Adam

Soren Kierkegaard, 19th Century Danish theologian and Existential philosopher, has a quote that I think really sums up what a lot of young adults are needing right now:

“What the age needs is not a genius — it has had geniuses enough — but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening.”

Kierkegaard also said “Truth is subjectivity.” This does not mean that we can choose what we want to believe–that’s a rather shallow interpretation of this concept. Instead of a measure of preference, subjective truth is a measure of the impact that objective truth has made in our lives. I can know something is true; but until I actually change my life accordingly, it’s not my truth. So it’s not “It works for me, so it’s my truth”–it’s “I work for it, so it’s my truth.”

All that to say, I think young adults are looking for some authenticity. I think they need to know that there are other people out there who are struggling with what they’re doing with their lives, with knowing who they are and why they’re here. Young adulthood is a much more turbulent time than anything previously encountered for most of us, so we need guidance, but we also need to know that we’re doing alright.

I don’t want to discount the importance of teaching. I myself am a huge fan of your teaching, Adam, as I’m sure many young adults are. I think more than teaching, though, young adults need to be able to look at a leader and think, “I think this guy could actually understand me.”

There are several things of note which help many people of my generation connect and feel welcome. The first thing is everyone our age wants to connect to individuals not institutions. If there are people who they like at the event which make a purposeful effort to connect with them; they are much more likely to return and to enjoy the experience. A second major difference from previous generation is we do not care for political correctness. In fact, if you want to pray in school or go to church as long as it makes said individual happy the rest of the people are okay with it. The third thing I know about our generation is the hatred of hypocracy. Anything that is or anyone who is fake is immediately tuned out. When many of the “educated” young people feel the church is hypocritical they dismiss it.

I hope this has maybe shown a little light into the minds of a younger generation adult. I am assuming that you already knew the above but I cannot reiterate enough how important it is.

I use the word something else as a catch all for actions, policies, and programs meant to attract people to the church. They want to reflect the culture as to make it comfortable. That is defined to those urging the something else option as having entertaining programs, facilities patterned off of the health club, not cathedrals, doctrines contrary to the bible that says any thing goes, and messages which entertain but don’t offend our of fear of chasing away the revenue stream.

There are consequences to all decisions. Will people look back in 50 years and see a dynamic church changing hearts and minds through the gospel or will the church be merged with the health club on the corner. The future awaits our collective answer.

We want to be challenged intellectually. Not in the same way college challenged us, because a healthy portion of our generation has received plenty of “college time.” “Seeing the Gray” is a huge step in this direction. It breaks down the barriers of what we understood church to be (i.e. close minded, unwilling to accept new ideas, etc…) and hence challenges us to go deeper in understanding what a relationship with Christ really is.

We need a community–a place to go where we enjoy spending time and speaking with others. Where we are learning things to change our lives and those around us for the better. Young adults are just that “young” adults. Since the financial statuses, family backgrounds, and commitments to Christ are extremely varying, we need communities in which we are observing and speaking with those who have been successful spiritually at this stage in life. Bible studies are important as well. We want to talk with others and realize they are going through the same struggles and that we can pull together and make it through these transitional times.

Our generation (contrary to popular belief in many “cutting edge” churches today) is not scared of traditional elements of worship. Pop culture can be taken to an extreme and when church looks like everything else that we see around us on a daily basis, it becomes less special. I’m not advocating fully traditional services with liturgy and the whole works. I simply mean incorporating things like traditional music every now and again. Our culture likes being diverse and experiencing a bit of everything.

This may be a bit out of context but it’s a call for you to train young adults to come over here to Europe. There is a crisis concerning the younger generation. The church does not reach out to them at all and does not even know where to begin. The younger generation, therefore, does not exist in the churches here. Last week I spoke with a young group of girls who was going through confirmation. They have no required Bible reading, no one is guiding them through the foundations of our faith. They have never talked about nor understand what sin is. Between the ages 12-35, the church is completely dead. We have a hungry generation who is open to anything and we need to reach them with Christ before they choose something else, because they certainly are. Anyway…that’s for another post. Apologies, but it is still an issue in reaching the young generation world-wide.

I want to come to a place where I can worship the Lord; where I can sing and pray; where I can participate in mission projects and weekend retreats; where I can fellowship and learn practical things to apply to my life; where I can challenge my faith. I don’t want to enter a room and feel like I’m there to find my soul mate. I want to find community.

At COR we have awesome kids programs, and awesome youth programs. I think the young adult program should be another step up. When children grow up at the church, they go through KidsCOR and then RezLife, but then what? We desperately need that next stepping stone.

Another trait that most of them have is skepticism/cynicism. Our culture is inundated with bad news from all types of media including television, print and the internet. People do not seem to be trusting of anything.

Taking from a previous sermon series, I think that people in this generation tend to “see gray” more readily than other generations. Perhaps this is more related to age than a generational phenomena.

Finally, I think that most people in this age group are actively looking for meaning in the things that they do in their day-to-day lives. This likely explains the two observations outlined above.

So, what make a church attractive to this crowd? My take:

-Services are educational
-Church plans/budgets/activities are very transparent
-Church worship services, members, and staff are open-minded
-Church service provides a link between spirituality and life with a family, career, peer group, etc.

I think that by continuing to keep these values in mind, COR will continue to attract young members.

This is fascinating data.

If the nearly 80% of our Country claims to be Christian, why doesn’t 80% of our society’s actions follow suit? Why is it that 16% of non/nominally religious groups have such a loud and influential voice that moves our culture in a less-moral/less-Christian path? Is this 80% Christian count a soft count and wishful thinking among society? It appears that we want to SAY we’re Christian, but we don’t want to sacrifice our actions to BE Christians - clear discrepancy in “say” vs. “do”.

What’s the Church look like for a new the 30-somethings? Society wants quick, easy, convenient and so do I. But does having spiritual discipline include any of these things - probably not. There is, however, value in the convenience of a ML Church offering handy worship and modern communication channels. Why? Convenience is the hook that makes it easy to begin growing to be more like Christ for those of us who say we’re part of the 80% Christian Club, but like to practice situational Christianity.

The challenge becomes weaning situational Christians from the Convenient Church and transitioning our lives into worshiping and serving the Lord. When do we stop going to Church to because it is just part of our long task list, weekly routine or social network and begin being a light in the darkness?

I guess when we see more of us acting as small lights in this world; our culture will probably be very different.