 and only 35% return — meaning roughly half are lost permanently. Nix identifies the root cause as a drift from genuine Holy Spirit encounter toward entertainment and religious routine, noting that even vocabulary shifts (calling the altar a "stage") signal deeper problems. He draws on 1 Corinthians 2 and 2 Timothy 1:6 to call pastors and families back to intentional, cross-centered discipleship. The book includes a study guide designed for small groups and Wednesday night church series. Resources available at keithNix.net and losingjesusinchurch.com.
- Keith Nix Introduces His Book and Burden
- Entertainment Culture vs. Genuine God Encounters
- Altar vs. Stage — A Vocabulary Crisis
- Alarming Statistics on Youth Leaving the Church
- Paul's Choice at Corinth — Power Over Oratory
- Timed-Out Services and the Holy Spirit
- General Booth, Timothy, and Fanning the Flame
- Practical Steps for Pastors and Families
Scripture in this episode
Episode Transcript
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Intro
Philip:Hey, welcome to Daily Faith Today. My name is Philip Cameron, and we welcome you to our show, our pre-show before Daily Faith begins. We are absolutely excited today to have with us a dear friend of mine, Keith Nix, pastor at a great church in Sevierville. Now, let me tell you something, if you've never been to Sevierville, Tennessee, these Tennessee folk — and we just moved here a few years ago — they are the kindest. They're even more candid than the Scots. Sevierville and that whole area, that whole valley is about the most beautiful place on the planet.
Philip:And any pastor that pastors there, that lets me know that he's a smart man. It is a gorgeous place. My mom was over with me a few months ago, and she's 96, and I drove her around Cades Cove, which is just a gorgeous, amazing drive. And we saw four deer, two black bear, a bunch of turkeys, and she sat up in the front of the van and just oohed and aahed, and she kept saying, this is the most beautiful place on earth. Well, Pastor Keith Nix has a church called the Lift. If you are anywhere in the area, this is the church you need to make home — the Lift in Sevierville, Tennessee.
Philip:And he's gonna be with us today talking about a subject that is so appropriate and so needed today. He's just written a book that I want you to get. Get a pen and paper, and get this for your pastor. This is a book that you need to have Bible studies on, I'm telling you now, because it's happening all the time. And it's called Losing Jesus in the Church. Listen — losing Jesus in the church.
Philip:I've been traveling and speaking for 56 years, and that subject, I would say, would be in the top three subjects of all time. Why are we losing our kids in church? How come our generations are not? We have lost a whole generation to these nutcases in university — liberal nutcases. Some of our kids went to Auburn, and you think Auburn was a conservative town. Some of the stuff they were coming home with was absolutely insane.
Philip:Losing Jesus in the church, and Keith's gonna be talking about this today, and I believe it's gonna really be a blessing to you. If you could help us today by hitting the share button — what happens is they limit and restrict our scope, our reach from our program. You get a code given to you, and if you discuss sensitive things like life and marriage, a man and a woman, they put a code on you which restricts how many folk can see you. But the one way you can get around that is if you hit your like button and you hit your share button, and they can't stop us going from peer to peer.
Philip:We are also on YouTube. It's really simple — it says youtube.com/dailyfaith. And all of our programs, I also do a reel, just a 45-second thought that can give you something in your mind. A lot of folk contact us and say, man, we just love it. My mom said, oh, I love your programs, but I look for your reels all the time. And my brother, who also pastors back in Scotland, said the same thing. So if you go to YouTube, I'd love you to join and subscribe. It doesn't cost a dime to do, but it helps us. And if you could do that today, if you could do that right now, you'd be really helping us.
Philip:So we're gonna have a great time. My granddaughters are still in Moldova. They've just finished the second camp. I have a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old that I spent the summer in Moldova living with our kids in Moldova. We'll talk about that in a few moments, but they're living with our kids that we rescue from trafficking for the summer and they're going out. And I spent quite a long time on the phone talking to Moldova regarding a new vision that God's given us for reaching small kids between the age of four and 16.
Philip:And we are flat out. That's started — the teams are going in to start painting, and the construction guys, there's one house that's finished. It needs repainting, just that's all it needs when you start. Another one needs the final fit, as they call it — the light switches and the painting, et cetera. So our kids have been over sleeping on the floors, working in these camps. And this last week, Kara, the 13-year-old, called me and she says, Granddad, can I stay longer please? And I said, no, you're gonna get back and get ready for school.
Philip:She says, well, next year can I go longer? Can I go for two months? And I said, if your studies are good during the year, you're gonna get to go back in the mission field. As a granddad who will spend 35 years of my life doing this, to have your grandkids turned on — that they haven't lost Jesus in the church, that they want to be a part of missions and they want to get involved in the future — man, that's the greatest gift God could ever give me. I can't wish for anything else. So we have a lot to talk about. Get a pen and paper, you want to get this book. Watch us. I'm delighted you're with us today. Welcome to Daily Faith.
Philip:Hey, welcome to Daily Faith Today. My name is Philip Cameron. It would be good if I could say the name of the program, wouldn't it? I am delighted to have you with us today. We have got a tremendous show for you. One of my dear friends, a great, great man of God who has a vision for the world, has written a book that I think you need to get. In fact, I know you need to get it. It's an epidemic, it's a curse that happens in the church — how many kids and how many folks lose Jesus in the church.
Philip:And Keith's gonna be talking about that with us today. And I believe it's gonna be a great blessing and a great encouragement for you. If you have a loved one, if you were someone that was in church and backslidden, this book's for you. If you're a pastor looking for ways to retain and grow your church without having to repeat the cycle over and over again, this book's for you. So I'm excited to have Keith with us today. Before we speak to him, as you know, we have a mission work in Moldova. 35 years ago, I adopted a wee baby sitting in a crib covered in his own waste.
Philip:And I had no idea when I picked up that wee boy in my arms that God was about to change my whole destiny. I was in my mid-thirties. I was on all the big TV shows, one of my books had sold 300,000 copies. I was in high demand for speaking in churches and television stations and networks. All of my boxes were ticked off at 35, and I was bored crazy. And one day my dad called me from Scotland and said, you gotta come and help me. There are babies in trouble.
Philip:And I didn't want to go. I had no interest in it. That was completely yucky stuff that had nothing to do with my briefcase going on and off airplanes — 3 million miles on Delta, a million miles on British Airways, and a million miles on various other airlines. All my dreams were being fulfilled, and he made me go. And when I walked into that room, my life changed. I'm writing a book just now called Moments — when your moments come, the moments of your life. The two men on the road to Emmaus, a moment came, Jesus walked with them and they never saw it. And most of the moments of our lives we don't see until it's too late.
Philip:And I had no idea that when I picked that wee boy up, God was changing my life. And it took me a year to adopt him. And I totally redid the whole orphanage — new beds, new toilets. Well, they had no toilets. Put in toilets, fixed the leaks, and became addicted to helping other people. Most recently, in the last 25 years we've been in Moldova, we discovered that in that country girls are trafficked. One of the highest countries in the world for trafficking is Moldova. And we have the most amazing place called Vatra Villages — a village of homes right on the largest lake in Moldova.
Philip:My granddaughters were stunned when they saw the houses. These houses are nicer than the ones we live in ourselves. All the interior walls are 14-inch concrete blocks. The floors aren't studs — the joists are poured concrete. It's an amazing place. Every girl you're looking at, if a trafficker can get ahold of that girl, she becomes a prisoner. And they will use her 30 to 50 times a day until she dies. And we have these homes, and they come to us, we put them back in school.
Philip:And the most amazing things are happening. These orphan kids and these kids from terrible backgrounds are turning into missionaries. And all of the summertime they have camps. They lead hundreds of kids to Jesus. That's where my granddaughters are right now. And I just got a video just two days ago from the most recent camp. Every house runs a camp. And this one is run by Pavel, one of our pastors there. Watch this video — it'll bless your heart.
Philip:It is amazing to watch our kids in action. Back here in Tennessee, the church that we attend has a VBS and it takes months of the whole church. My wife, she'll work in our warehouse all day, and at five o'clock she changes hats into a church volunteer. This last one, our VBS was a building — it was Lego. All of our boxes that are now going to Moldova were all covered in paint and turned into Lego blocks. We spent months and months for three days. And that's adults running the camp.
Philip:Our kids have one-week-long camps where kids come from the village. They get to know their names, they get to know their backgrounds, they give them food to take home. They eat like you would not believe while they're with us. They've never seen so much food. They play games from seven in the morning all until nighttime, until the church service at night. And these orphan kids run the whole camp. My granddaughter Allie spent not this camp, but the camp before, in the kitchen doing nothing but peeling potatoes and preparing food, because we feed these kids like they've never been fed. They get more fruit in a week than they've had in a lifetime.
Philip:And what it does is it allows us to get to know the village. We know the widows, we know the poor families, and it allows us to begin a year-long mission. In fact, right this minute we're looking at these new houses that we've bought in a town called Ungheni. And we had a camp literally at the new place. And the church that we are working with, we've just finished a year-long cycle. Each one of our houses spends a year in a village and they can double the size of a church in a year because they work all the way through the village.
Philip:And the church that we're now gonna build these new homes in came to us and said, look, can you please stay another year? This has revolutionized our church. And our remit is to go to the next village because there are so many villages with no gospel witness. So we need you to help us keep this ministry going. These new houses are beautiful homes that will house 50 kids — two houses, 25 each. We can't open these houses until we get the sponsorship for it. And each house takes 300 people giving a dollar a day to support the house. That covers everything.
Philip:Getting a new van, transportation costs — you have no idea. It's more expensive there than it is here, cost-wise. And we need you to help us. If we can get 300 people giving a dollar a day, we can open this first house at Ungheni and start the miracle of redemption for these little kids. Some of those kids you're looking at in that camp video you just watched will be coming to Ungheni and then going on to Vatra, then going on to university, and their lives being transformed.
Philip:So we need people to give a dollar a day. If I could take you there, if I could stand you in that camp and hear those kids learning the gospel for the first time and hearing about Jesus for the first time, I know every one of you would say, Philip, I can give a dollar a day to help this. I can make this happen for a dollar a day. If I can get 300 people to think that thought, if I can get 300 people to give a dollar a day, we can rescue 25 kids. That's the deal of the century.
Philip:And I'm asking you to pray about being part of it. You've got a family member that you're praying for and asking God to save. Well, let me tell you something. Why don't you sow a seed and say, I'm gonna help a child with no mom and dad, or an alcoholic parent that beats them. The abuse these kids take is unbelievable. But I'm gonna sow a seed to help them find the gospel, believing God to work in my family. And if you would, I'd really appreciate it.
Philip:Our address is really simple. Just write Orphan's Hands or Daily Faith — either one's fine. PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. You can also go to DailyFaith.tv — that's the quickest way. DailyFaith.tv is all things Daily Faith. That's where our ministry is, all the shows are there. You can go there, there are videos to let you see what we're doing. And just DailyFaith.tv and there's a giving page. You can also go to orphanshands.org — that's another address you can look at as well. Or call Daily Faith at 1-833-Daily Faith. Just dial Daily Faith into your phone, 1-833-Daily Faith, and a real-life person will pick up the phone and talk to you.
Philip:There is a businessman or businesswoman right now that could help us. We've gotta furnish these two homes. You can outfit a bedroom. I mean, there's so much needed — sofas, all the kitchen equipment, kitchen stoves, refrigerators. We just need enough to keep 50 kids. And that barn on this property, we're gonna make it our campground. So there's just so much stuff we need. If you can give a one-time gift, that would also be a great blessing to us. Let the Lord speak to your heart. And as you give to the poor, the Bible said, you'll lend to the Lord. So please do so.
Philip:I am delighted to have with me my friend Keith Nix. Keith is the pastor of the Lift in Sevierville, Tennessee — one of the most visited parts of America. And when you've been there once, you'll know exactly why. And he has done a great ministry, a great church. If you're ever in the area, go and visit my friend — it'll bless you immensely. Keith, thank you for joining us on Daily Faith today. God bless you.
Keith Nix:Thank you. From Sevierville. I was hoping you'd come here, but you couldn't be with us today, so we're doing it over the mountains. Just an hour or so away though. We're not far.
Keith Nix Introduces His Book and Burden
Keith Nix:Thank you. It's always an honor to be with you. We love being part of Orphan's Hands. And a small part, but it's just a joy to be part of what God is doing through you and the team and changing young lives for great destinies.
Philip:We love it. So thank you. I love what I do. And I know that you love what you do, and you are building absolutely a great church. Congratulations on purchasing the church you've been using. It is a gorgeous facility. And I congratulate the church for taking that step of faith. And I believe the best is yet to come. You've written a book that absolutely sets my hair on fire, because in 56 years of preaching in the church, I've heard thousands of pastors say to me, they come to the church and we lose them. They come to church and we lose them. And you've written a book that I think is so appropriate for the day we're living in.
Philip:I believe that COVID affected the church way more than we will give credit to. And this book that you've put together, I believe is just so pointed for this particular time. It's called Losing Jesus in the Church. Tell us, what was the inspiration for you to write this book? Because I know it had to be divine.
Keith Nix:Well, thank you. It's a little bitty volume. It's been a burden in my heart for a number of years. Back in 2014, I wrote an article on the subject that Charisma Ministry Today graciously published. And I just haven't been able to get away from it. You know, I was raised in church. I jokingly say that I've slept through more church services than most people will ever go to.
Keith Nix:I'm probably pretty accurate. You were raised the same way that I was raised. And the thing is, I've seen a lot of junk, you know. There's junk in church because there are people in church. People bring their own junk. And yet I fell in love with Jesus as a young boy. And my life certainly hasn't been perfect, but when he encountered me, I tasted — David said it this way — I've tasted of the Lord. Hallelujah. And I found out he's good. Hallelujah.
Keith Nix:And so my passion has been mine and Margie, my wife — she was saved at a young age. I was saved at around five, she was around nine.
Philip:You were four?
Keith Nix:Four. Yeah, I was four.
Philip:Oh. See, I got baptized in the Holy Ghost when I was six.
Keith Nix:I was nine when I got baptized in the Holy Ghost.
Philip:You're a tougher character than I was.
Keith Nix:That's right, that's right. But our passion has been to impact anyone we can, but especially the younger upcoming generations. We've done — I loved watching the video and seeing the camps, and you're talking about your granddaughters being involved. Our youth camp is coming up next week. This is our 28th year of leading the youth camp. If you'd asked me 28 years ago, will you be doing youth camp 28 years from now? I'd certainly have said no. But our passion is to help create an atmosphere where hopefully the young men and women can be encountered by God as we were and fall in love with Jesus.
Entertainment Culture vs. Genuine God Encounters
Keith Nix:I love the church, but I only love the church because I love Jesus and he loves the church. But what's happening today? What are the obstacles that are causing us and our kids to lose Jesus in the church? Well, I think we get so involved with religion without even knowing it. We become ritualistic. It becomes form. It becomes routine to us. We raise our children with it being form and routine. And then the church itself has catered to the entertainment side. We have focused on how can we entertain our children rather than how can we set them up for a genuine encounter with God.
Keith Nix:I read something yesterday that I think is amazing. Someone says, you'll know what kind of church you go to if we call the altar an altar or if we call the stage a stage. Our vocabulary has changed. We now call it a stage. It's where you have a performance. The altar is where you get right with God. The altar is where you encounter God. And we've allowed our vocabulary to change, and that indicates a deeper-rooted issue.
Altar vs. Stage — A Vocabulary Crisis
Keith Nix:And I believe God is calling us back, because we're losing too many. The percentage is extremely high. Of those when they turn 18, they leave the church — 70 to 80% are leaving the church when they turn 18, and only 35% return to the church. And those are unacceptable numbers.
Philip:So you're saying 50% are lost forever?
Keith Nix:Yes. According to the numbers, if 85% go away and 35% come back, you're left with 50%. We're losing half our kids — roughly almost half our kids are being lost. And it's not because the gospel's wrong. It's not because Jesus isn't Lord. It's not because the Holy Spirit has lost his power. It's not that the blood of Jesus is no longer effective. And we've got more technology and we've got more stuff than we've ever had before. And maybe that's part of the problem. We've leaned on stuff. We've looked for lights, fog machines.
Alarming Statistics on Youth Leaving the Church
Keith Nix:And I'm not against any of those things when they're used in the proper context, but when they become what we're trusting in to reach a generation, it's not gonna work. Paul — I was reading this morning in my devotions, 1 Corinthians 2 — and Paul, when he says to the Corinthians, when I came to you, I did not come with persuasive words of men's wisdom. I came in demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit. He said, I came to you, Corinth, preaching Christ crucified.
Paul's Choice at Corinth — Power Over Oratory
Keith Nix:What's interesting is when you study the book of Acts, he has just come from Athens, Mars Hill. And on Mars Hill, he spoke to the philosophers and he saw a few people get saved. But he did not plant a church in Athens. And he leaves there, having gone up to Mars Hill, having been relevant and fitting in with that crowd, approaching them in a relevant way where they could receive. He leaves there coming to Corinth, and he says, when I got to Corinth, somewhere along the way he made a decision: I'm not going to Corinth to try to persuade them with my oratory skills and my elegance of speech. I'm going to the raw power of the cross of Jesus Christ. And he established a church in Corinth. We've gotta get back to that. It's not wrong to be relevant, but the cross is always relevant to every situation.
Philip:I'm unique in this situation because I travel all the time. And when you travel every Sunday, you watch the fads of the church. So everyone painted their stages black and everyone started wearing black clothes and the youth minister had a haircut like a llama. And they all think they're being unique. But what they're doing is they're coming out of some Bible school somewhere, which is a sausage machine rather than a Bible school. And they're just spitting them out — no depth, no consequence in their life.
Philip:And they work a program. Because I travel, I watch in the churches, and the pastors will preach the same series from whatever they got it from online. And you start thinking, man, what would happen if the real Holy Ghost showed up at a church service? You know, we've gotta finish by this time because the next service is starting in 15 minutes. And we have timed and planned the Holy Ghost out of the service. And the consequence is that we are losing our kids, losing Jesus in church. We're reaping the consequences now.
Keith Nix:The book has been met with good success. But at the same time, there are some people who really just struggle with the title. The idea that you can lose Jesus in church just strikes them as irreligious. And it is intended to be. And they can't argue with the title because it's true.
Timed-Out Services and the Holy Spirit
Philip:It is true. It's sadly true.
Keith Nix:And we've got to — those of us who are in the church, look, I think it happens to all of us. I quote him in the book, but General Booth of the Salvation Army said, the tendency of fire is to go out. And it's the tendency of every fire. It's the tendency of a relationship, of marriage. And what we have to do is be intentional to add fuel to the fire. Or Paul said it this way to Timothy, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 6, he said, stir up the gift that is in you, fan into a flame, keep the embers stirred.
Keith Nix:Timothy was in danger of losing Jesus in church. If you read that first chapter of 2 Timothy, Paul has to tell him, do not be ashamed of me, the prisoner of Christ. And then he says, do not be ashamed of Christ. So Timothy is struggling with intimidation from the world, the city that he's in, all the challenges. And Paul says to him, here's what you gotta do: stir that gift that was put in you back up, fan it into a flame. And notice he said, you've got to do it, Timothy. I can't come and do it for you. No one else can. You've got to be intentional.
General Booth, Timothy, and Fanning the Flame
Keith Nix:And that's my hope with this book, that it's gonna help people, especially if they'll go through it and study and do the study guide. We've got some questions and answers. It's a short little book, easy to go through. But if they'll do it, my hope is that this will be a tool that will help fan the flame again.
Philip:In our Wednesday night services here in church, we go through books. This will be a great book to take a month and go through on a Wednesday night with the church. And we have some churches that are doing that. And if you're watching now and you're a pastor, or if you love your pastor, order this book. We're gonna put the details up on the screen in a moment. Order this book and give it to the pastor and say, take a look at this. I think this would be a great way of focusing the church.
Philip:What you look at flourishes, what you ignore diminishes. And unless you as a church decide, we are not losing our kids — not one left behind, we're all gonna be in heaven together — and if you make that a focus of your church, I believe that you can stop this and reverse it. And have our kids be on fire. Our kids in our churches now, our kids want that camp. And Perry Stone was there, and Perry was so shaken by our kids, so moved by our kids, that he called our pastor and said, I want to come and be with you for three days. I wanna meet these kids in their home church. We need our kids to be on fire to that level.
Philip:If you can put the book up on the screen, guys, let me show you the cover. You can get Losing Jesus in Church from losingjesusinchurch.com or keithnix.net. Is that the best one, Keith?
Keith Nix:Yes, thank you. Yes, perfect.
Philip:And I suggest you get in contact with him today. keithnix.net is the one I think is simpler — keithnix.net — and get in contact with him. And I believe that this book could be a means of turning your church around. I'm talking to pastors all the time. I don't know why, but pastors call me with their troubles. I guess they know I'm not gonna gossip about what they're going through. But what I'm telling you is this: COVID, I believe, hit the fibers of the church. Most churches I talk to are saying they're down 30%. Some are 50% and have never come back from COVID, because they broke. I think it was a social experiment by the government to see how much control they can exert over the people. And we've gotta get our kids back to church. We gotta get our families back to church. And we can't afford to lose Jesus in church.
Practical Steps for Pastors and Families
Philip:The Lift Church — one more time — the Lift Church in Sevierville, Tennessee. And get that book from keithnix.net. God will bless you. Thank you for being with me today. We're out of time.
Keith Nix:Thank you. We love you. Can't wait to see you. We're coming over the hill to see you.
Philip:Keith, thank you for watching. I'm looking forward to it. Pray about helping us in our new work in Ungheni. We love you. Bye-bye.
For over 25 years, the Cameron family has been changing the lives of orphans in Romania and Moldova — from providing running water, flushing toilets, and clean wells, to coal for heat, new windows, as well as food and clothing. They champion the physical needs of the orphans in these broken and desolate countries. Many of Moldova's orphans are saved from the horrors of trafficking through homes founded by the Camerons. And in the process, orphans become daughters and sons. They come to know their heavenly Father and are forever changed by the love of Jesus.
God helped the Camerons lift these amazing young men and women out of darkness, now no longer orphans. They want to return and invade that very same darkness with the light of Jesus Christ. Orphan's Hands equips these daughters and sons to become missionaries. Your monthly gift of $31 will allow us to rescue and take in more girls and boys, saving them from the hell of human trafficking. Your monthly partnership will allow us to care for those in the Orphan's Hands homes in Moldova and Ukraine. If you want to join Philip and Chrissy in taking care of these precious young people, please contact us today by calling 1-833-Daily Faith. You can also give by going online to www.dailyfaith.tv or by writing to Post Office Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. So many lives depend on what we do. Thank you for loving the lost.
Common questions
What does Keith Nix mean by 'losing Jesus in the church' — how does it actually happen?
Nix says it happens gradually when church life becomes ritualistic and routine rather than relational. Congregations — and families raising kids in church — slip into form and performance without realizing it, and the genuine encounter with God gets crowded out. He points to a telling sign: many churches now call the front of the sanctuary a 'stage' instead of an 'altar,' and that vocabulary shift, he argues, reflects a much deeper problem.
How bad are the numbers for young people leaving the church?
Nix cites research showing that 70–80% of young people leave the church when they turn 18, and only about 35% ever return. By his math, that means roughly half of all kids raised in church are lost permanently — and he's clear that the fault isn't with the gospel or the Holy Spirit, but with how the church has been presenting itself.
Does Keith Nix think entertainment-style church is the main culprit?
He sees it as a major factor. Nix says the church has leaned heavily on lights, fog machines, and polished production to attract young people, but trusting in 'stuff' instead of the raw power of the cross simply doesn't work. He draws on 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul deliberately chose to come to Corinth not with persuasive oratory but in 'demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit' — and that's the approach that actually planted a church.
What does Nix say individuals can do if they feel their own faith has gone cold?
He points to Paul's instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6 — 'stir up the gift that is in you, fan it into a flame.' Nix notes that Timothy himself was in danger of losing Jesus in the church, struggling with intimidation and shame, and Paul's answer was that no one else could rekindle that fire for him — Timothy had to be intentional about it himself. Nix also quotes General Booth of the Salvation Army: 'The tendency of fire is to go out,' so stoking it has to be a deliberate, ongoing act.
How is Keith Nix's book meant to be used, and where can you get it?
Nix designed it as a short, accessible volume with a built-in study guide — questions and answers meant to be worked through in a group setting, such as a Wednesday-night church series. He hopes it will serve as a practical tool to help congregations and individuals fan their faith back into flame. It's available at losingjesusinchurch.com or keithnix.net.
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keith nixchurch retentionyouth faith crisisnext generationchrist-centered churchspiritual firethe lift church