Most churches are finding it difficult to reach 20-somethings and as church leaders it’s important to spend time thinking about who young adults are and what is important to them. A recent article by Deborah Morrison for Ad Week spoke of the 20-something generation:
How they live has everything to do with how they work. They time shift. Favorite shows happen online on-demand. News is 24/7. There’s not much use for e-mail. Instead, they’re YouTubing, Stumbling, Digging, Twittering, blogging, updating. They’re Loopted and LinkedIn. Caffeine drives the day and night. In this world, wristwatches and alarm clocks are as necessary as rabbit ears. They grew up IMing, and the cell phone rules. Area-code identity is mobile but long lasting - a virtual network.
It’s the shortcut generation. That toolbar up top is for old-timers; these guys learned to Cmd-Option-Shift-A in middle school because it was cool, not necessary. Desktops are institutional holdovers. Everyone has a set of on-the-go tools: camera, laptop, videocam, hard drive, cool bag to tote it all. They’re experts early on, manhandling Final Cut or Flash with intuitive authority. They’re Idea 2.0, the mashup generation and one with confluence, place beyond convergence where the old sloughs off and the new quickly gets morphed into the cultural DNA.
All this makes them, at their best, unbelievably creative and productive. On the other hand, they also think they have all the answers. Morley Safer wrote recently of this generation’s entitlement issues: They’ve grown up with everyone as winners, with inspired birthday parties and planned events, with middle- class privilege and opportunities at every camp, academy and take-your-kid-to-work experience. They expect careers, not jobs … most simply they want to be inspired.*
The Hoi Polloi group spent study time in New York where the culture threw the opportunities and the challenges facing the church into sharp relief.
Dr. Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University helped the Hoi Polloi gain insight into what attracts 20-somethings: “20-somethings are looking for commitment. Emphasize the meaning of membership. Raise the expectations of ‘the faithful.’ Look at the understanding of grace as a process. Renew deep and meaningful discipleship. Tell the story of God’s grace again and again while inviting all into the divine story.”
David Barnhart, Jr. reflects “One of Dr. Wuthnow’s ideas for the work of the church was for the church to become a ‘resource center’ for young adults. Since young adults are spiritual “tinkerers,” meaning that they craft and hack their own religious life out of the available practices and worldviews of our pluralistic society, the church should try to offer options and assistance for their age and stage of life. At first I did not find this very inspirational, but as we reflected later I realized that the church has a 2000-year history of practices and spiritual options to offer the world: everything from St. Francis to Jonathan Edwards, from Mother Theresa to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Thomas Merton to Rick Warren, from John Wesley to John Calvin. Rather than offering young adults a narrow option of religious ideas, the church can offer them a range of legitimate ways of being Christian in the world.
The other resource is pastoral/vocational. We can offer a way to discern their calling, find their passion, and pursue the changes they want to see in the world as well as their personal goals. Again, this didn’t seem very inspirational to me until I thought about how much the church does not do this for young adults. We offer all kinds of classes on marriage and raising kids, but not a single one on picking your career or finding a mate.”
Deborah Morrison concludes in her article about 20-somethings: Buckle up. This group does not look or work the same as generations past. It is not to say they are the saving grace, smarter than any before them. But the truth is that this is a nimble, adaptive and perceptive bunch, and they’re not good at playing by the old rules. They’ll change the way this industry behaves. And they’ll do it on a 24/7 clock, no problem.*
So, get ready; God is up to something and 20-somethings, with God’s help will impact the future of the Kingdom in unexpected ways.
*Used by Permission: “Generation Watch Out - Why grads will change the industry as we know it” by Deborah Morrison, Adweek Web Research Sept 29, 2008; She can be reached at debmor@uoregon.edu.
While I appreciate what seems to be “seeker-service” 2.0, and the ways this age group wants to behave and think (or, do, by cultural default or other), I see a couple things missing in the article that would seem to me to be key.
First, why not study the Bible, intricately for what the Lord says about what and how we do it, thus guiding us in our fallen world. The article above seems to indicate that we cow tow to the “way things are” while leaving aside whether however they are is within the bounds of Biblical counsel. Forgive me if this is already assumed in the article above.
Second, I find missing the word εκκλεσια. While the New Testament seems to be very flexible on how we worship, some things are set in eternal stone for the church. I ask the reader to study Ephesians for focus on unity in diversity and not in uniformity to every new cultural norm.
I’ve been struggling wtih this here in South Korea for 10 years. The 20-30 crowd is exactly as you describe in the article. However, the examing of the meaning of worship, building Christian relationships through biblical literacy and Holy Spirit revelation, and the precepts and commands to love one’s neighbor seem distant concepts and not necessary. What is desired is what you mention above. While we need to reach out to a new generation of sheep, I am at continual odds with “Do we look at new cultural norms and then squeeze the Bible and Jesus into them?” or “Do we look to find new ways to bring these sheep into the fold in imaginative ways that do not copy the world, remain different from the world, and do not violate essential tennants of Biblical faith?”
I’m open to comment. What I see happening here, and perhaps worldwide, is a coming age of simplicity. Not all bad. But simplicity as the expense of a growing knowlegdeable relationship with the one true God in Jesus Christ, picking up a cross daily and following him. Contempory worship, in English, here, based in CCM and a sermon, seem to be the stone we try to skip along the surface of a lake.