I've been thinking about millennials a lot lately.
I function as an ambassador for the Kingdom in which Jesus is Lord...
...and I do it in a context which brings me into significant and regular contact with people between the ages of 16 and 21.
I love it that this is the field in which I live out my mission.
I've blogged about connecting millennials to Jesus several times in the past but, honestly, I suspect that I undervalue the importance of my knowledge and understanding of millennials in writing blog posts for my readers here whom I'd guess to be mostly between the ages of 40 and 60.
I'm working on a significant post which considers the issue of geezers, older than 40, practicing, um, so-called leadership among millennials. That will come later, if I ever click "publish" on it at all.
For now, I'll touch on one thing that's come up far too often when I've spoken to boomers and the slightly younger about the fact that our generation is losing millennials for Jesus.
It's common, when I express, to the over 50 crowd, my passion for connecting millennials to the gospel to hear:
But, we can't water down the message to reach them!
The simple act of typing those words infuriates me,...
...in two ways:
1. There is the presumption, in this way of thinking, that what makes sense to a boomer is the ageless standard of truth.
It's saying, "We boomers who believe, believe the real and true gospel, presented in the way it should be presented. And, if millennials can't believe in that gospel in the way it came to us, too bad, because we are the standard. We define what is real and good and true for all people, for all time. If it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, and for us boomers, it's just going to have be good enough for millennials, too."
What amazing narcissism!
2. There is the denial of the, to me at least, obvious reality that a central characteristic of boomer Christianity, ironically, is that it itself is very seriously diluted...to the point that it has almost nothing of Jesus in it.
Boomer Christianity is churchianity.
It preaches a Jesus to be believed in but not a Jesus whose teachings and way of life are to be followed.
Not surprisingly, boomer Christianity has born shriveled and tasteless fruit...
It absolutely stuns me that many boomers could fear that the message of Jesus that would reach millennials would have to be diluted compared to what they received.
Boomers have been sitting in their churches, taking in their Sunday morning shows, displaying self-centeredness, resisting calls to be externally focused...
...and they caution against watering down the Word that they accepted.
Audacity!
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Millennials, for the most part, gag over what their parents and grandparents have made of the church. They'll never be a part of that chirch.
But, Jesus?
They are more interested in Him than in the church. They are open to Him.
I can't see them ever grooving on the diluted, all-about-the-church gospel that comforts the people of my generation.
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