Generation Y and Deep Change

I recently heard Jacob Armstrong's presentation on Generation Y and that generation's involvement in the local church. Armstrong is a young ordained United Methodist pastor who works with youth and young adults in his large church, First United Methodist Church of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just down the road from Nashville.

First United Methodist Church was an old, dwindling downtown church until it moved out of the downtown area and revamped its programming. Today, having experienced deep change, it is a vibrant and growing church, with more than 1600 in Sunday worship, including a large contingent of young people from the state university in Murfreesboro.

Jacob Armstrong describes Generation Y as those people born between 1970 and 2002. Some prefer to say you are GenY if you were born in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, making you today between 8 and 37 years old. That's a larger age span than most experts describe. Many prefer to think of the Baby Boom generation as those born in the years 1946-1964 (now ages 43-67), Postmoderns (or Generation X) as those born in the years spanning 1965-1981 (now ages 26-42), and the Millennials (or Generation Y) as those born between 1982-1999 (now ages 8-25).

From his work with GenY, Armstrong identifies three basic categories of young people who attend his church:

• The Unchurched: These are people who have never been part of a church. Despite whatever efforts the church makes to reach them, they probably will not come through the doors for worship, music, fellowship, or other activities. To reach this group, the church may need to take extraordinary steps to encounter them outside the church.
• The Dechurched: These are people who have deliberately left the church, some after having been wounded -- by a staff person's actions, a sermon, an activity, a conflict, a misunderstanding, or perhaps by changes in worship and music style, the pastor or musical staff, or the makeup of the congregation. Maybe they had simply become bored with church.
• The Not-Recently-Churched: These are children and youth who grew up in the church, attended Sunday school and worship, sang in the choirs, played bells, and then left as older teens or after high school. They may return to the church in their late twenties or when they begin to have families and children of their own.

Armstrong identifies some of the needs of this group of people:

• They embrace challenging faith commitments. Growth, discipleship, and faith formation must involve a goal, a challenge, striving, even sacrifice. It is not enough to smile, be pleasant, and portray joy. The way of the cross for Jesus involved sacrifice, suffering, even death. We must not deny that in our churches today.
• They yearn for mystery. Faith, and perhaps especially worship, needs to reflect an element of mystery, awe, wonder. We do not have all the answers to all of the questions. The members of Generation Y value symbols and manifestations of that mystery -- meditation, candles, the cross, incense, chant, color, the arts.
• They strive for personal holiness and integrity and are attracted to churches that offer those qualities. Does the one who sings the hymns and prays the prayers on Sunday live a life the other six days that does not demonstrate personal holiness and integrity? Is there evidence of God's presence in one's life? Faithfulness also demands service, acts of goodness and ministry to others.
• They are unwilling to compromise the orthodoxy of the faith. The historical tradition of belief handed down through the ages is central. Unlike their Baby Boomer parents, for members of Generation Y, creeds are a valuable part of learning, disseminating, and maturing in the faith. They are less concerned with the specifics of worship style (also unlike their parents -- who waged scorched earth worship wars over style issues). They are very much attracted to the music of today, their own music, the music of youth, and not so much the "contemporary" music of their parents' praise choruses and worship songs. The music may embrace a wide range of youth styles -- rock, folk, rap, hip-hop -- but they also want to experience the best of older music -- traditional hymns, the classic hymns of the church, classical music, chant, chorales.

In many churches, Baby Boomers run things. They are the bishops, superintendents, and pastors. They are the heads of the local church committees. They teach the Sunday school classes and direct the choirs, plan the worship, and pick the hymns. They contribute the majority of the money and make most of the decisions. And they have brought that generation's self-interest and demands to all those tasks and activities. The resulting divide that exists between the Boomers and the succeeding generations, especially GenY, is large.

Some questions to consider:

1. What is the generational make-up of your church?
2. Is there a divide between your Boomers and GenX or GenY?
3. What are the impediments in your church to attracting GenY?
4. How can you reach out to GenY?
5. Does reaching out to GenY mean alienating Boomers and older members?
6. Is God calling you (us) to do or be anything different from what we now do and are?