Talking Jesus with Two People of the Post-millennial Generation

I'm a geezer, a member of the Boomer generation, who works as a manager of the Front End of a Super Market.

I actually usually enjoy the work but the job is really the way I've found to live in the world as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. That way of being an ambassador suits me.

There are about 50 people in my area of the store. My job creates the opportunity for me to work with people of the Silent/Builder generation, (I actually have co-workers as old as age 84.), I have a fair number of Boomer coworkers, some Gen Xers, some Millennials but, as time marches on, the largest portion of the part-timers at the store are now of the Post-millennial generation (people born after 1996).

Yesterday was the day after Christmas and the early part of the day at the store was slow. There were two, uh, kids working. Both are college students who worked at the store as high schoolers. They are permitted to work at the store during summer and holiday breaks while they are in college.

Both of them have become close to me in the 3-ish years we've known each other and, yesterday, I was talking to one of them about my past life...about the fact that I was a "minister." (I never use the word pastor because I hate what it connotes.)

The guy asked me why I left the ministry.

This is the moment I wait for.

It's a gently lobbed soft ball and when it comes my way, I can't wait to swing for the fences. And, I've rarely had a pitch so easy to hit in all of the years of my ambassadorship.

I always start with Jesus.

I said:

I believe in Jesus more than I ever have and I follow His teachings with all of my heart. But, I got to the point that I just didn't believe in organized religion anymore. And, I just couldn't be a part of it any longer. 

I explained that Evie understands and agrees. And, that we still meet with a group of people in our home and that we follow Jesus but that we just can't stand organized religion.

What I said was like grabbing the handle of a faucet and opening it all the way.

My young friend obviously has a background as a church kid and is deciding for himself, now that he's creating an identity independent of his parents, that organized religion is a bad thing for him.

It seems that our chat happened at the time that he's working his way to a definite decision about, well, church.

So, there, as he stood at his cash register, he declared his views on the failings of organized religion.

Two comments about what happened next:

1. His greatest objection to the church, is that it doesn't help him live. He's a bright guy, a good guy, and intensely interested in living the right way. And, he told me that he's realized that he can figure out how to live better on his own than with the help of the church.

Translating: His issue is righteousness. And, he's concluded that the church is, at the very best, irrelevant for him as he chooses his path of righteousness.

In my dealings with Millennials and Post-millennials, it's clear to me that, like today's Boomer and Builder geezers, they want to know what is right...and they want to do it.

For this guy, and I suspect many others of his age, the church plays no role in helping him to understand what is right...

...and to do what is right.

And, so, as of this moment, at what? age 18?, 19? he's decided that he can figure out what is right better without organized religion than with it.

And, for the moment, he's very done with church.

2. The other Post-Millennial pesent happened to be running the cash register one over from where we were standing. She asked if she could join in the conversation.

She did.

And, described herself as a girl who went to Sunday School. Her grandmother was even a Sunday School teacher.

But, she said that it seemed to her that all she learned from the Bible in church was, to use her word, "trivia."

At that moment customers arrived and the conversation ended...for the moment, at least. But, she was winding up, I'm certain, to agree.

The organized church never got around to helping her know how to live the right way...to live righteously.

As life moved on for us yesterday, I said that Jesus is important to the way that I live and that I hope they can reconnect with Him, even if it is apart from organized religion.

It's likely that I'll have off and on contact with these two for another two or three years before they move on to full adulthood and their careers. There will be opportunities for the conversation to continue.

At moments like this, I love my job!