Scott Anderson of the Wisconsin conference of Churches posted an interesting piece from the USA Today, suggesting that 72% of “millennials” –the generation come of age after 2001—are “spiritual but not religious.” Some of the key findings: 65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either. 65% rarely or never attend worship services. 67% don't read the Bible or sacred texts. The expert quoted in the text warns “If the trends continue, "the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships.” I give a little bit of a shrug, as it seems to me nothing new that the years from 18-25 are a time in which people distance themselves from the religious traditions in which they were raised. “Relevance” is a word that can wreck havoc in worlds of tradition, but as I read along in the article I found myself nodding, as well. There is something different about the times we are in, and in no small part I suspect it is because of our own failure to ground our children in a true spirituality before sending them off to discover their own. Generations may have felt a little constrained by the “thee’s” and “thou’s” of their parent’s spirituality, but I’m not sure we would find the level of indifference to core practices like prayer and some form of encounter with sacred texts. It’s one thing to leave behind King James for Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, it is quite another to wonder if this story, and the traditions that support it, have anything of value to say to me.
Then I flipped open the most recent Unte Reader (http://www.utne.com/daily.aspx), and the back page reflection by Eric Utne on his experience at a “MoveOn.org” experimental training camp. Utne found that it was as the core stories of their lives we shared that the conversation came alive and a real sense of community was engaged. His suggestion to the folks at MoveOn was that they try to think less in terms of organization around key issues, and more about developing community—“Organizing based not on hot-button issues, but on building relationships through deep personal sharing and active listening.”
Two thoughts came almost simultaneously to mind. The first is that this seems to be exactly the trap those endangered mainliners are in: organizing around hot-button issues! I heard Kendra Dean speak at the Presbyterian Covenant Network meeting last October, and one of the things that stuck with me was her assertion that it’s not that the mainline has lost or is losing the battle for the American soul, but precisely that we won. The result is what she calls a “passionless” Christianity that seems to be stuck in the search for that next big issue that will bring us all together.
One of the things I am increasingly committed to as I try to live into whatever is next in my life is the deep sense that the church needs to reclaim exactly what Utne was longing for at MoveOn.org: true community grounded in meaningful, thoughtful, caring relationships, and not focus groups that bring people together into “lifestyle enclaves” of like-minded folk who are looking for allies in the battles of life. But the simultaneous thought is that Utne really would not have to create a whole new grassroots organization to accomplish this if there were a church on the corner open to the gambit. What would happen to the churches that are at risk of terminal irrelevance if they swung wide their doors to hear the stories of this generation coming of age in this post-modern, post-9/11, internet, social-networking, frenetic, lonely world of the 21st century with arms open wide to welcome, to hear, to heal, to celebrate, and to tie it all back to that wonderful, wondrous, mysterious source of our faith, the love of God, shown in Jesus, witnessed in scripture, and lived around a Table?
The problem, of course, is that such a deep sense of community does not come cheap. It’s not a place you can drop in on when you feel like it, but one that demands something of you. It requires an honesty that is hard to muster in a world that judges by appearances and throws out fruits and vegetables if they are not picture perfect. Community means, by definition, you will meet people you disagree with, and not a few you’re not even sure you like. It will be messy, and it will be hard, and it may demand sacrifice of things you once thought essential…like being right. It would mean counting success in churches, not by the number of programs on the calendar, or the number of bottoms on pews on a Sunday morning, but by the depth and content of the relationships lived out in and through its walls, and not by the finely demarcated boundaries the faith is able to maintain, but by the web of redemption it is able to weave together precisely at the weakest points of the souls there gathered.
I just find myself, like Eric Utne, wanting more from this church that means so much to me. My bet is that if we got serious about that “more” we would tap something that feeds the next generation of believers, too, and leaves them hungering for prayer, for worship, and for their place in the continuing story of Scripture.
Then I flipped open the most recent Unte Reader (http://www.utne.com/daily.aspx), and the back page reflection by Eric Utne on his experience at a “MoveOn.org” experimental training camp. Utne found that it was as the core stories of their lives we shared that the conversation came alive and a real sense of community was engaged. His suggestion to the folks at MoveOn was that they try to think less in terms of organization around key issues, and more about developing community—“Organizing based not on hot-button issues, but on building relationships through deep personal sharing and active listening.”
Two thoughts came almost simultaneously to mind. The first is that this seems to be exactly the trap those endangered mainliners are in: organizing around hot-button issues! I heard Kendra Dean speak at the Presbyterian Covenant Network meeting last October, and one of the things that stuck with me was her assertion that it’s not that the mainline has lost or is losing the battle for the American soul, but precisely that we won. The result is what she calls a “passionless” Christianity that seems to be stuck in the search for that next big issue that will bring us all together.
One of the things I am increasingly committed to as I try to live into whatever is next in my life is the deep sense that the church needs to reclaim exactly what Utne was longing for at MoveOn.org: true community grounded in meaningful, thoughtful, caring relationships, and not focus groups that bring people together into “lifestyle enclaves” of like-minded folk who are looking for allies in the battles of life. But the simultaneous thought is that Utne really would not have to create a whole new grassroots organization to accomplish this if there were a church on the corner open to the gambit. What would happen to the churches that are at risk of terminal irrelevance if they swung wide their doors to hear the stories of this generation coming of age in this post-modern, post-9/11, internet, social-networking, frenetic, lonely world of the 21st century with arms open wide to welcome, to hear, to heal, to celebrate, and to tie it all back to that wonderful, wondrous, mysterious source of our faith, the love of God, shown in Jesus, witnessed in scripture, and lived around a Table?
The problem, of course, is that such a deep sense of community does not come cheap. It’s not a place you can drop in on when you feel like it, but one that demands something of you. It requires an honesty that is hard to muster in a world that judges by appearances and throws out fruits and vegetables if they are not picture perfect. Community means, by definition, you will meet people you disagree with, and not a few you’re not even sure you like. It will be messy, and it will be hard, and it may demand sacrifice of things you once thought essential…like being right. It would mean counting success in churches, not by the number of programs on the calendar, or the number of bottoms on pews on a Sunday morning, but by the depth and content of the relationships lived out in and through its walls, and not by the finely demarcated boundaries the faith is able to maintain, but by the web of redemption it is able to weave together precisely at the weakest points of the souls there gathered.
I just find myself, like Eric Utne, wanting more from this church that means so much to me. My bet is that if we got serious about that “more” we would tap something that feeds the next generation of believers, too, and leaves them hungering for prayer, for worship, and for their place in the continuing story of Scripture.
