Recently, Rachel Held Evans wrote a provocative article on her CCN Belief Blog titled, “Why Millennials Are Leaving The Church.” Over the last week, this has been the most emailed, facebooked, tweeted, and instant messaged article I’ve ever been sent. I’ve received it from 23 different people, and been a part of about 10 online and in person discussions about it’s content and claims. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend anyone interested in reaching the next generation read it.

I’ve been thinking about what she had to say, and I thought I’d respond to her article by framing the discussion in a different way.

“Why The Boomer Oriented Church

Is Not Interested In Reaching Millennials”

I know this might sound a bit absurd, because the first response from anyone who is trying to build their local church, or share the gospel, would naturally be, “We ARE interested in reaching them!” I would argue with the same response and passion to this statement. But the honest truth is, and the premise of this blog post is, is that if we’re interested in sharing the gospel with people who are not Christ Followers yet, then we should frame it in a way that they can receive it without their being cultural “stumbling blocks” between the gospel and the people who need to hear it. I’m not so sure that the church in North America is ready for this. More specifically that the local leadership in the church, my generation, is ready to make the changes necessary to reach the next generation, or that we’re ready to recognize that they have a vastly different belief system that we do.

I don’t claim to be a representative of the millennial generation, or even think that they are a monolithic group that has a pervasive self image amongst themselves. But “I think I think,” that there are some things we can glean from the culture we find ourselves in, so that we can learn what they find important and what they value, and what they don’t.

So here’s what I’m thinking...

Millennials View A Faith Community, And How It Should Be Organized, In A Completely Different Way Than Boomers.

A.  Mentoring...

There’s a term I heard recently that at first I disagreed with. It was, “reverse mentoring.” A belief that many Millennials share that they have wisdom and insight into what’s happening in the culture today, and if we boomers would be just a little bit teachable, they could help us. We Boomers view most organizations as our parents did. “We paid our dues to get up the ladder of influence and so should they.” Honestly I can see both sides. I’ve sat on the other side of the table as a staff member, and wondered aloud why some leaders I’ve served didn’t see the obvious elephant sitting in the room. It was maddening to me to be a part of some organizations that thought they were doing the right thing to reach the people we found ourselves planted near, but instead were “wasting” precious resources on projects and plans that never had an impact on the community or the local church.

I’m on the other side of the table now and I can imagine that those in the younger generation that work for me are probably often thinking the same thing. I remember different leaders saying things like, “You need to see the big picture” and, “Your generation will get it’s time, just take care of your area and learn.” But now that I’m on the other side of it, I can see that my staff sometimes DOESN’T see the big picture, and that they don’t understand that sometimes we have to protect traditions simply because they provide comfort and meaning to those that have gone before, and are currently there.

There is though, a lot of truth to the “reverse mentoring” meme... Our culture is/has changed rapidly, faster that I could have imagined just 5-10 years ago. We, my boomer brethren and I, need to humble ourselves and listen and learn from our younger leaders in the church. They are much more aware of where the culture is, and where’s it’s going, than we could ever hope to be. If we want to frame the gospel in the current cultural environment we need to learn to, how should I say this... ummmmm.... Listen?

I would also argue that the Millennials need to do the same. While they might have the pulse of the culture in their heart and hands, they don’t often understand that it takes a lot of cash to run an organization like a local church. Money shouldn’t be the only thing that decides the future path of an organization, especially a faith based one. It should however, determine the reality of what can be done right now, and be a part of the faith steps that organization takes to move towards a viable future. Millennials can be that generation, the trusted scouts, the ones out front pointing the way to a better land. But they have to listen to the older generation saying... “we can’t run ahead and leave all of the rest of the tribe behind!” Millennials, for all of their talk about community, and family, can tend to err on the side of age-ism in regards to moving an organization forward.

What I Really “Think I Think” About This... There needs to be a new cooperative approach to mentoring between the generational leadership of faith based organizations. More of a conversation and less of a lecture. Both sides need to approach each other as part of the body of Christ, with Him as the head. We’re just hands and feet. We need each other, but neither is in complete control.

B.  Decision Making...

We Boomers see church as a top down management organization. We put the most cash into the pipeline, and therefore we control where the money goes. This thought piggy-backs on the first, but has some differences. Millennials have grown up with what I call, a “group think decision making” mantra. From their very beginning, they have been taught that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” (to quote Mr. Spock from Star Trek). Think about it, when I grew up there were winners and losers in every game we played. Little league games had three outs, each out had three strikes, and at the end of 7 innings one team won, and the other lost. The losers were expected to walk the line and congratulate the winners, and the winners were expected to be magnanimous in their victory. It didn’t always work out that way, but it was the goal. T-ball now a days had no winners, no losers, and everybody gets a trophy. A kind swings until he hits the ball, there is no pitcher, the ball is placed on a T and the batter swings until he hits it. Every team bats around once an inning, and at the end everyone wins. I know this is an over simplification of the issue, but it’s a small example of the fundamental change that has happened in the last 30 years. Even Monopoly, that wonderful game we all know, is going to get rid of the Go To Jail cards, and the Jail space all together. There will now not be any punishment for losing or making a wrong decision. The Boomers were taught that competition is a good thing, that there are winners and losers in life. The Millennials were taught that what’s good for everyone, is good for the individual.This has translated into a fundamental different viewpoint on how to arrive at decisions. Boomers think that decision making authority is rightly centered in the top of the organization, while Millennials think that decision making should come from what the group thinks and decides.

What I Really “Think I Think” About This... I think Millennials are going to win this argument eventually. Only because they’re going to be alive longer than Boomers are, and eventually they’re going to take over leadership in the church sooner that the rest of us think. But... I think they are going to modify their beliefs on this and eventually come to a middle ground. They’ll learn that “group think” is the same thing our parents used to call “decision by committee.”

C.  Worship...

Millennials like to say that Boomer worship is performance based. They argue that they want it raw, un-edited, and not over produced. But I look at what their artists are doing and see worship concerts not too far different that what was done 20 years ago. The technology is better, as it should be. The musicians are just as talented, and the basic internal structure of the songs are the same. Intro, Verse, Chorus, Repeat, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus, Tag. The only difference is the instrumentation is a bit more varied, the dress is more casual, the worship is more personally exuberant, it’s more racially diverse, and it’s appears to be more gender neutral.

What I Really “Think I Think” About This... I think, that worship like the subject of decision making, will be won by the generation that is coming up, as it has always been. I think the Millennials will find that in 2025 they’ll be getting pushed aside in this area by the next group, and during that time, if I’m still alive, I’ll smile.

500. D. Conversion...
     

This is a whole other blog post, and I’ll write about it next week. Trust me, we are SOOOOOOO different on this issue IMO.

Wrap Up...

If the Boomers are going to reach the Millennials, we’re going to have to change. Millennials are much more entrepreneurial that we ever were, and if we want to sustain the faith based organizations we love in the years to come, we’re going to have to hand over the leadership and operational control far sooner that our parents handed it over to us. The Millennials will, much faster that we would have, check out of any organization that didn’t value what they did and go start their own church/mission/outreach.