At first I thought about being a Gen X. I mean, I had a CD Walkman with "BASS BOOST" and "SKIP PROTECTION." I did listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" a fair amount, but I wasn't even ten years old when it was released.
In the end, I decided to be an "old soul" of the Millennials, and there's something about us that I'm finding off putting. I read a statistic the other day that hit me pretty hard. Apparently, I'm a member of
"the least parented generation ever."
"the least parented generation ever."
Now, is this a statistic that's measurable or reliable? Is this a true "metric"?
Not at all, obviously.
But still, there's something about it that feels right isn't there? When you read it you think, "yeah, probably."
Which begs the question,
If it's the job of the older generation to parent the younger, and the younger generation clearly hasn't "got it together", who's responsibility is that? ........ But I digress.
I'm finding, as the millions of poorly-parented young adults begin to trek into the world, that all is, in fact, not lost.
They're still learning the life lessons they need to, just in different ways, and a bit later than normal. This is why Millennials are often called "Generation Y" as in "Generation Why"
As someone with fairly amazing parents, I can't help but feel as if I stand as an outlier of my generation. Though I'm still "plugged in" to how we're doing because we're about to inherit the earth and we need to be ready to take it.
If nothing else, Millennials are master "customizers." Everything about our life, world, intake, and relationships can be customized thanks to technology, millions of options, and the fact that our opinions run our lives down to the minute and most marketing firms know this. So when anyone asks me to explain what the "Emerging Church" is, my best and most simple answer is something like, "Understand Millennials, and you'll understand Emerging Church."
We are a "learn as you go" generation, because... well... no one really taught us. (Sorry Baby Boomers, this isn't really meant as harshly as it may sound)
And so the church we're beginning to enter into is becoming a "learn as we go" church. We grow together, as a community group, rather than a nuclear family, since so many of us lacked that. We try things and decide to keep them, then try other things and decide to cut them. We pry and ask and study and argue because we are more "Tabula Rasa" at age 30 then probably any generation before us.
But here, at the heart of this, emerges the one awesomely powerful advantage of the Millennials.
To us, the community is bigger, and more important, than the institution.
Millennials hate institutions. We've seen too many of them become corrupt and crumble and fade. This includes both secular (Wall Street, Bernie Madoff, American Baseball, Lance Armstrong) and spiritual (Catholic Priests, The 700 Club, Westboro Baptist) examples.
We crave community because it's how we learn, and it's where we're safe. We don't take rules spoon fed to us because we've been conditioned (at a frighteningly young age) to not trust all of them. So we consider any church tradition we might want to use with essentially two rules.
1. If there's no one to tell you about it, then try it out and dive into it and see if it works, it's ok if it doesn't. It's not the end of the world to try a tradition that has previously been thrown out. It IS the end of the world to simply accept what the previous generations say about it.
2. Keeping the church body full and healthy is ten times more important than any tradition, and anything in the way of that will be left behind.
See the inherent trust issues there? Yeah, millennials aren't awesome at trust, but we're awesome at seeking and probing, and once we give our loyalty to something we probably won't take it back.
And so, the previous four of five generations before us practiced a more "Inherited Church" than we are, and that's not bad.
But it's important to remember... We're not the first "Emerging Church" and we won't be the last.
This is a cycle, and we're playing our part of it.
The most "emerging" of all the "Emerging Churches" is in the book of Acts.
We are a "learn as you go" generation, because... well... no one really taught us. (Sorry Baby Boomers, this isn't really meant as harshly as it may sound)
And so the church we're beginning to enter into is becoming a "learn as we go" church. We grow together, as a community group, rather than a nuclear family, since so many of us lacked that. We try things and decide to keep them, then try other things and decide to cut them. We pry and ask and study and argue because we are more "Tabula Rasa" at age 30 then probably any generation before us.
But here, at the heart of this, emerges the one awesomely powerful advantage of the Millennials.
To us, the community is bigger, and more important, than the institution.
Millennials hate institutions. We've seen too many of them become corrupt and crumble and fade. This includes both secular (Wall Street, Bernie Madoff, American Baseball, Lance Armstrong) and spiritual (Catholic Priests, The 700 Club, Westboro Baptist) examples.
We crave community because it's how we learn, and it's where we're safe. We don't take rules spoon fed to us because we've been conditioned (at a frighteningly young age) to not trust all of them. So we consider any church tradition we might want to use with essentially two rules.
1. If there's no one to tell you about it, then try it out and dive into it and see if it works, it's ok if it doesn't. It's not the end of the world to try a tradition that has previously been thrown out. It IS the end of the world to simply accept what the previous generations say about it.
2. Keeping the church body full and healthy is ten times more important than any tradition, and anything in the way of that will be left behind.
See the inherent trust issues there? Yeah, millennials aren't awesome at trust, but we're awesome at seeking and probing, and once we give our loyalty to something we probably won't take it back.
And so, the previous four of five generations before us practiced a more "Inherited Church" than we are, and that's not bad.
But it's important to remember... We're not the first "Emerging Church" and we won't be the last.
This is a cycle, and we're playing our part of it.
The most "emerging" of all the "Emerging Churches" is in the book of Acts.
Actually there's several in Acts. A group of people who literally start with nothing, no Inherited Church to speak of, and end up figuring it out as they go.
If there's one passage of Jesus that Emerging Church folks love, it's probably John 17: 20-23, often called the Unity Prayer.
Jesus says "Just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
Where does the belief come from? The fact that all of Jesus' followers are united.
Too much "Inherited Church" over too many generations leads to what we have now, a thousand different churches all worshiping Jesus and all saying the others aren't doing it right.
The irony being that Jesus prayed for his followers to do the exact opposite.
If "Emerging Church" (whatever that means) gets us closer to John 17 it will likely do so with some bumps and bruises and injuries along the way.
But, bumps and bruises and injuries are part of the journey too.
Just look in Acts.
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