Accepting the Generation Gap

Something interesting happened yesterday on Facebook. I think a Boomer pastor believed me when I said there was no easy answer or set of practices that will help the institutional church "reach" the Millennial generation. It is easy to forget that not everyone has the time or the resources to dig into all the research on generational differences and what that means for the church. It is easy to forget that many of my colleagues have gotten bogged down in the status quo because they are good/dedicated pastors who do what they are asked. So today, when the topic of Millennials came up via this relatively old article on Christianity Today, I tried to give the framework instead of solutions. I know, with the release of the Call to Action, everyone in the UMC is after measurable means and goal-focused aims, but we cannot do that without understanding the communities we serve. This is what I shared (and share again) regarding Millennials with hopes that we can bring authenticity, compassion and understanding to the table as we decide how to share the good news with the most disconnected generation yet.

... This goes a lot deeper than age. The Millennials I know (broad brush here) are the first generation of the uber-entitled. They have been challenged by very little and given a great deal. Their parents were the first to helicopter. They have been smothered in "self" by their families of origin. On the flip side, they are the first generation since the great depression to come of age in a world that is not going to allow them to be "bigger and better" than their parents and grandparents. Many are jobless out of college. By in large, the don't care about the boomer dream because for them it is a bust. They are a generation that has to rise to the occasion and change the world but they are the least prepared for it because of the way they have been entitled.

Millennials are profoundly different from Builders and Boomers. But our churches are organized, run and financed by Builders and Boomers — Builders and Boomers who are content on having young people as long as they pick up the mantle they have woven.

The Millennials I know don't want answers. They want a place to finally ask the questions they were shielded/redirected from in their youth. And they want their life to have meaning beyond an institution or structure. They don't care about the same things Builders and Boomers care about. And when we say "this is what the church is" that is our value statement based on how we've interpreted scripture. They don't trust that. They do trust Jesus (or at least admire/respect him). So if you want to know where to start, re-present Jesus in full over and over again and challenge them and everyone to follow. If he isn't the Alpha and Omega of all our gatherings, meetings, etc, there is little we can do to be ready to engage the questions the Millennials who want to be part of a church seek to ask.

My suggestion on what the church should do — put Jesus first — shouldn't be just for reaching Millennials, however. This should be what we are about all the time. But — and I am as guilty of this as anyone — the institution, its language, its history and its future have a tendency to dominate our conversations. Survival of what we have built and dreamt as a church are so strewn about our buildings and member's lives that we are often tripping on them and falling down ... failing to do our primary task of re-presenting Jesus. I think if we could reclaim that task, we wouldn't be so worried.

Of course, I am approaching this as an X-er, so I'm curious if your experiences are different.

Comments

[kg]

I am a late boomer, but I think you nailed it. The focus needs to return to Jesus, and re-presenting Jesus.
And since we have trouble keeping focus, we have to return to focus on Jesus again and again.
It also helps to spend less time talking in general and more time listening. :)
I'm glad you started the blog---thanks!

[Brett Pinkepank]

Our parents might have given us anything tangible we wanted, but we've been neglected since day 1. Gameboy wasn't our passion it was our nanny. Entitled? I think we are entitled to unconditional love and the mentorship of our parents and our community, and instead we got cellphones and playstations, of course we are unsatisfied. Most of us don't stay in the church I think, because church, by itself, has never given us anything of value. I don't need the church to teach me about jesus, or to worship him. Any church that thinks that is too big headed to understand millenials who have learned that almost anything in this world can be done with a cellphone, 20 bucks and a pair of sneakers. What me and my generation are looking for I think, is not knowledge. We have ridiculously easy access to more raw knowledge and information than any generation that has ever gone before us, and I can make my living room twice as spiritual a place to me as any church sanctuary. What has driven droves of us away is the attempt of the church to engage the rest of the world in knowledge battles (creationism and intelligent design is just the tip of the iceberg). What we need and what gives church value are mentors and a community, to help us learn to negotiate life's troubles gracefully, we need a community that accepts us unconditionally, and that cares about what we think and how we are doing and has something intelligent to say about it. And most importantly, helps us to feel needed and as though we have a role in the world that has some kind of significance. I think that Jesus informs all of these things and holds it all together, but I think to be a people of God, there must first be a people, and it is of this people that I think we have felt for one reason or another, excluded, often from our very childhood.

Every sunday I am at church, I can look around and spot every one of the half dozen or so people in my cohort, and at the end of the service, all of us get up and walk out of the sanctuary and right out the church door speaking to no one.. Nobody stops us, nobody draws us deeper, sure that's our fault too, but I don't see the church like you do, I don't feel a responsibility toward it. I bet that many churches are like that, and many of us are sitting there waiting to be called on to do things I can suck my non church going millenial friends into outside of the church walls doing things that are meaningful with or without jesus being printed on a banner. But instead myself and those like me walk unchecked out the front door every sunday, and with us every other millenial that might ever have any reason for coming with us the next Sunday. If we are wanted so bad, how do we not know it? How do we yet still feel neglected?

[Jen Unger Kroc]

Wow, Brett. Thank you for being so open about your experiences. I have no answers to the issues you raise - and if I hear you right, you're not looking for my answers anyway - but I'd like to be part of the conversation.

I agree, there's so much information available from every source (as I type on my laptop, where Google can reach anything for me it seems), that maybe we don't need raw information from the church. What I personally need and appreciate from the church is wisdom, people who have walked the road of faith ahead of me or will walk it beside me, and a community to share the experience.

When Tom and I first came to the church we are a part of years ago, we were a young newly married couple with no kids. For a long, long time, we felt alone in the church; all the groups and activities and connections seemed oriented toward older folks or families with kids. And there just weren't many people of our age group & stage of life there. When we did connect with others our age, seems like within a matter of months they moved away due to job changes or becoming pregnant and moving to be closer to grandparents. Every time that happened, we felt bereft and alone yet again. Even when we finally had kids of our own, we didn't always feel like we fit in with the other young families; our pregnancy & parenting style was unique enough that we didn't share the same pathway as "everyone else." We could have walked away at many points until that happened, and I'm sure we would have been missed, but probably forgotten soon enough. Two things happened to change that for me. One, we decided to join the choir. For us, it really wasn't until we became part of choir (a smallish, ongoing group which we could actively participate in) that we found our "family within a family" at the church. Two, I changed my own mentality: instead of continually mourning that we couldn't find "our best friends who wouldn't move away", I decided I might as well see myself as a sort of welcome wagon. If we stayed put and everyone else came and went, I could help those who came feel welcome as long as they were here. I could help meet the needs of the community, rather than mourning that no one was meeting my needs.

I'm struck by your comment that you don't feel a responsibility to the church, and trying to remember how it felt for me. I don't think I felt it as a responsibility either in the early years, although I do now; the church is my family and I am connected to it as I am to my parents and my siblings. But I felt a longing to be part of it, to belong, to feel connected and known and to offer what I have to give. I think the church does overlook young adults; overlooks them just as badly as it needs them. This is not a good thing, although some variation of it has been true of virtually every organization I've been a part of: the way an organization is formed and functions must change over time to allow the younger generations to find a home and breathing space there.

(comment edited by MJ)