Is The Church Generationally Two Different Worlds

Are We “Worlds” Apart?

Linguistics is such an art!  When thinking of church leadership, I think of pastor, elders, deacons, church boards, etc.  Recently I met with a “twenty-teen” minded church leader who is a facilitator, director, planner, implementer, spark igniting, social networking overseer of a local church.  Well, I call it a church; he choses to refer to it as a gathering of people who tell their stories, build relationships within and outside current church norms and boundaries, and facilitate these relationships on a social networking level or in a deeper personal level.  As Kent Hunter refers to flat worlding (see earlier blogs about the 21^st Century Church), my friend and his “twenty-teen” generation, as I now call them, are not the least interested in church hierarchy.  In fact that turns them off.  They don’t look at church from a business model sense like my generation with budgets driven by tithing, but merely from a loose relationship angle.  Church offices and titles make no sense to them, relationships do.  Social networking keeps them on a sociably equal level with each other.  On Facebook, Myspace, and Tweet, there are no social levels, no societal hierarchal levels of importance.  You are on an equal platform of “esposure”, and “vuneralability”. 

He told me that although he still meets with a pastor’s group for prayer and fellowship periodically, he feels a detachment, almost an alienation to the old guard. He understands where they are coming from because of history, but they can not understand going the other direction, toward the future.  What will the Church look like in 2025?  The old guard would be content if the Church still had its present structure, for that is what they identify with in their generation to their culture, but there is now a different culture and a different generation.

For examples, the way we view the Great Commission is changing.  My generation sent out “missionaries” to foreign countries or supported grand Billy Graham Crusades.  “Twenty-teeners” are beginning to despise Billy Graham three point techniques as “archaic” and ineffective to their generation.  Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, are all spiritual giants to my generation tried to breed their children to follow them in ministry.  It is hard for them to realize, but their grandchildren are not responding well to their strategies.  It is a new culture, a new world.  Tent Evangelism of Oral Roberts, Billy Graham city wide Crusades, and  Pat Robertson’s view of Christian television, the advanced technology of his generation, is giving way to the internet, the world wide web, and social networking.  Their grandchildren would preferably only listen to a “podcast” of one of their sermons in the "archive" section if they were interested at all.

Evangelism has changed.  Billy Graham preached the world was going to hell in a handbag, and repenting and turning to Jesus was the answer.  Christians were not to be part of the world, but saved from it, thus the “Leave It Behind” series became popular to my generation, but is ineffective to “twenty-teeners”.  Their “missional” outlook is to “infiltrate” the world, not avoid it. 

“Life is how you live it”, is a common theme to both generations. My plain, almost Amish, conservative dressed background emphasized that “our lifestyle” proved to be our testimony, thus we were not verbal about our faith, for our outward appears defined our stand on righteousness.  Church dress, as defined in the 50’s through 90’s, has all but disappeared in the current seeker friendly church atmosphere.  The “twenty-teener” blends into his culture, preferring to listen to secular music to pick out spiritual principles that to church hymns and choruses, the reversal of my generation’s experience who went from pure secular music to contemporary Christian music. Both generations are trying to “live out their Christian faith” but in structures that are defined by their culture.  To the “twenty-teeners”, the dividing line between secular and church mindsets are getting muddied.  I am sure the “old guard” will combat this new movement with their own defined “righteousness” movement, judging and condemning this “new works of God” as being unholy, secular, and unrighteousness.  They’ve done that throughout Church history; why change now?

“Old School Church” is predictable because it has history; “New School Church” is unpredictable because it is looking ahead and has no history, only a walk of faith.  As my “twenty-teener” friend conveyed to me, “It is like Abram walking in faith into a land he is not familiar with.”  That’s the pioneering spirit; that is the spirit that moves the Church forward.  It challenges the Church from stagnation to flow again.  Quiet calm lakes are great for a quiet day of fishing if you can stay awake, but white water rafting on a fast pace stream creates a rush!  I felt this spiritual rush in the movement of God in the 1960-70’s, but eventually found myself in the stagnation of an established lake.  I empathize with the “twenty-teeners” because they are ready for their generational rush that will change their culture for Jesus Christ.

Jesus prayer as recorded in John 17 is to protect his Church who he is leaving behind in the world.  He knew the tuggings and temptations of the world, yet he knew that his mission was to come and die for this world!  He’s died; He’s risen; and by his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Church is moving forward.  Both generations are in the same world, but are looking at it generationally and culturally different. God, fulfill the calling of John 17 and bring unity to your body of Christ, the Church in this century to these two generations. May this “movement of god” bring unity among us! amen….

Education: The Winds Of Change Are Beginning To Blow

Reflections Back: Generational and Cultural Changes

Some people have told me that this past June was the perfect time to get out of education, for the winds of change are blowing on the American educational scene, and they are getting stronger each year.  Institutions like public education and the church are notorious for the lack of change, always changing after a cultural trend has occurred or when that trend becomes “acceptable” to the present culture in power.

Two years ago, our English Department met to order textbooks in our seven year maintenance and reordering of new materials cycle.  I was shocked when battle lines were drawn.  The old guard, including myself, warned that if you did not order a textbook for every child, they may not get one for the next seven years and you will be scrambling for material.  The new guard rebuffed the idea opting for new technologies to replace old books.

Our current American culture finds itself in a dilemma where technology is now moving so fast, institutions can not keep up with it.  Schools finally budget for desk top computers for their computer labs only to discover that mobile laptops have already replaced them, oops, I am sorry, smart phones have replaced them.  As my district finally order laptops for their staff, kids were already tweeting, Facebooking, Googling, blogging, and texting on the bus ramps.  Even students on the Federal Lunch Program somehow owned smart phones while their parent’s didn’t.  On a field trip, the bus was absolutely quiet, which makes a teacher nervous wondering what everyone was up to! They were all talking, electronically, texting one another as well as their parents at home informing them of out Estimated Time of Arrival!  Schools can not keep up with the hardware being offered in technology and does not have the software to fit into its institutional thinkings.

As I sit here, the Space Shuttle is performing its last mission!  We are known as the “space age” country, and even have a space station in outer space that we can not get to unless we send our astronauts in soviet Russian rockets.  The criticism is that the Apollo Missions were immediately replaced with the Gemini Moon Missions that were immediately replaced by the Space Shuttle Missions, but with the Shuttle’s retirement to “assisted living” in selected museums, there is nothing to date in front of the public for them to visible see that will replace the shuttle! The technology of space exploration has gone so fast with satellite trips to every imaginable planet in our galaxy, we have not been able to keep up with the hardware to get man there.  My generation saw a man physically get on the moon but then abandon that idea for over a decade.  Now my generation demands to see a man physically make it to Mars, but my children’s generation doesn’t. They are satisfied with all the “data” received in their “data” driven minds in a “data” driven world wide web culture that is being supplied by our satellites. They want more "data" before sending men there, thus the pause, the wait before another visible launch! That is an example of the different mindsets between the two generations.

I have found that “data”, “research”, “access” to information, world wide social contacts have trumped what I thought was reason, experience, and face to face socializing.  I’ve lost contact with all of my high school and college alumni except for a handful who I personally “see” “over the years”, while my children stay in contact “socially” to theirs through social networking, “seeing” them by Skyping them if needed.  I think Skype is a technology for my generation because we still want to physically “see” who we are talking to.  The younger generation doesn’t have to see who they are texting, the message is more important.  They don’t have to actually see the person on Facebook, but they do like to share pictures with one another or maybe even videos, but actual “face to face” communication is not a requisite for “Face”book.

In the public school setting I felt my expertise through 40 years of teaching was minimized if not looked down upon by administration and younger staff members.  I said, “If it is not broken, don’t fix it.  We worked years to “tweak” (now an archaic term) what we had been doing.”  Now I get “research says,” or “data shows” as rebuffs to my expertise, my personal experiences and my logical reasoning.  There is definitely a chasm between the mindsets of older and younger generations, and the width is growing.

Like my culture, looking for a tangible, optical object to replace the space shuttle, so my generation is looking for a tangible, optical object to replace the textbook, not some ambient world wide network with its “clouds” replacing floppy discs and thumb drives.  We can’t even see where this information and our valuable pictures are being stored. We are losing control of our “tangible”, visual world.  The younger generation hungers for social contact that my generation thinks is shallow, hungers for data which my generation thinks is trivial, hungers for relationships that are global rather than small local communities and school districts that my generation valued. The small town mentality of my grandparents is now ancient history.

Different mindsets created by different experiences have changed culture.  Often drastic cultural change brings generational divisions.  This can be avoided if both generational cultures try to begin to understand each other.  They have so much in common.  The young pups forget their DNA is the same as the old dogs and vice versus; both are made from the same fabric. We will have to continue to look at this generational phenomena that American culture is facing.

Church: The Winds Of Change Are Beginning To Blow

Shadows of the Past: Generational and Cultural Changes

I remember Bob Dylan’s song The Times They Are A-Changing that Peter, Paul & Mary made famous during the infamous protest era of the late ‘60’s & early ‘70’s’:

             Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

             And don’t criticize what you can’t understand

             Yours sons and your daughters are beyond your command

             Your old road is rapidly agin’

                                                                                                  Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand

                                                                                                   For the times they are a-changin’

As a 26 year old, I thought those lyrics prophetic as the madness of the civil rights movement, women’s liberation movement, anti-Viet Nam War movement, the drug revolution, the free love philosophy, and the rebellion against “the establishment” philosophy swept the nation. “Leave It To Beaver” was replaced by “Woodstock”.  Flat top haircuts were replaced by Beetle “bangs” with sideburns or long haired hippies.  To those in their teens or twenties Dylan’s lyrics seemed to make sense, warning the past generation of a new mindsets in American culture, life style, and attitudes were in order. Truly, the times were a changing.

Ironically as my age number have been flipped, 62 years old, I find myself at the other end of the spectrum of these lyrics as those in their teens and twenties are ready to sing the song back to me, warning me of changing times.  In my life time I have seen the Berlin Wall fall closing the cold war, Tell Star, the first satellite, cross the sky to man walking on the moon, the birth and the death of the space shuttle, the invention and implementation of the internet, the world wide web, the birth of actual 4 in. floppy disks and their death only to be replaced by “the cloud”, going from using telephone booths dropping quarters for time and “land lines” to paying dearly for wireless smart phones that now control our lives, from teenage girls writing notes to their friends while giggling to teenage girls giggling while texting, from sending love letters through what is now referred to as “snail mail” only to be replaced by email, instant messaging, MySpacing, Facebooking, Tweeting, and social media, from seeing a "live" satellite transmission picture of a water fountain in Paris to being able to Skype anyone anywhere in the world, from listening to “tapes” on 8 track cartridges and later cassettes to DVD’s to online with Itunes on Ipods, from renting a movie on tape at Blockbuster to getting a movie from a redbox for a buck in what use to look like a soda machine, and from writing in actual cursive writing in a journal in ink, to typing in different fonts with pictures in a blog like this!

My grandparents rode to a local church a couple blocks away in a horse and buggy, a model T-Ford, or a VW bug because it was close.  My generation all owned cars and passed each other while driving to different churches all over the country.  My children’s generation is “bored” with church as I grew up with it, seeking high tech, high powered, multi-screened, high production services in megachurches or just “surfing” the internet to make new “connections” rather than physically making them in a church building.  I went to church twice on Sundays, to choir practice on Tuesdays, mid-week service on Wednesday, and youth group on Thursdays, as well as attend V.B.S., daily Vacation Bible School, as a kid and attend church camp for a week as a teen during the summer.  My children’s generation may go once a week, if at all.  Church life defined my social life as a teen, but social networking defines the social life of my children.  The Church is only one small part of their social life, if it is at all, while it was all consuming to me.

So with all these changes, and only in the brief span of ½ century, no wonder Dylan’s lyrics are being thrown back at me.  I remember what we called a “generation” gap with our parents….. oops it has returned as roles have “changed”, and I am now the parent and the lines…..

                  “Your old road is rapidly agin’

                  Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand

                  For the times they are a-changin’

….. hits home.  In my next series of blogs, I hope to look at this dilemma that I am now forced to face.  How has American culture changed?  How is American Church culture changing?  I hear my parents and grandparents singing in my one ear, “Give me that old time religion; it’s good enough for me. It was good for the Hebrew children; it was for my mother; it was good for my father; and its good enough for me,” and Dylan singing in my other ear, “Your old road is rapidly agin. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand.’”

I remember in the ‘70’s crying out to the Church to “lend me a hand” when the Charismatic Movement swept the country, but they rejected my cry while choosing instead to oppose what was happening to me and the Charismatic Movement until the fruit of that movement was “acceptable” decades later.  Now in the "two thousand and teens" decade, Dylan’s lyrics resounds as I, and the Church that I helped develop to my generation in our culture is about to be asked “to lend a hand” or “get out of the new one”.  How are we to respond?  How will we respond? Ooops, how are we responding already? That is the topic of future blogs!