Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us."- Jerry Garcia link
Star Trek- A Baby Boomer Favorite.
We have been receiving an incredible amount of information on the ARC, Robert Morris and Chris Hodges along with associated friends and relationships. It has been eye opening. It appears the Deebs have fallen down on the job and failed to fully recognize this growing and influential group of churches. The issues include lots and lots of money, rich lifestyles, authoritarian control, a seeming lack of congregational accountability, along with a fascination with dominionism and demonology. There are also some surprising friends of the ARC. Due the complexity of the issues involved, we have decided to wait until next week to focus on these issues so that we can check sources, find links, and carefully explore this strange new world.
When we started this blog, we had already done an enormous amount of reading on Sovereign Grace Ministries and other such groups. So we sort of knew what we were talking about when we started. Therefore, we want to be careful as we wade through the interesting religious views of this group. When we write, we want to be sure we are offering information that you can hang your hat on, complete with sources and links. So, hang in there, especially all those former ARC folks who have been so helpful in sending us information. We are going to take our time on this subject and plan a fair number of posts. Tune in next week as we wade into the morass.
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In the meantime, I have been wanting to discuss the subject of this post for a couple of years and I keep putting it off. Recently, Her.Menuetics, at Christianity Today, published The Midlife Church Crisis written by Michelle Van Loon. Van Loon describes her experience while attending a newcomers luncheon at a church along with her husband. During this luncheon, the church staff seemed to zero in on the young families with children while this midlife couple, sans children, were pushed to the periphery. She says she felt like she had become
an anachronistic punch line.
The apparent dumbed down role for baby boomers.
When the bulletin is filled with announcements for mothers of preschoolers’ gatherings, family camping weekends, and Vacation Bible School, I know I’m welcome to lend a hand by baking muffins or doing crafts. I’ve gotten the message that, now that my own children have grown, my role is to support the real focus of the church: families.
She places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Baby Boomers.
Decades ago, baby boomers and older Gen Xers pushed to create churches centered on the young, nuclear family. Sadly, this ministry model now excludes many of us
And this is a big, big mistake on the part of the church. Did I say a BIG mistake?
Church attendance by baby boomers is declining.
The Barna Group released the results of a study in a post Barna Describes Religious Changes Among Busters, Boomers, and Elders Since 1991. The findings should open the eyes of many churches. Here is what they have to say about the Baby Boomers.
No generation has been as widely chronicled as the Boomers, the post-war group born from 1946 through 1964. At every stage of their existence, this generation has redefined America’s ways of life – including its faith and spirituality. Four of their six religious behaviors and two of their eight religious beliefs tracked in this study have undergone statistically significant change since 1991.
The four religious behaviors that shifted included the following.
- Church attendance plummeted by 12 percentage points, dipping to 38% in 2011.
- Sunday school attendance by Boomers fell by nine points, from 23% in 1991 to just 14% in 2011.
- Volunteering at churches was less likely among Boomers in 2011 than was the case twenty years ago, declining from 28% in 1991 to 18% in 2011.
- While the Boomers have never been the generation most likely to attend church, during the past 20 years the percentage of unchurched Boomers has risen dramatically, jumping up 18 points! At 41%, they are now the generation most likely to be unchurched, surpassing the 39% level among Busters.
The pair of religious beliefs that have yielded substantial change in the last two decades are declines in those who hold an orthodox view of God (down six points, to 67%); and a reduction in those who are strongly convinced that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches (down seven points, to just 38%).
In other words, Baby Boomers are increasingly opting out of church.
Quick history on the youth culture in today's churches
This is Dee's perspective on the history of which she was a part. The 1960s and 1970s saw the birth of the Jesus movement amongst the young people. Here is a half decent synopsis from Wikipedia.
The Jesus movement was a movement in Christianity beginning on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and spreading primarily through North America and Europe, before dying out by the early 1980s. It was the major Christian element within the hippie counterculture, or, conversely, the major hippie element within some strands of Protestantism. Members of the movement were called Jesus people, or Jesus freaks.
The Jesus movement left a legacy of various denominations and other Christian organizations, and had an impact on both the development of the contemporary Christian right and the Christian left. Jesus music, which grew out of the movement, greatly influenced contemporary Christian music,
During that time period, churches became focused on drawing in the large numbers of young people who were finding faith within this movement. The "let's make room for the youth" became a rallying cry of forward thinking churches. The mantra of focusing on the youth for the health of the church was born during this era and continues to this very day. Here is where it gets interesting.
Take a look at this census chart produced by the CDC and reproduced on Wikipedia. See what happens with the birth rate in the US. The Baby Boomers consist of those born through 1964. Now watch the sharp decline in births thereafter.
Churches were smart to focus on the youth of the Jesus movement. They were the Baby Boomers. Church growth became predicated on attracting the large youth population and churches have continued to be youth focused. In so doing, it appears that they have marginalized the aging Baby Boomers who are beginning to drop out of churches.
Churches lose much more than bodies when Baby Boomers drop out. As they age and their children leave home, they have both time to volunteer as well as disposable income. The youth of today have poorer job prospects than the Baby Boomers and are predicted to have less disposable income than their Baby Boomer parents.This is the first generation that is thought to be downwardly mobile. Need I spell this out for churches.This means less disposable income.
Take a look at this article to confirm my thoughts. Boomers to Control 70% Of US Disposable Income. Here are their observations.
- The Boomer generation represents more than 80 million US consumers.
- The 50+ segment consists of close to 100 million consumers.
- Between now and 2030, the 18-49 segment is expected to grow by 12%, while the 50+ segment will expand by 34%.
- By 2050, there will be 161 million 50+ consumers, representing 63% growth over 2010.
In the meantime, banks are foreclosing on churches at increasing rates link and link. From the Christianity Today article
Hundreds of congregations have filed for bankruptcy or defaulted on loans. University of Illinois law professor Pamela Foohey, who tracks church bankruptcies, says more than 500 congregations filed Chapter 11 between 2006 and 2011—and the pace hasn't slowed since. About 90 congregations filed for bankruptcy in 2012, even as the overall rate of bankruptcy filings declined 13.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the church bond market, once a refuge for cautious investors, is now a black hole, says Rusty Leonard, CEO of Stewardship Partners, a Christian investment management firm.
Before the 2008 economic crash, church bonds had strong investment appeal due to a decades-long safety record. Now, "the market has disappeared," said Leonard. "The options for a new church trying to build a building are significantly reduced. We'll see fewer buildings."
Let's go back to Michelle Van Loon's post for some further insight on church and the mid life crisis.
a little less than half said they’d scaled back their involvement from what it had been a decade ago. Those who had downshifted or left cited weariness with church politics, increased career demands, significant time devoted to caring for parents or grandchildren, health issues, and a sense that they’d somehow outgrown their church. “I’m tired of the same programs year after year,” one said. “I want deeper relationships with fewer people, more spiritual exercises like prayer and meditation than the canned studies offered.”
Van Loon points to some anecdotal evidence that multigenerational planning as opposed to young family focus can help.
Anecdotally speaking, it seemed that those over age 40 who discovered meaningful service, worship, and connections reported that their church was committed to intergenerational ministry rather than family-centered, child-focused programming.
She makes an important observation about the youth focus of many churches.
When we church leaders ape our culture’s obsession with all things young and cool—targeting the same desirable demographic groups as do savvy advertisers—we communicate to those who don’t fit those specs that they are less desirable.
I believe the church is making a serious mistake in blindly following the youth strategies born of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The demographics have changed and the church risks losing the very people who have experience, wisdom, time, and money to contribute to the church of the future. I find it concerning when many of today's churches have *elders* who are in their 20s and early 30s. The true elders, those with the wisdom, born of experience and years of prayer and devotion, are leaving the church, leaving behind an immature church. Caveat Emptor.
Lydia's Corner: Genesis 13:5-15:21 Matthew 5:27-48 Psalm 6:1-10 Proverbs 1:29-33
we live in an area just the opposite…have 2 young children…but it is a retirement community and to date, 3 years counting, not one single evangelical church has been responsive to my family….the people are highly un-friendly and not sociable to outsiders….and did I say the welcome mat is not outward because these people do not want new church members….
Second!
If we understand Native Americans and their language better. Elder is truly an older man. It is not something to build a church in a building……it is something to build on a group of people……
I read that article in CT and found it rather whining. I must admit that I am tired of all the Baby Boomer talk, since I’ve heard it for all of my life- y’all are not a humble generation, that’s for sure.
The Baby Boomers have dominated the church scene for 40+ years and now they whine that churches haven’t turned into senior centers and kept them as priority number 1. Must it always be about the Baby Boomers? Must we wait until all of you have passed away before we can get back to a healthier church that welcomes all ages and isn’t centered on just one group?
Sigh. OK, end of my rant.
It is an incredibly fine line for a church to ride in order to meet the needs of every single age group and/or life-station group. If a church has a large number of families with young children attending, I would expect them to direct a proportional amount of energy to programs for that group. The church I was baptized at was mostly senior citizens, so very little youth group activities. My husband and I live in a region where child-free couples are the opposite of the norm – and we have an age gap. I don’t expect the first church I walk into to find the perfect small group (whether it is a Bible study or Sunday School class) for us to join. My requests of a church are simple: financial transparency, easy access for the disabled, a pastor who actually knows and cares about the needs of the people in the pews and a pastor who actually preaches from the Bible and not from the books of John Piper, CJ Mahaney or any other big name pastor whose name isn’t Jesus Christ.
Mandy wrote:
Me, too. That said, I’m also looking for mutual accountability for those who inhabit pulpit and pew.
*shrug* Married Baby Boomers, welcome to the world of the never-married Baby Boomer in church. You too get to be ignored like those of us who failed in the prime directive to marry and reproduce.
Thanks for highlighting my CT piece, Dee. For those interested in more on this subject, here are some links to additional writing I’ve done on midlifers and the church: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip/category/midlife-survey-1/ and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip/category/midlife-survey-2/.
EricL wrote:
I'm a baby boomer, and I cringed when I read your remark about senior centers. I still feel young, but I am starting to qualify for some store discounts. 😉
The Methodist church I attend has a large group of Boomers and older senior citizens. On All Saints Day, the list of members who had died in the last year was about a dozen. I don’t know the number of members, but average attendance is about 600.
EricL wrote:
Depends on how you define “healthier.” For me, a healthy church is one that’s built on solid, tried and true faith, maturity and wisdom that normally only comes as the result of enduring and coming through tough life experiences victoriously. Those characteristics define imo the elders mentioned in scripture. They are valuable members of any church.
As a baby boomer considering becoming a “none”, I would recommend the book “Finding Church” by Wayne Jacobsen. It makes a lot of sense especially after reading about the institutional church on blogs like this one. It is a very positive book describing the church Jesus is building. Wayne’s website Lifestream is a great resource as well.
I can’t find the data, so I’m wondering what is the chicken and what is the egg. Is Boomer participation declining at a rate greater than other cohorts at the same life-stage did? Is it declining faster than other cohorts during the study period?
There are lots of confounding variables that might lead us to incorrect conclusions. The Baby Boom generation has lived through an era of unprecedented prosperity accompanied by technological and various social changes that I would argue are also unprecedented.
ISTM if you live by market segmentation, you die by market segmentation. If you live by market clout, you die by market clout. I don’t think Boomers should be catered to, but they have the money, so it’s hard to ignore them, too. But I don’t think the church should be about dividing people up into consumers with different tastes and preferences. That’s not what it’s about.
I agree with Mirele, and I am distressed by the marginalization of single Christians in the church, probably because I’ve been involved with them. I’ve heard from so many that they feel like wallets and volunteer hours, and that they perceive that others think they are personal failures. WRT to age, somehow we need to capture the energy and enthusiasm of youth and combine that with the wisdom and lessons-learned that older folks have just because they’ve been farther down the road. But I have no idea how to do that.
EricL wrote:
Did someone say it should be all about the baby boomers? That would be a bit of a bore. I never had a stranger wish I was dead and gone though 🙁
Gram3 wrote:
While I don’t have a specific plan to do this I have long noted this problem in church planting circles. I have a theory that what we are seeing is multiple genetic problems with church, in that they focus entirely on a very narrow, specific strain of demographic traits much like people who breed show dogs. They have a particular standard that represents the breed and they continue to inbreed while attempting to achieve the perfect DNA makeup that will meet all of the breed standards. Now while this method does make a great show dog and some of these animals make good pets, the process also results in multiple genetic deficiencies in the animals produced. What would have been a non-dominate, recessive trait becomes the dominant trait.his yields many animals that not only do not meet the standard for the breed but also animals that do not even make good pets.
Back to church planting or churches in general. When any church focuses on a specific age, gender or racial demographic, very quickly the non-dominant recessive traits take over. In the case of the young you have lots of energy and even some commitment but no assets and very little wisdom. If you focus on all baby-boomers, you get lots of assets but the holders of those assets are going to expect transparency. Most baby boomers have seen a few circus’ so we will not be impressed by the clowns since we have already seen our share. In ethnic church planting when you focus solely on a specific ethnic group first off you are limited to the flow of immigrants from that group, immigration stops church stops growing. Also very quickly these churches become more about preserving the home culture of the immigrant population rather than passing on the faith given down by the Saints.
There is a reason that on Pentecost the Gospel was heard by every group and that many were added to THE CHURCH. The body only functions when all the parts are present and allowed to function. When you start out with an idea that you only want specific parts of the body, you should not be surprised that what you end up with is some grotesque caricature rater than the true body of Christ.
If I ever do a PhD this would be something I would like to expand on. The DNA of churches and the genetic deficiencies that ensue.
EricL wrote:
Did you actually read the post? It is always advisable to read to the end before you start your rant. The solution is to move to a more intergenerational church as opposed to a youth oriented church. So, your rant, besides being insensitive and condescending, is inaccurate.
@ Michelle Van Loon:
Thank you for your great article. I will read the others. It finally gave me the push I needed to discuss some stats that I found interesting. I think churches need to think more about a well rounded church worship experience than they do about the latest fog machines!
EricL wrote:
So, what kind of a generation are you?
@ Elvera:
Thank you for those resources.
I have no expectations from church if I ever go back. I would request the people there would rather hate me then give me ignore or if I ask a question or two that I am not a child of satan looking to rip the beating hearts of the children out. IN a metaphorical sort of way. I dont expect people to be nice to me, say hello, look in my direction, shake my hand, talk to me, allow me to breath the same air molecules they breath or other such unreasonable expectations. I prefer the cold shoulder to the faux we love you and care for your soul, by the way wants your name again?
In reverse I always agree, say hello, smile, show concern, hold doors open, volunteer and other such pagan type behavior. This is a bit exaggerated to make a point. What I would like from church, a family, that is far far too unreasonable but it is something I would like.
Deb wrote:
I know the feeling. I had another birthday last week. Two days later I visited the barber shop for a haircut and received the senior discount without asking.
@ EricL:
I truly believe that churches should serve *everyone*, and that services should not focus on one generation to the exclusion of all others. I think every generation should have age-appropriate teaching.
Having said that, I have four children, and I serve on the worship team, and I work, and I rarely have a spare minute. If someone with no kids and plenty of disposable income wants the church to have more ministries focused on them, then START ONE.
I was told to do that as a youth, when there was nothing at my parents’ church for youth. I became the youth director, and grew the youth group to 30 kids in a church of 100. Even though I was only 18, the class had “kids” from 11 to 21.
I completely understand that people want to be “fed” at church–but right now, my whole life is feeding other people, every day. I serve my kids every day or they don’t eat/bathe/grow/learn. I’m sorry, I have no time or energy to feed anyone else in any other ministry.
Gram3 wrote:
Good point.
My church places a high value on young families with children but also has active young adults and seniors ministries. The church also has a strong marriage ministry. However, singles in the 35-65 age bracket are pretty much on their own.
I go to a church like this. Everyone over 40 is relegated to the background. It’s sad because it didn’t use to be like this. When the church was young people of all ages had relationships with each other; there wasn’t an invisible, polite segregation like there is today. Most of the ministries are directed at young couples, and pretty much all of the life illustrations in sermons only pertain to people with children under 13 and up and coming careers.
I completely agree about the spirit of youth worship in the church. I also see the glorification of marriage and children, in response to separated, non-family oriented bent of life today. This bothers me. I thought Jesus came for the lost, lonely and weary, not the comfortable, loved and rich?
@ Mitch:
That’s an interesting way of thinking about it. Particular traits were selected because they were useful in a particular situation, but then pursuit of that ideal trait became the end rather than a means to a greater end. Certainly the church neighborhood I formerly occupied before I was evicted is pursuing what they say is the ideal, and achieving that ideal obscures everything else. It never occurs to these particular folks that line-breeding their theology, as they are doing at SBTS and 9Marks and SGM and Mars Hill. for example, can produce rather grotesque and non-functional churches after a couple of generations.
I have a feeling that after this Gopelicious Binge is over, a sobering-up period and some detox will be necessary before the young folks can assess what has happened and why.
EricL wrote:
Every generation thinks that their generation is the one the world has been waiting for. Every person in the world is self-centered. That’s why generations are self-centered. The difference is that the Boomers had the luxury to express their self-centeredness. Honestly, can you say that the Gen X,GenY, and Millennials are less self-centered? I just found out what a selfie-stick is. Think about what that might indicate for just a moment. Self-centeredness is a crime of opportunity because motive is always present.
Sooner than you imagine is possible, you will be part of the generation that impatient younger ones will want to replace because they understand the world so much better than you do and your ideas are so stale and yesterday. That is how people are, and none of us are exceptions to that.
Sigh. End of lecture.
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You know the church music is too darn loud, when they start passing the offering plate outside in the parking lot.
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@ EricL:
I can’t agree more, as the child of the baby boomer generation – they had THE BEST OF EVERYTHING. And they never stop whining……sorry, it’s a sore spot for me. If they don’t like the focus of the church, they have the time, energy and resources to make it what they want. Don’t like the small groups offered, make one yourself!! You don’t have little kids running around, many of you have houses, cars, many are even retired now. Make church what you want it, and stop expecting everything to be handed out. There, end of rant. ;). I know, it’s pretty harsh, and I get the point of the article. I guess I feel like the church has to change anyways, this generation will have far less, and we don’t much want to huck all our spare dollars to prop up a crumbling building when we can’t even afford a home of our own. I think the church needs to get away from the money suck that is real estate, and this could be one way to force that change.
EricL wrote:
dee wrote: The solution is to move to a more intergenerational church as opposed to a youth oriented church. So, your rant, besides being insensitive and condescending, is inaccurate.
Sorry to say, Eric’s rant isn’t inaccurate. In my 20+ years of church experience, it has precisely been the Boomers who have been the drivers of keeping things from going inter-generational – especially in the older mainline congregations.
I agree with those who said the church doesn’t know what to do with singles over age 35. Even the churches who say they have ministries to them don’t do them very well. Honestly the best singles ministry I was a part of was one at a megachurch which was run by the singles themselves. Then they hired a pastor to run it and it became all about glitz.
I was in one church and tried to get involved in a bible study but the couples didn’t know how to treat me. I’m thinking it’s not really that hard. I can talk, I have interests, have family like you (just not my own). Needless to say I left there. And I haven’t been involved in singles groups for many years. I prefer to interact with lots of different people, although I do have single friends to hang out with.
Interesting because multigenerational/intergenerational ministry is supposedly what groups like the NCFIC want. Except in practice (at least in those groups), somehow it ends up turning into yet more focus on families with kids of school age.
You know what else is an uncomfortable demographic to be in? Youth who prefer traditional music over CCM. You screw up everyone’s narrative, threaten their model and tell them things they don’t want to hear (like questioning whether a Christian moshpit has anything to do with the Holy Spirit). You will be rendered invisible and ostracized faster than you can say “Bach.” (Make sure never to ask for meaty intellectual Bible study in youth group either; that will get you in trouble too.) And when you’re also an introvert and don’t enjoy hyper-gregarious youth group culture, they forget about you. So it’s not just a focus on youth, it’s a focus on youth with particular tastes and (often) particular personalities (extroverted). (Though I will say that that last part may not be totally fair because let’s face it, American culture in general is heavily biased toward extroversion, so that issue isn’t specific to the church.) What’s perhaps more interesting is that the biggest drivers of youth programs, in my experience, are not 20- and 30-somethings, but 40-somethings who seem to see it as a way to hang onto their youth and remain “hip” and “cool.”
So I guess I’ve been on both ends of this. Youth and youth program people don’t like me, but I’ve also been denied church work by Boomers (particularly 60-somethings) due to their stereotypes of 20-somethings and ideas about work. Out of one side of their mouth they would say (paraphrasing) that 20-somethings are all lazy dips***s who would rather play video games than get a job. Then when I asked for a consistent job as a church organist – note, this is my only job, not an additional one, and I live with my parents because I can’t afford basic necessities with just my income yet – they told me that it’s not good to be a workaholic and I deserve a Sunday off once in a while. *facepalm* As if I would be pursuing a job as a church organist if I wanted Sundays off.
So nope, no one generation has the corner on bad behavior and ostracism.
singleman wrote:
And for the view from the other side of the fence:
Well, why should single people in that age bracket, and anybody else in that age bracket, not be able to function on their own? I can see how a church would have to establish age specific ministries for little children and for shut-ins, for the deaf and disabled, those unable to do for themselves. But why should anybody even want to be placed in a category of “can’t do for themselves?” Start the “ministry” you need if it is not there.
My own life experiences, secular and religious, are more like that of xianjaneway. When a pastor left and our teen group was about to go under, the deacons asked me to try to work with it, and I was a teen myself. When I was working and raising a family and operating a small business all at the same time, and trying to maintain stability and sanity through all that, I really had little or no sympathy for my age mates of my generation who thought that the world or the church should do better by them, when they were not willing to hitch themselves to the plow and just get it done. Sure, in some religious traditions that may not be possible, but picking up and moving on has always been an option at least during my life time, and if people are not willing to assume the responsibility of that, then it is going to have to be their problem.
Does this sound too harsh? I would submit that those who do not hold up their end of the see saw make it harder for the rest of us, and then to come along and complain because the rest of us do not do more for them? Nope. That is not all right. And to say that they put in their time in years past but have now earned the right to quit? I don’t see that in life or scripture. So somebody wants part of the money I give to the church to go toward hiring somebody to do for people who could but do not do for themselves? Seriously?
And BTW, the age from 50-60 (from the referenced article) is not mid-life, not unless people are counting on living to 100-120. Been there and done that. It is hard, really hard, but at some point adjustments have to be made and reality has to be faced. Somebody has money and their kids are grown? Great, now they can throw themselves into a life of service to the rest of humanity, before it is too late. Surprisingly, it can be a rich and rewarding stage of life. There are lots of ways to do that outside the church. Habitat will let you help and you can learn some new skills and meet some new people in the process. Go learn to be a master gardener. Start a stitches ministry. Organize a book club. Mentor/tutor a disadvantaged child through one of the agencies that do that. Go out in the public park with one of the exercise groups through the local recreation department, and while you are there try some friendship evangelization. Go give blood or plasma, that does not require much in the way of time or commitment. The list goes on and on. But don’t just sit there on the pew and complain. Where does the bible say to sequester one’s self within the walls of some church anyhow? Life is never good as long as it is primarily focused on the self. The self is never satisfied.
brian wrote:
Well said.
Corbin Martinez wrote:
Let me add a provocative statement. The Epistles never mention age specific focus in the church. And, to your point, talk about reaching the lost and let down.
Sopwith wrote:
🙂
@ Corbin Martinez:
Pretty much the same as our former church….which has two couples over forty left. The rest of the congregation is below thirty five.
I hate age focused churches. ( young or old ) At 64 I am not a relic and do not appreciate being treated as such. That said , I stay active with older women who do their good works outside of the Church building.
Looked seriously at buying a church that came up for sale about 2 years ago. The previous congregation had built a new church over 3 miles away….was looking at trying to focus on older adults…..had the funding, had some musicians interested…..it just didn’t feel right.
In retrospect, I am so glad I did not go there. Somehow I just do not think it was time….maybe that time will never be right….
@ Nancy:
Amen!
Mae wrote:
Me too, except my church has participant directed service groups who do this, and I am involved with one of the groups. We are fortunate to have in our group a retired methodist elder and his wife, and listening to that man pray just makes my day. Doing good works and sharing one’s self with other people carries with it many rewards.
Out in my back forty there is a beautiful one of God’s creations which I can see from my kitchen window. A Japanese maple which is a breathtaking shade of orange and has not dropped leaves yet. And there it stands with that graceful and proud habitus of all its kind, oblivious to the ivy, oblivious to the predicted cold, just fulfilling the mandate of the passing of the seasons and blessing us all in the process.
There is a lesson there somewhere- probably several– but right now I am just enjoying the beauty of it.
@ Mitch:
Thank you for the great thoughts and insightful comment.
Gram3 wrote:
Every generation thinks that their generation is the one the world has been waiting for. Every person in the world is self-centered. That’s why generations are self-centered. The difference is that the Boomers had the luxury to express their self-centeredness. Honestly, can you say that the Gen X,GenY, and Millennials are less self-centered? I just found out what a selfie-stick is. Think about what that might indicate for just a moment. Self-centeredness is a crime of opportunity because motive is always present.
Sooner than you imagine is possible, you will be part of the generation that impatient younger ones will want to replace because they understand the world so much better than you do and your ideas are so stale and yesterday. That is how people are, and none of us are exceptions
Great thoughts Gram3. I agree.
It just got on my nerves more and more the “formulas” for church growth which “takes a lot of money”, as you all know. And that is what it is all about.
While I am no longer in that world, thankfully, even back then I thought the formulas were very short sighted from a simple pragmatic pov.
Everyone knows the older baby boomers have more disposable income and their money was growing the churches during the heady days of the church growth movement. They were church goers and in the mold of “Millionaire Next Door” post war savers. And the last generation which mostly made their careers in one industry or company. Stability.
The church I just left is living off the money of the WW2 generation, much of it from endowments and those who cannot even come anymore but faithfully send their tithes! There are very few 50-70 year olds there. Most are under 40 or over 75. A large population has lived quite a long time and are in their late 90’s.
That church is learning the hard way what mega’s learned a long time ago. Younger folks are most likely to give ONLY when they are physically there so having bottoms in the seats is the name of the game for cash flow. They are less likely to write a check and mail in the envelope. That is why there are kiosks that accept credit cards around the lobby. (Our unbrave evangelical world!)
When I was in the mega world, you could set your clock by the targeted tithe sermons planned in advance for the months when it tyically went down like Jan and the Summer months. Or you could have a “special offering” for some crisis most of which would usually end up in the general fund. But when pew sitters don’t want details and budgets concerning their giving, who cares?
I am so glad to be out of that world. When you know the workings of it and how the pew sitters are viewed as “giving units”, you simply cannot think it is about Jesus Christ anymore unless it has become your normal. It’s business.
I am a baby boomer. The problem folks is universal. The greatest problem in mainstream Christianity is lack of meditating on God’s word, lack of believing God’s word and lack of praying God’s word. We have too many pastors (who really shouldn’t be pastors) spending too much of their time and energy building there own kingdom instead of God’s kingdom. They also preach incomplete truth to a very ignorant and passive audience. Revival first starts in the heart of one dead to self alive to christ, intimate relationship. The power of god then will flow from the life fully, totally dependent on christ alone.
Hester said:
“Interesting because multigenerational/intergenerational ministry is supposedly what groups like the NCFIC want. Except in practice (at least in those groups), somehow it ends up turning into yet more focus on families with kids of school age.”
Well, they are known as the FAMILY integrated churches, as opposed to the intergenerational integrated churches. The nuclear family was their focus from the get-go, in reaction to churches that insisted (without exception) on all babies going to the nursery, and all young children to Sunday school. I think there was a genuine problem in a lot of churches in that regard that deserved some rethinking, but of course they went way overboard.
“You know what else is an uncomfortable demographic to be in? Youth who prefer traditional music over CCM.”
In junior high and early high school, I confess to being sucked in the the CCM vortex that my friends from church and the Bible quizzing circuit were in. By the time I was getting done with school and looking forward to college, I had discovered the joys of Gregorian chant (as well as Baroque and chamber music) and was becoming disillusioned with the CCM/Dove awards/Nashville industrial complex. When it comes to worship music, I’ve been leaning more and more high church starting with the older hymns that have stood the test of time.
It’s my understanding that the modern praise and worship music that has taken over the largest churches originated with the Baby Boomers of the Jesus movement, who began introducing it into the established churches once the Jesus counterculture fizzled out. Having been raised primarily on that stuff as a Gen Xer, I’m now practically allergic to it; I have a hard time worshiping God with songs that provoke strong discomfort from bad memories. On the other hand, if the churches now pushing Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman fare are being led by 20 and young 30 somethings…yikes!! Younger GenX/Y/Millenials are now the ones purveying musical pablum! *sigh*
I apologize for my rant yesterday. I certainly don’t wish death on anyone, but I do hope Christianity can get past the celebrity pastor/ church as entertainment/ church consumerism model.
Sorry that my words were overly harsh and that I didn’t do a better job of explaining what I meant. I have more thoughts on this matter, but I think I’ve disqualified myself from commenting on it for a bit. I will go back to reading/ listening to others now.
EricL wrote:
Thumbs up on this! I think most everyone who reads here is on board with this 😉
Please comment again soon. One thing I see is that everyone’s experience is unique to where they are and what they have been exposed to in regards to “c”urch.
@ Mitch:
Excellent comment! Thank you!
EricL wrote:
I, for one, have said and/or written some things I wish I could take back…. 🙁 You are not alone, EricL.
Lol, isn’t this what we all wanted? Aren’t trying desperately to get those younger butts in the seats? So we should be surprised when the younger generations are gradually taking over that they are focusing on others from their own age group? I must be missing something.
Victorious wrote:
I have said or written some things that other people wish I would take back.
@ NJ:
Yes, I agree they did notice a problem in some churches and then swung way too far in the other direction. Personally, I still don’t understand children’s church. I was raised ELCA Lutheran and am now attending an LCMS church and none of them ever had such a thing. Kids of all ages were in worship with their parents all the time and no one cared. I was following the liturgy and singing hymns out of the hymnal by the time I was 6-7, no problem. So when FIC people tell these horror stories about children being denied entrance to the sanctuary, I just scratch my head in confusion. Does that really happen?
I think if you get into the details, FIC folks were in theory supporting intergenerational ministry too – for example, I know Vision Forum used to sell a CD entitled “The Role of Grandfathers” or something like that. Though you may still be right in that it could have been intergenerational ministry within a particular family, as opposed to the general congregation.
I never liked CCM (probably comes from having participated in traditional music groups since I was about 8yo). It’s so profound with me that all-CCM services don’t even feel like church. I fully admit that most of that probably came from the fact that the CCM contingent at the ELCA church I was raised in, all but started a coup and ran the music director out of the church. They then proceeded to destroy from within (via lax practice standards and replacing accomplishment with “fun”) the high-quality traditional music program she had spent decades building. Sadly my experiences with CCM advocates since then have not been much better, i.e. they push their agenda to exclusion of everyone and everything else, and some of them won’t be satisfied until they’re in the only game in town and all the traditionalists are gone. It’s only been in the past year or so (and through TWW) that I finally met a dedicated CCM person who I trust not to run down my craft, insult me, and either try actively to put me out of work or passively let my occupation die of neglect. If their stuff is so great, why do they have tear others down to advance it?
It seems like the larger issue may just be the reactionary nature of the church the last few decades. There is very little that is genuinely “new” happening, so the church is always trying to play catch up, which is the opposite to what we’re called to (and the opposite to the Spirit of God, who is new every morning). Case in point: reacting to the Jesus People movement, reacting to feminism and the sexual revolution of the sixties, reacting to gay marriage etc. I believe it’s why the church has a reputation for being Against Everything, rather than what we are for. Perhaps it is time to switch our focus from being reactionary, to simply partnering with what God is doing uniquely in our lives personally, in our families and communities and then beyond. We’ve shouldered a burden of “fixing” the moral failing of the world for too long, a burden God has never meant for us to bear because He bore it.
Haha, sorry, soapbox, the post just got me thinking. Too long a lurker I suppose, it just builds up!
EricL wrote:
That’s a great thing for your generation to hope for and work for!
I’ve posted links to Van Loon’s blog pages (she also has her own blog) here before, raising concerns about this issue.
It’s not only baby boomers, but American churches are marginalizing and losing people who are currently in their early and mid forties (“Generation X”).
I saw by my mid-thirties that evangelical churches are far too nuclear family focused (which includes a bent to cater to young children and teens).
However, Van Loon mentions she herself didn’t start to notice this until one of her oldest children left home for college, and she and her spouse, (in their 40s at the time), went to church without their kids. (Single, childless adults catch on to this at earlier ages.)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also released information a few months ago that revealed a larger portion of American adults over 40 have never been married, and many of these do not have children.
The same study also showed that adult singles now comprise over 50% of the U.S. population (there are more singles than married couples now).
Church people, though, seem oblivious to these population and life style changes, or only rant against them if they do discuss them (which doesn’t do anything to help people who are single and childless).
I know a lot of evangelicals believe the way to “win people to Christ” is to do so before people reach the age of 18, but this then gets into heavily youth-focused church marketing, the use of rock bands in churches and hipster worship leaders, and so on.
I am turned off to this sort of thing (youth driven church marketing). I don’t see where God indicates in the Bible he is more interested in meeting the needs of kids and teens or in winning over the soul of a ten year old, as opposed to an 76 year old, but churches behave like entire chunks of a population are no big deal, do not matter.
Bridget wrote:
Ditto. I’m 57…I’ll see what I can do to pass away before 60, so the church can go on to be perfect or something. That was a really cold thing to say, Eric L.
Bridget wrote:
I am totally with you there, Eric L. But I probably won’t live long enough to see it happen. 😉
Hester wrote:
I hear you. When a segment of my family leaped directly from SBC mega to “episcopal church in the catholic tradition” (after due consideration of course) we were all surprised that the 12 year old and the 9 year old instantly took up with it. They go to the middle? type of service, not come in your jeans and not totally “high church” or whatever they call it. Anyhow, the kids love the “procedure” and the music (some classical and some ancient.) And they say they understand the homily better than the sermon at SBC mega. And they say the eucharist is important to them. We are all dumfounded but delighted for them so far.
I went a couple of times. The first time I slung myself down on the kneeler I could not get back up. I was too embarrassed to breathe. Never tried that again. But the homily and the music were excellent.
Sarah K wrote:
That’s a great point. Being a Christian is not a negative identity of “Not a Wordling.” It is a positive identity of being In Christ. Negative identity does not produce anything good.
@ XianJaneway:
I’ve done lots of reading in this area, mainly anecdotes, which some will scoff at, but you can also read more in the book “Quitting Church” by Julia Duin.
The sad fact is that many evangelical churches are unwilling to invest time or funds into adult singles ministries. This comes up in blog comments all the time (on other sites).
I have seen many conversations by church people (that is, by single adults) who do indeed approach their preachers and request more sermons applicable to adult singles (rather than the steady stream of “Ten Days to a Great Marriage” sermons they receive), and the preacher either flatly says “no” to them, or says “Okay,” but never gets around to it.
There are churches that pulled funding for adult singles ministries/classes. When the adult singles asked why, it’s because, the church said, they wanted to pour the money into youth ministry instead. They feel that youth trumps adult singles.
I’ve also read in blogs and books, that some adult singles request to start up an adult singles ministry class or mixer / social, and the church says “no way, and no funding, we won’t fund it.”
I also just have to disagree with the concept. I’m an introvert. I have no interest or aptitude for teaching or running a churchy, adult single class or group, even though I think churches should do more for this group.
A lot of churches use that line to weasel out of responsibility or meeting the needs of people who talk to them – “if you want thus and so, then YOU start doing thus and so.”
Just because I’m bringing it to your attention does not mean the church cannot find someone else to do it, or drum up the funds. They simply do not want to be bothered.
mirele wrote:
This is what I planned to say. When I’m volunteering 15 hours a week and contributing a good chunk of money to your budget, you can’t include me in your “this is for families” fellowship gatherings?
It’s hard to be the outsider. I’m a none now and my money goes to para church orgs.
@ Gram3:
Gen X never did anywhere near the same amount of media coverage, dissection, and fixation as Millennials and Baby Boomers, though. Even the Christian culture goes on about Millennials and Baby Boomers.
Former CLC’er wrote:
I agree as well. Make this double or triple if you’ve never been married and/or are childless. Their clue-less-ness ratchets up much higher.
Churches at least seem to have some amount of comfort with divorced people or widows, but appear to be very mystified about anyone who’s over 30 and has never married or reproduced.
Folks like us are regarded as either colossal failures; deliberately disobeying God (and hence bad); or as aliens from Mars.
Nancy wrote:
I already addressed this up thread.
It’s a double standard, for one thing. Why do married couples and parents, in the majority of evangelical land, get tons of classes, pot lucks, and ministries and sermons about their particular life stages/situations, but all who fall outside those perimeters are told to meet their own needs, or to pipe down about things, etc?
When singles past 35 years of age (or even married couples over 35) say they’re not getting their needs met at many churches, we’re asking for equal treatment – not special or preferential treatment.
Mae wrote:
I’ve seen it different at churches I’ve been to in person since my 20s, into my 30s and 40s.
Most churches I’ve been too have tons of kids, teens, a decent amount of early 20s, handfuls of married 40 something couples, and lots of folks 60 and older.
I’m not seeing many mid 20s on up to age 59 people at Baptist churches I’ve been to.
There seems to be this huge age gap going on in churches, many have lots of kids/teens and senior citizens, but next to no 30s/40s, and a small smattering of 50 somethings.
Nancy wrote:
The experiences of singles (30+) is well documented in the book, “Quitting Church” by Julia Duin. The experiences are universal. It’s not that singles are unable to function and need a ministry; it’s more that singles are treated as second class. And by single, I mean never married. A single man (30+) in this category is made to feel out of place and a failure. Are there any churches that have a single never married pastor or elders?
One of the problems may be those of us who have gotten used to megachurches and the church trying to provide for all of our needs, which is unrealistic.
@ OnlyEleven:
I didn’t take what he said quite the same way.
I’m Gen X, I came after the Baby Boomers. Gen X has not gotten anywhere near the same amount of reportage as Boomers, Millennials, or even WW2 gen over the decades.
From the time I was a kid until now (and maybe until the Christian culture and secular media began a steady drum beat of Millennials, Millennials, Millennials a few years ago), all I ever heard on the news, in the paper, and on TV shows and commentary from the 1970s and onwards, was about The Boomers, The Boomers, The Boomers.
The TV commercials I heard growing up as a teen all used rock music of the Boomer generation, and that this was “Boomer” era music was almost always mentioned in television news reporting on advertising, etc.
I was always hearing about Boomers this, Boomers that. It does indeed get tiring.
dee wrote:
Since I’m homeschooled, when you said this I got visions of Doug Phillips and Kevin Swanson XD. I know what you mean and totally agree, it just sounded too similar to what the FIC says. And for some reason I don’t completely get your second sentence, could you explain a little more?
Joe2 wrote:
The same goes for those who are divorced. 🙁
@ Mae:
I’m surprised my parents haven’t left our church, we barely know anybody anymore, most of our friends have gone to other churches awhile ago. I was raised in this church, ( I’m 17) so it hurts to see it getting more consumeristic and media hyped as time goes by
Joe2 wrote:
Victorious wrote:
I was asked to take my children and leave a church when my former husband and I divorced. So I did and found something else. What choice is there?
When we moved to this town we boomers were in our 50’s. We promptly took the grandkids to church. At one church we seated ourselves quietly near the back due to the baby. We were shocked, after the service, when another couple, visitors like us but in their 60’s, were exiting. The shocking thing was as they shook the pastor’s hand and were leaving quietly he told them point blank “we were glad to have you in church today but this not the church for you. Our target demographic is the 18-30 well educated upwardly mobile.”
Like us, they settled in another church in town. We wound up in a confessional, conservative Lutheran church in a liberal synod. Now that church has “progressive” leadership. That means the familiar liturgy is gone, the Lutheran confessions are things of the past, and even the Trinity is up for grabs. We no longer confess our sins but rather just give thanks for our baptisms. There is no Father, no Son, no Holy Spirit, just the creator/redeemer/sustainer. The Apostle’s Creed and Lord’s Prayer have been reworked until they no longer contain the same message.
And as of last Friday, we are finally and truly and officially nones.
That doesn’t mean we are out of church entirely. We have two good Sunday Schools we frequent that do not conflict with each other timewise. We visit various church services on occasion. We are actively studying a couple of Mennonite groups, as well as really soaking in some of the teachings of the early Christ centered Quakers and early Baptists. We are finding out just how much core teachings change over time when prestige and money enter the picture.
Our faith is strong, we fellowship regularly with other believers, and are digging into the Scriptures more than ever. Our personal walks with the Lord grow ever closer to Him.
And we are no one’s tithing units.
@ Nancy:
I should have added our new church has some outside the Church ministries which are not age exclusive,and they are very good.
What I was referring to were the women 60+ plus from our former church, who get together and do good works projects separate from any church.
__
“I lõõk Unto Da ‘Power Company’ From Wince My Help Cometh?”
hmmm…
‘Modern’ 501(c)3 churches buildings take on a tunnel-like or cave structure. For the most prt, no outside light is entranced. Like movie houses, there are no windows.
Electricity becomes the prime functioning ingredient. Air processing and sound processing is it’s fundamental byproducts.
Take away electricity, and waste removal, and you have no ‘modern’ church.
The modern church can not function without electricity.
The modern church attract with volumes of sound processing. This has become ‘key’ to the modern church. The ‘pied piper’ plays the young people pay. The preacher pumps um with pap, stuff for mushrooms. Every one gets their own seat. Everyone’s happy. No one knows any better.
(bump)
At least the young people are off the streets, right?
…until the lights go out.
(sadface)
Today (for the most part) you can not have a ‘church’ unless you have zoning, permits, handi-cap rails and parking, and a 501(c)3, etc.
We are a long way from Jerusalem, Jesus,
Your kingdom as well.
(sadface)
—> Come soon.
Sopy
__
Intermission: Electric Light Orchestra – “Mr. Blue Sky…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swYdKF1MpWg
🙂
—
Corbin Martinez wrote:
Sorry, it is disappointing, disheartening, to see it happen. Our grown children don’t like it that they no longer have a church home to visit when they come to town.
@ linda:
We had a new church set up in town about 15 months ago. ( a SBC plant ) Their radio ad stated :” all are welcome but we cater to the younger set.” We interpreted that as,don’t come if you are over forty.
@ Mae:
Sounds good.
@ Michelle Van Loon:
If you haven’t followed Michelle’s series on aging in the church, please click on her links above and read through them. I’ve enjoyed her insights and her writing both.
EricL wrote:
Ha! As if any generation is? Why you whippersnapper, you’ve snapped one too many whipper for this old fogey! (Now where’s my cane so I can knock some noggin? Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe, old fogey-isms repeatedly uttered.)
linda wrote:
How do you take a handshake back? Hearing that makes me boil! The audacity of that man! To say something like that! He wasn’t glad to have them in church today. What a liar. That is enough to make me want to puke.
kay wrote:
Just you wait until the next generation learns how to use the computer and they talk about your generation. Just you wait! (Old fogey strikes again.)
Daisy wrote:
I apologize, to you and to Eric L. It struck me the wrong way and I lashed out without thinking it through, and then scrolled down to see his apology and felt terrible about my post.
@ Tim:
TIM!! Off topic but just wanted to let you know that you’re one of my favorite people here. Your comments always make me snicker.
@ Mae:
My Mom is 53 and my Dad is 61, so I guess I take it personally, even though I’m the kind of brat that the church is trying to be attractive to.
EricL wrote:
Actually, the celebrity pastor and church as entertainment developed in order to draw in young people. Take a look at Mark Driscoll who was considered *successful* because he drew in” young people with tattoos.” (An actual quote)…
The bottom line is the church is made up of all ages and that is important for the body of Christ to function efficiently. When we isolate a group of people due to a belief that one group is more important than another, we risk consequences. The stats prove the Baby Boomers are deserting the church. That will hurt (and it has hurt) the church in many ways just like it would hurt the church if all the young families left.
We are a body, not a bowling club which is only made up of those who love bowling.
Thank you for you apology.
Corbin Martinez wrote:
You have good taste! We kind of like him as well!
Corbin Martinez wrote:
Snickering is a pastime approved by old fogeys everywhere, Corbin.
Tim wrote:
It tickles me that my kids now come to me to help them with their computer issues. In particular, they ask me to help them do Internet searches in order to find out info about people, places, etc. Even my son in law has asked me a question or two. I have come a long way from the person who took courses at a community college to learn how to use a computer. The first class I took was "What is a computer? " Little did that instructor know what a beast he was creating!
Corbin Martinez wrote:
Good for you! You’re the “kind of brat ” churches need.
dee wrote:
Our kids are in their 20s and know more than we do about the workings of the web, but I still hold my own with them most of the time.
@ Tim:
Not if you’re reformed. Sorry, but the opportunity presented itself and I couldn’t resist a Christian stereotype joke.
Daisy wrote:
Daisy, technically I’m a Baby Boomer (born 1955, the start of the transition between Boomer and Gen-X) and I’ve got the same attitude towards them that you do. You think I like being lumped in with the biggest crop of perpetual adolescents to come down the chute in the past Strauss-Howe Cycle? A generation who were so busy Finding Themselves(TM) they never had the time to HAVE a Self to find? A generation who threw away the stars so they could screw in the mud at Woodstock? All Speshul Little Snowflakes, Nothing Existed Before Us, and Nothing Can Be Permitted to Exist After Us?
From a post-D&D game recreational thinking-fest many years ago:
MY DM: “HUG, you’re a Baby Boomer.”
ME: “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Daisy wrote:
Well, Millenials ARE the Baby Boomer “keeper kids” and Mini-Mes (whereas Gen-X were the disposable prototypes), raised to sit at the feet of the Baby Boomers with liquid eyes and trembling lips, in Reverent Awe of Their Elders. Only thing is, without an overarching crisis like World War 2 to refine them into a Greatest Generation, they distill and concentrate the dark side of the Baby Boomers — Mini-Mes plus Entropy.
Gram3 wrote:
Negative Identity in the words of Professor Wagstaff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHash5takWU
I think the criticisms of the boomers being the most spoilt generation yet are justified. A fifth have never had children, their life consists in the abundance of their possessions. The church spawned the seeker-sensitive approach to cater for their every need, the cult of self as exemplified in the surrounding secular culture, so producing Willow Creekism (even if done with the best of intentions to reach them with the gospel). They have produced more than a slice of Laodicean Christianity.
I think Nick B once made the comment that this affluent generation has everything it basically needs for this life, and does not see the need to depend on God for anything. There is a profound truth in that.
But, that said, it doesn’t mean the church should turn its back on that (= my 🙂 ) generation either. Surely a healthy church should be a complete mix up of every type of person imaginable rather than a single demographic where people would get on with each other anyway – and so don’t need to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit!
NJ wrote:
I suggest Eighties Music from the Reagan Years.
The real stuff, not the Christianized(TM) knockoffs.
@ Gram3:
Gram I agree completely, as a matter of fact you said it better. What we are seeing theologically did not happen in a vacuum, it is a response to the movements in the recent past. The movement today will cause the reactions of tomorrow. I know that Stetzer and the other church analyzers continue to argue that mega is the movement but I am sure that we will see a reaction on just as large a scale in the very near future. I continually meet people who have been chewed up and spit out by the mega machine, They will eventually run out of “new” converts.
I will try to distill the multitude of threads I want to respond to into a singular coherent post….I will probably fail though….
The first question is obviously, “Is it appropriate to “target” a specific group?” If you answer, “no”, then nothing you observe or hear about such focused targeting will pass muster for you. I don’t think that is specifically what is being argued, but something more along the lines of “exclusivity” of targeting.
The reality is, whether deliberate or otherwise, every group IS targeting somebody. Even something as simple as when you hold a service, and, how long that service goes, is targeting SOMEONE specifically. Within any “stereotype” you have exceptions, but many general rules hold true that influence the potential “results”. For instance, playing exclusively hymns with an organ will be more attractive to older people(in general).
Every decision a church makes about HOW they do things is absolutely gong to have a profound effect on their demographics. And there is a great degree of a Church service being a “zero sum” game, as far as time and resources. So by virtue of choosing “something” you are also choosing to not do “something else”.
This goes for “secondary” ministries within a church as well. While it might be some peoples desires to have, for instance, a singles focused ministry…that doesn’t mean that the resources are available. And when I say resources, I don’t necessarily mean money or facilities. One of the hardest thing as a Pastor is finding/developing/equipping lay leaders in a variety of ministry roles. And as the ONLY pastor on my churches staff, it is virtually impossible for me to lead “x” amount of different groups/meetings. And if I don’t have someone willing/able to do so, it won’t happen.
I think it is absolutely ridiculous to tell someone who doesn’t fit your “target” that we don’t want you. People should self-select if a church is a good fit for themselves. I have known plenty of young people who like high church, and I know lots of seniors who love contemporary music and modern small group home groups with young people.
Targeting is fine, exclusivity is a problem. Yet within this framework there is a simple reality that there is no church that can serve everyone and every groups specific wants/needs. Obviously this opens up the can of works of the whole idea of consumer based church attendance. And the reality is, regardless of the group, we have all, to one degree or another, accepted the premise that we are going to play into that consumerist framework.
Could you imagine a secret underground house church in China debating which music style they should play primarily?? Or whether or not they pour more resources into playground equipment or comfy couches and pastel wall paint for the Sr’s meeting room….? Or complaining about the seemingly “married” centric portions of scripture they happened to be reading from the single bible they own……
But, Americans are Americans, culture is culture, and as absurd as the demands seem to be, we need to wisely utilize the resources that we do have to pursue effectiveness in proclaiming the Gospel.
And as a final thought….clearly many people do not weigh these realities carefully and are just looking to be “cool”. Which is why you get communities where a dozen different churches have all popped up doing the EXACT same thing. Really??? God has decided that your whole suburb is only 35 year old college graduates with 2.5 kids and a dog so EVERYONE has to target on those people……
Corbin Martinez wrote:
But I am Reformed and an inveterate snickerer and chortler both! What is this world coming to?!
Nancy wrote:
There I believe you touch on an important point that is rarely ever mentioned, Nancy. To wit: who said that when people come into a church gathering, they are always looking for something that feels exactly like everyday life? Some, regardless of age, come in with the expectation that if this is an encounter with God then it should feel unusual or unfamiliar.
Which occasionally reminds me of the rich young ruler, who’d kept all the basic commandments since he was a boy, but knew there was something more. If only Jesus had been more sensitive to that young man, and provided a gentler and more comfortable introduction to discipleship, then he might not have gone away sad. But then, Jesus never had our marketing expertise.
Mitch wrote:
… if you want a co-researcher on that, count me in! A really interesting comment; I’d never thought of the fragmentation of The Local Church into local “churches” in terms of “inbreeding”, but actually, you’ve captured it precisely.
@ Tim:
I bet you do. One of my kids wanted me to confirm someone was who they claimed to be. I showed them how to do it. It is amazing how much one can find on the Web like graduation records, etc.
So, how do you feel about someone like me who is not Reformed (tried really hard and read and read on the subject) but empathetic to the position? Am I worth sharing communion with? Somehow, I think I know the answer to this question!
Adam Hamilton started a church plant in Laewood, Kansas (a suburb of Kansas City, MO) in an area which at the time had several other church plants trying to get going. He targeted a specific slice of the population to start with, and today the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection claims about 20.000 people, had a seminary move to their campus (for financial reasons) and Hamilton is a kind of guru of sorts as to how to do that–mainline stye. The group he targeted was boomers who had been raised Methodist but had dropped out of church. He reasoned that it would be good if the service replicated the older worship style they had grown up with and if the sermons and teaching aimed for not just the heart but also the mind, dealing with the nuances they were comfortable with. It was a winning combination. Of course the church is now, what word? multipurpose and multigenerational. We studied one of his books once at church. It was okay but there was nothing terribly special about it. I think it is mostly that he understands his audience and they him.
So, yes, targeting may be a good idea sometimes and under certain circumstances.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Brilliant!
Baby boomer here. I attended a small church from the time I was 15 to 40. Everyone attended Sunday School and then the worship service which consisted of prayer, singing hymns and a sermon. While specific Sunday School classes would organize fellowship activities, say a Friday night potluck dinner at someone’s house for the entire class, the other church activities were almost always for everyone, even a dinner to honor the new grads. We had a church van and volunteers to drive it and we picked up anyone who needed a ride to church or an activity, seniors, the disabled, and kids whose parents were okay with them coming but had no interest in church themselves.
There is a lot to be said for small churches. There are disadvantages too but I don’t think anyone ever felt left out.
@ Tim:
Really? I thought Reformed theology only allowed for guffaws and sarcastic wheezing.
Mitch wrote:
Umm, no. You had a great insight that I don’t remember hearing before. It made me think of some things related to line-breeding that were pretty funny. Your dissertation should be very interesting, because I doubt whether the possibility would ever occur to Stetzer or other publishers of church data that megas and ultra-refined theology might be a bad thing. Way too profitable, at least in the short run.
dee wrote:
I feel the same as I do about fellowshipping with my complementarian friends: Putting the Comp/Egal Debate in Its Place.
In other words, “Y’all stop by now, y’hear?”
Corbin Martinez wrote:
I am quite ecumenical that way, Corbin, principally because I find that snark is a common denominator for all.
Snarky-snark-snarkily yours,
Tim
Tim wrote:
Never, ever give me invite. I tend to take people up on it.
Ken wrote:
Gen Xer here. We’ll be catching up on the boomers fast. Just wait until it’s our turn to hit the nursing homes, we’ll be demanding cafe lattes and yep, 80’s Reagan music.
@ Tim:
You’re Reformed AND Egalitarian? I think I just entered the Twilight Zone.
Corbin Martinez wrote:
This blog is the Twilight Zone, X Files and Nancy Drew all mixed up into one fine gathering.
@ dee:
It would seem so. In a good way. I’ve always thought Steven Furtick’s tan is too unnatural to be from earth.
As I was continuing to contemplate this….
Something I have observed in my experience is that while Baby Boomers have been the backbone of the Church in the US for a long time, they are not necessarily well represented in mature born again believers….
What I mean—-40 years ago going to church was expected and an important part of most communities social connections. Being head Deacon at such and such church was an important feather in your cap. This social currency was generally accepted by everyone else in your community. If you didn’t go to a church you would probably not have any shot at any kind of local or regional political office.
This kind of sociological reasoning for church involvement did not necessitate actual conversion, just attendance. Many people did not even self-examine their reasonings, they just accepted that going to church is just what you did. This created a significant number of these baby boomers who are often the current crop of “sticks in the mud” in todays churches.
What I have experienced, anecdotally, is that many in this generation don’t have a specific biblical or theological reasoning for why they want something the way they want something….they just do. Regardless of the reasoning or the purpose of a change it is, “My church, and has been for 40 years, and will still be long after you are gone”.
Specific example….I am a pastor of a small rural church in a demographically shrinking area. Our immediate vicinity is mainly populated by households with minor children dwelling there. And a significant percentage of those are either single parent homes or mixed families. We have no debt and a relatively significant amount of cash on hand. After doing research on where our money would most effectively serve our community and kept coming back to a great need to develop family centered ministries(we had none when I came) to connect more effectively with those around us.
Was this an easy sell…..of course not. There were a handful of people in this generation or were completely opposed to it. It was even offered for them to propose an alternate plan/focus to utilize our resources to the end of reaching people in our community and equipping our people to share the Gospel broadly. Did they have an alternate plan? Nope. They just didn’t want to do it because I quote, “We didn’t need to do that when my kids were here” And another direct quote, “When I was a kid you sat in the church during service and kept your mouth shut, we don’t need to do this”.
Circling back around to the differences in generations…baby boomers can be frustrating to work with in a ministry like a church because they are often nominally Christian, but fiercely “my church”. On the other hand, the millenials and Gen-Xers I have worked with in a Church are typically very committed to the Lord. And this difference could possibly be argued to be a result of growing up in a generation where no one expected you to go to church so if you did, it was because you were seriously committed to Christ.
My experience is different. Here, the boomers are doing the work, leading the way, born again and mature believers, pay the bills at the churches, and basically work their butts off for the Lord.
And invariably some young guy fresh out of school comes in, calling himself an elder, and wants boomers to shut up, do things his way, and pay the bills yet with no input.
We leave. Period. We are still mature, born again believers serving the Lord. Just not serving his junior god wannabes
dee wrote:
You come to California, dinner’s on us.
Nancy wrote:
We had a similar experience when we left our nondenom. and began attending a very small and very diverse Anglican church. I was raised Anglican and my husband was Lutheran so we were familiar with liturgy, but our kids were completely new to it save for some of the prayers I had taught them. Our college kids don’t get to attend often but our youngest enjoys the services because he participates in the actual *work of the people* and is not merely an observer.
Are there any churches that have a single never married pastor or elders?
There are very few outside the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church.
I visited a church some years ago when I was between congregations. I was taken aback when I learned that only married men were considered eligible for the office of teaching or ruling elder. Even in my present church where there’s no such rule, all but one of the full-time clergy is married. The other is divorced and has chosen the path of celibacy.
That should be “all but one of the full-time clergy are married.” It serves me right for posting close to 12:30 AM.
From a marketing perspective this makes perfect sense – those of the boomer generation who still go to church will come anyway, but they’ve got to get the NEXT generation of consumers before they get the idea that they can live their lives without church.
Like in any industry – catch them young.
From a less cynical POV, it’s about reaching the next generation – not the parents, but their children – for Jesus.
But giving the heavy-handed tithing teaching of some of these churches one might suspect that it’s also – for at least some of them – of securing a decent living for this and the next generation of MoG.
@ Adam Borsay:
I disagree. In the Northeast, going to church hasn’t been popular for decades. (For protestants maybe not since the puritans ) And for an evangelical to survive, solid commitment necessary.
On a personal note, what drove this baby boomer from our former church were two issues. The first being, doctrine…..young neo Calvinists took over and secondly, the handling of finances.
@ Adam Borsay:
This whole idea of this or that generation is problematic. Our circumstances (culture, world, technology, etc) change so frequently that the generation this or that problem escalates. For example, lots of people do not raise their children in ways that were largely accepted by a lot of people a few decades ago. At the same time the schools for the children teach in different methodologies and have different behavior expectations and tolerations, and this changes very frequently. The differentness parameters between generations does not seem to be going away very quickly. So various people and groups of people congregate together in order to do various things the way they think best (think child rearing and home schooling) and we all drift farther and farther apart in our thinking. So if the local churches think of themselves as safe houses for like minded people to gather, how on earth will that work? And if they do not, how on earth will that work either since that is something that people need.
And since people are outing themselves as to generation, I am from the generation immediately prior to the boomers and squeezed between the great generation and the boomers. We were born into economic instability, grew up during WWII, and mostly we never did understand the up-start and irresponsible boomers anyhow who seemed not to understand that the sky is falling and that everything is deadly serious. Nobody had to teach us how to be preppers and survivalists. To this day when I go camping or work out on the back forty or plant tomatoes it is partly to remind myself that it may come to this and best to keep up a few outdoor skills because, well, have you noticed the cracks in the skies? An old Time mag article about us said we actually went off as college freshmen carrying briefcases. (I actually did, don’t you know.)
From this perspective I want to say that adjusting to how some other bunch of folks do, just telling oneself to live with it and move on, never gets easy but you do learn that you will live through it.
@ Nancy:
I agree completely with your assessment. I read an article yesterday about how we are on the verge of a huge shift in church leadership. The baby boomers have been the main leaders/pastors in churches and are all beginning to retire. The projections show huge numbers of churches now looking to hire new senior pastors and the available pastors are going to be heavily represented by the millennial generation. This is going to cause a huge shift in the way many churches feel and operate.
Without even trying to make a value statement of “new=good, old=bad” this shift is inevitable. Churches generally, for good or bad, have a culture that is reflective of the personalities of their leadership. The challenge for both these new pastors and the boomer/older generations is finding unity in Christ first and adapting to appreciate and love eachother in the midst of some radical differences.
One of the things that the article pointed out is that even very seemingly innocuous things like the way they communicate is a huge barrier. I am on the upper end of the millennials and when I was hired my wife and I were the youngest adults at the church. Combined with the fact that it is a small rural church and we were coming from a large metro/urban area there were huge differences that both sides had to adjust to. For instance, over half my congregation doesn’t have, or, consistently use, internet/email. My previous associate pastor position 99.9% of all communication could be conducted through email. And, I could guarantee that an email I sent would be read/responded to within a few hours.
I quickly learned that if I didn’t actually stop over at someones house there was virtually no way to communicate with people outside of service times. Many older folks didn’t even have a voicemail set up! I don’t mind, but this is clearly wildly inefficient. Now, when I say inefficient I am not implying that it is in some way “wrong” and a waste of time to do so, but in the grand scheme of things as a younger person who grew up in the internet age it is strange adjustment. For instance, just last night, latish, I was thinking about something that had a question built into a thought. In another environment I would have sent an email to the individual knowing that either that night, or, early the next day I would receive a well thought out reply. But instead if I want to communicate with that person I have to track them down.
The problem I have viewed with “my” generation is that even when a “change” is a good thing, the way it is approached is a bad thing. My dad’s marriage advice that has always guided me is, “Even if you are right, the way you say it to your wife is what she hears. Attitude and tone communicate more than facts”. And I think of this within the church. While there may be better ways to do things, the way you approach doing them is going to have profound influence on peoples responses.
To again stereotype a generation…..millennials have grown up in an environment of rapid communication, change, and “experimenting”. It is rarely MEANT to be insensitive, but it is a radically different base understanding of life in general. There is much less attachment to any one idea or operational paradigm. It is literally viewed as being always up for adaptation, sometimes within hours. And for many it isn’t even about being insensitive, because always adapting, changing and responding to things is as natural as breathing. It is just how the internet babies grew up and there is difficulty in conceptualizing a different way of processing things.
Mae wrote:
Dee and I will mark our sixth year of blogging soon, and we can attest that droves of Christians are leaving churches for the very reasons you cite.
@ Adam Borsay:
Rural churches aren't all bad. Country folk are the salt of the earth IMO. Just sayin'. 😉
I'm wondering if one of the obstacles to web usage in your area is poor internet service. I can attest to the fact that the internet we have at our country home is S-L-O-W compared to the internet service I get in Raleigh, where I primarily live.
Adam Borsay wrote:
Are you in the South? I grew up in the north and nobody went to church who wasn’t committed. I would be cautious in saying that Baby boomers are leaving the church because they not committed. Many are leaving because they do not like the current trends in churches. Although I attend church, I am one who is defiantly unimpressed with the current state of things. Fog machines? Seriously?
This article/blog/ comments have hit me hard.
Don’t know what it is? From time to time I go to church, and really feel like I need to be involved, but when I go now, I feel like I’m not getting a darn thing out of it, yet, feel bad because I do not attend.
My wife goes to the little SBC church in our area, mostly out of habit, but many times when she returns home, she’s frustrated, and often makes a remark, ” you need to find a place for us to go.”
So, it’s a dilemma….
Am I being selfish for not going? Or am I okay by not going because I know how miserable I would be sitting in the pews….( BTW: here is part of the problem, when the minister finds out I am a SWBTS alumni, I am often viewed with some reservation, even if I avoid all apperence of meddling….)
@ Tim:
Can the rest of us come too?
Joe2 wrote:
No, because the elders won’t hire single pastors – “he might be gay!”. Never mind the gay pastors in a heterosexual marriage who never admit it to themselves until they are caught in some kind of hanky or panky, in the process making their wife and children very unhappy.
Gus wrote:
Ted Haggard and his male prostie?
K.D. wrote:
KD, Some of us in my area went through a similar thing a while ago. So I feel your pain. I came to the conclusion to not focus on anything other than building relationships. I do not argue points of doctrine or how to do church. I politely avoid all such conversations by asking “how can I best pray for you?” Once people get to talking about themselves, they seldom want to stop long enough to pick at you.
Second, I found one thing I could do. All other offers to be involved were turned down. Just focusing on one thing helped me to get outside of myself and just serve. That also takes the focus off of me, and puts it on someone else. (Doing dishes at the fellowship meal for example. No one in their right mind cares what theological bent you are when you are up to your elbows in grease.)
I don’t think you’re selfish for not “going to church”. Each person has to walk their faith as they see fit, and it’s between them and God. No one else can live the “Christian life” for you, and no one else has all of the answers anyway. So just do what you need to do in order to heal and be with God’s people.
Personally, I do not believe that God wants us to be loners. I think the family motif is so clear, but what do you do when you are in a dysfunctional family? Some times that just doesn’t cut it. So time alone with God and brother & sisters outside of a formal church gathering is what matters at certain points in life. Christianity, in my mind, is organic & not primarily organizational. So…
That said, just focusing on being with your wife and worshiping together, trying to find people who love one another and show it. We settled in a small Bible church that has it’s problems, but there is very little internal conflict. Attending a congregational business meeting is a great indicator about how much people actually love each other. Initially, we just wanted to sit and be loved, and that is what they did. The preaching was (and still is) verse by verse exposition with an occasional topic covered. It is very old school. No talk about sex, 10 tips for whatever, or book reviews. Just Bible. And the Bible studies, while not deep enough for my taste, are Bible studies not book studies. I got in with the men’s group and have stuck with it in spite of wanting to leave it many times. Why? Because the relationships have become more important than the rest of the stuff.
We looked for a church where the people were normal, like us. Not flashy or a single demographic. They are out there, but it took us a couple of years and a lot of disappointment. There still are periods of disappointment in our current tribe, but again the relationships we have built are paramount.
May I suggest making an adventure, or sorts, out of it? Take your wife out to brunch after and talk about what you experienced. Visit, take notes even, and compare observations over food. I could tell you a few stories about absolute disasters we encountered! By we were together on finding a church home and the search brought us closer together. That in and of itself was worth it. Plus, my wife has a much better bs detector than I do, and I trusted her lead on where we should settle. Kind of like handing her the remote, only much more critical.
So hang in there. There are good churches in places you wouldn’t think to look. Don’t give up, there are plenty of believers gathering that have not bought into the “circus” and who need you as much as you need them.
Hope I didn’t misread your post, and I Hope this helps. I’ll be praying for you.
dee wrote:
What happens when something outside of church gives an even more kickin’ rock show?
Gus wrote:
“Next generation of MoG” meaning Junior inheriting Daddy’s church?
Nancy wrote:
Because they are not just passively sitting there watching the Kickin’ Rock Show (or Nuremberg Rally, depending on the church) like they were watching it on TV or YouTube. They’re actually DOING something, standing, kneeling, responding. And working into a rhythm other than standing with arms raised and eyes closed swaying in the wind. Traditional Liturgy is a form of performance art, refined over the centuries to concentrate attention and attitude. It says “This is important. This is a serious religion.”
Fog machines and soul patches and snapping Selfies just don’t have the track record.
Outside of specific theological and doctrinal issues so many complaints are often rooted in personal preferences. I can totally support and be onboard with someone leaving a church because of severe differences in those fundamental areas, but when people are leaving(which I have seen countless times) because they don’t like the new music, or, that ‘this’ got changed, that is a much different issue.
As far as a church hiring pastors with diametrically opposed theological views….how in the world can that even happen?? If a church is Armenian why the world did they hire a reformed pastor in the first place? And if a church hired a pastor on false premises and they discover 6 months later that they don’t believe and teach what they were led to originally believe, how in the world do they keep their job?
I do not want to dismiss someones felt experience, but if someone suddenly finds themselves attending a church that is teaching something you completely disagree with, the simple answer is that clearly a very large portion of the church ALREADY believed that, they just happened to now have a pastor who more clearly articulates that position. Meaning, the church collectively probably already leaned that way, it just wasn’t obvious before. I say that because I have trouble wrapping my mind around a theory that proposes a leadership team, search committee and church congregation that believes “x” can hire a person who believes “y”, AND THEN allow them to continue acting as the pastor.
In our small community I can name a church that virtually represents every theological position and operational paradigm(in general). So if someone doesn’t particular like the position that one church takes on a theological issue, there is clearly another church that is aligned with that particular position. The only difference may be the personality and style of that church. Meaning, I am “Armenian”, but the pastor of the Armenian church is dry, boring and a little insensitive, but the reformed pastor in town is engaging, good teacher and a great people person…..so I don’t want to go to the “boring” church, I just want the reformed church to act a bit more Armenian.
Which all comes back to the consumerist mind set that we take all these “desires” for a church and want to mix and match them to create our own “perfect” church. I want; this type of music, this style of preaching, this type of worship service, these available ministries, this theological position, these doctrinal operational paradigms, etc…..And when I can’t find a church that fully checks all those boxes off in just the right way….well….I just have no where to go.
@ Adam Borsay:
You know I’ve never thought of it from a business perspective like from a pastor like yourself. This trend towards rewarding consumerism in getting people to come to your church, or people hopping from church to church to match their own list of needs, well that’s got to be a problem to deal with. A church doesn’t have the same ability to retool, refocus, rebrand anywhere near as quickly as a regular business does. And from what you’re saying as a pastor that’s got to be tough to try to juggle as a new job requirement like that. How do you counter that trend at your own church?
@ Adam Borsay:
Well it does happen Adam. Pastors hide their Calvinism from pulpit search committees. Then when hired, stealthily begin the overtake. Took about three years in our congregation to understand that outright deception had occurred.
I will agree the younger generation had already been primed to accept the doctrine switch. Nasty stuff when the Pastor is less then truthful with the body of Christ.
@ Adam Borsay:
You seem to be assuming that all churches find pastors the way your church does. I was brought into church life being taught that you get who you are given (apostles and those above the pastor level decide who will be the leader of any given church body). Those leader people also can morf their theology and just expect everyone to go along (or get out). Imagine after years of building together, the rug being pulled out from under you. Many people wondering one day, how did we get here?
You also assume that every man seeking a pastoral position is honest about his own theological leanings and makes that clear when he is interviewed.
You have lived in a different church world than me. Nothing has been easy or straightforward.
@ Albuquerque Blue:
The only way to really combat these trends is in retooling/retraining peoples thinking. Meaning, we have to prioritize the non-negotiables of the faith and de-emphasize the non-essentials. The style of how a church runs and feels needs to be presented and experienced as “this” is what we do, but it is not who we are. While at the same time focusing the priority of teaching and discipleship upon the Gospel and scripture.
Obviously there is some nuance to what one means when they say non-negotiables. While we all can agree that Jesus Christ is the source(and only) source of salvation and that the teaching of scripture(scripture, NOT random other peoples thoughts on scripture) is a key marker of a church’s practice, how we specifically express that can differ. An Armenian and a Calvinist agree that Christ is the source and active agent in salvation, but how they present that mechanisms operational functions is a “bit” different. So, if you are an individual who is Armenian/Egalitarian participate in the fellowship and community of a local church that affirms and teaches those values. And once you are there, hold everything else in an open hand. Perhaps you don’t like the music, or, the ministry opportunities within the church…but no where in scripture does it prescribe that you have to play this type of music or have this type of small group on tuesday nights.
We have to simplify the vision of what our purpose is and have a willingness to adjust the surrounding “window dressings” as necessary. When I have had to deal with disagreements it has been helpful to bring it back to our main non-negotiables. By saying, do we agree that “x, y, z” are our priorities we refocus the level of the disagreement. From there we can then discuss whether or not doing “this” is detrimental to “x, y, z”. And if “this” is not opposed to “x, y, z” we then have to recognize that the disagreement is a personal preference one. And if it is a personal preference one, is it worth causing contention and disunity over it?
@ Bridget:
What I find confusing in your description of your experience is if there is a channel of denominational authority do they not adhere to their own denominational theology and doctrine? Meaning, if it is an armenian denomination and the leadership sends your local church a new pastor, how in the world can they get away with teaching reformed doctrines?? Either the whole denomination is a mess because they don’t even police and hold accountable their pastors, or, the denomination is actually “reformed” and you just never knew it.
As far as a pastors theology morphing over time, it can’t happen in a vacuum and unilaterally. Unless a significant majority of the church has actually morphed with the pastor how in the world do they have the ability to just force everyone to accept the new position(unless they are Driscoll and they are technically the ONLY member). What can be frustrating for people is that they weren’t aware(by design or accident) that the majority was shifting their doctrinal convictions. And then when the rubber hits the road they are surprised because it seems like it came out of no where, when instead it was a long time developing.
Adam Borsay wrote:
Well, it happens. The search committee itself is a small sample of the church, and it tends to have people who are more active and aware of issues. Let’s say a church has been in a period of instability or possibly decline. The pastor leaves so they form a search committee. Though the church is not particularly focused on things like Arminian or Calvinistic soteriology, there are a few people on the committee who have had a “conversion” or “second blessing” experience with New Calvinism (in the 70’s maybe it was charismatic theology.)
That nucleus on the search committee can influence the others while people in the church who have undergone the same “conversion” exert their influence on the “unconverted” search committee members. Unless there is someone on the search committee who is viscerally opposed, the committee can move in the direction of accepting if not promoting that POV.
The fact is that when there is an enthusiasm gap between the minority and the majority, the enthusiastic minority can have a disproportionate influence on the whole. In this case, the newly “converted” ones are the enthusiastic ones and the ones on our hypothetical search committee who are not enthusiasts one way or the other are swayable.
The search committee contacts the alumni offices of appropriate seminaries and possibly contacts parachurch organizations for which some committee members have an affinity. The seminary or organization finds candidates that the search committee filters and evaluates for the congregation as a whole. At some point the committee settles on a recommendation and a pastor is selected.
The search committee and the church as a whole only have a sample of the beliefs of the potential pastors. A candidate who has been well-coached knows the “right” answers to give the right impression without giving away how committed the candidate is to a particular POV, and so the pastor is hired without anyone except the “converted” insiders knowing what the truth is, and they are delighted!
When the pastor shows up, he brings some friends along to assist in the “renewal” of the church, and they begin to form a core within the church that is very enthusiastic. The begin openly advocating doctrines that the church historically has not held, and some families are basically told to go elsewhere, and others are warned about being divisive. At the same time as the previous members of the church are leaving, new members are arriving via recommendations from networks or parachurch ministries because the “renewed” church fits their requirements.
At some point, the church flips, and the people who had been there for years and even decades are pushed out of their ministry positions, and new persons who share the pastor’s vision are brought in to replace these faithful staff and lay ministers. More older members are disgusted by this treachery, and they leave. More enthusiasts come.
That is how a member who is perfectly happy in their church finds himself or herself in a hostile environment where *they* are the problem and not the ones who have taken over and totally changed the church.
I think you are making an unwarranted assumption that there is always some place to go and that people who opt out are doing so because their tastes and preferences are driving that. Every conservative baptistic church that we know of has capitulated to New Calvinism or Seeker-Sensitivity mega or misogynistic MacArthurism or MacDonald prosperity influence and control.
We are not consumerists. We have always been active members, but there is a sickness of following men in churches, and we want to follow Christ while not being complicit in any way with these distressing trends.
@ Mae:
The problem in what you describe is not differing theology, but liars. And if someone is willing to lie to obtain a pastoral position, those are huge red flags to their spiritual maturity, perhaps even salvation! Which then leads to a completely different, and huge, issue related to how in general are so many unregenerate individuals getting leadership positions in the first place??
It is sort of like the angry woman complaining that her last 10 boyfriends were all jerks. At some point you have to say…..um….you keep picking them…… So before we even begin to address and deal with the merits and problems with pastors particular theological views and behaviors we have to re-evaluate the whole process within a church that is making these decisions in the first place.
@ Adam Borsay:
Thank you for your answer Adam. So it almost sounds like the denomination system is something that should be revitalized, since those make those sort of doctrinal divisions obvious and easily seen.
@ Mae:
So sorry Mae. I was composing my book when you commented, and I didn’t see yours. Obviously we have observed the same phenomenon.
Adam Borsay wrote:
Adam, is your spell checker changing Arminian to Armenian?
And hopefully you realize that there are other categories that just those two hopelessly misguided ones. 🙂 Some of us choose to consider our faith as not being contingent on either category. Or other religions that share the same source. We are outside that stream. How would you deal with us?
Adam Borsay wrote:
Question: Does this prioritizing come from the consensus of the people gathered, or from the leadership?
Sorry for the typos. My spell checker is not.
Adam Borsay wrote:
You may not believe this, but there are some men and organizations who believe that deliberate vagueness or cleverness of language is not lying. They think those are helpful techniques to advance their larger agenda which they think is holy and righteous and godly. The end justifies the means.
Adam Borsay wrote:
Respectfully, as an older woman, that is not the way to be persuasive, and to some it may cause you to appear to be something which you may not be.
Ken wrote:
My practice has been that if someone makes the drive to the courthouse to meet me for lunch, I pick up the tab. The food around here ain’t always fancy, but it’s deeeelish!
@ Gram3:
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt… Great description of the process!
“Outside of specific theological and doctrinal issues so many complaints are often rooted in personal preferences.”
This is true to an extent but one of my pet peeves when pastors bring this up. Often certain changes reflect “other” more vague doctrinal changes that people don’t realize at first. This happened all the time back when “Transitioning the Church” was all the rage. Remove pews and get seats. Change the music, etc, etc. There really was a doctrinal change going on but the aesthetic changes masked it at first. All one had to do was read pastors.com before it was pass protected to see what was really going on. Marketing Jesus as an accessory to promote the pastor and build his brand.
“As far as a church hiring pastors with diametrically opposed theological views….how in the world can that even happen?? If a church is Armenian why the world did they hire a reformed pastor in the first place? And if a church hired a pastor on false premises and they discover 6 months later that they don’t believe and teach what they were led to originally believe, how in the world do they keep their job?”
You might want to read Quiet Revolution by Ernest Riesinger. Pay close attention to chapter 4. That book was written 30 or so years ago but implemented over a long period of time in the SBC alone. Now it is pretty much ingrained thinking. Most YRR don’t even know they are following what was outlined in that book. It is their normal. And now it has spread to other groups. It literally recommends deception for their own good because the pew sitter does not know the true Gospel. they use familiar words but with different definitions and are very careful how they present things. Grace means something different. Sovereign means something different and so on.
Then there are other types of deception. I know one large church pastored by a man who is now a leader of an SBC entity. He, along with a few others in the celebrity Calvin world, worked stealthly to turn his congregational polity church into elder rule without the congregation catching on to what was happening. It took years but it started with slowly changing their thinking by what was taught. Very general broad teaching leading the congregation to accept “spiritual leadership” or specially anointed leaders. People in the pews don’t question much to be honest. And the key is to marginalize those who might be a problem–up front.
I have seen many churches accept things using this method they would have never accepted if they were told up front. I call it the white coat syndrome. People want to trust their pastor is smarter than them in spiritual matters. That is a big mistake. We all have have “anointing” if we are followers of Christ. (1 John)
And one thing working in the stealth hire’s favor is the natural tendancy for the pew sitter to “want” to love their new pastor. They are patient, tolerant, etc. The stealth pastor actually uses these things against them and works to build a coalition of influencers so by the time some folks figure out there is not something right, it is often too late.
I am seeing this very thing happen now in my last church.
You ask why people don’t just go to another church? That is the consumerism mentality we claim we hate. Think of it. Someone has poured their time and money for 20 years into a church and the pastor just tells them to go somewhere else if they don’t like it? Why is it “his” church now? Often the new pastor comes in and enjoys the fruits of others labor in building that church in the first place. But now it is his?
That is one reason folks don’t leave. But in this day and time I often encourage them to leave anyway. They eventually have to wrap their heads around the new reality.
BTW: The stealth pastor has no idea he is a stealth pastor. He thinks he is simply working toward teaching them the “true Gospel”. As one of them said in comments on a pastors blog: If the pulpit committee is too ignorant to ask me the right questions, that is their fault.
Lydia wrote:
Yes, it is his. He is entitled to respect and admiration and obedience because He Speaks for God and Has Authority. The investments that others have made mean nothing to him and his followers because the *people* who made the investments don’t matter. There is a *lot* of talk about “loving well” and being a family as long as you do whatever he says and nod approvingly.
The point you make about “their normal” is so true. They are so young that they don’t know that things have *not* always been this way, and the only strong older believers they know are their mentors or idols. The older men use the energy and enthusiasm to spread the older men’s doctrines and influence. It is a mutually parasitic or spiritually symbiotic system.
I don’t think that a fraction of one percent of church people have ever heard of Reisinger or Rushdoony, or Gothard or the Fab Fort Lauderdale guys or lots of others I could name, but they are teaching some of their doctrines because those doctrines have seeped into the church and have been promoted by influential men that these young men do know. And as you said that is all these young people have ever known.
Gram3 wrote:
Yes. This is my experience, too.
Lydia wrote:
Maybe some are, but the last one I ran into knows very well what he is doing. He is one person when he thinks you agree, and he’s another when he knows that you don’t. In the first case, you are an asset to be used. In the second case, you are an obstruction to be silenced or disposed of appropriately.
Adam Borsay wrote:
There is a very sobering verse almost at the end of Revelation 22 which read ‘Outside are …. and every one who loves and practices falshood’ which only goes to confirm the second death is for ‘all liars’ in chapter 21. So I don’t think your characterisation of someone who regularly lies as unlikely to be saved is in any sense an exaggeration; it is almost certain they are not.
@ Gram3:
Nailed it perfectly.If I could write,that is exactly what I’d have written. 🙂
I don’t agree that young families are cosseted by the church. I have a young family and there is nothing for my age group. The men’s and women’s fellowships are mostly attended by older people – whose children have grown up.
Men and women with young children – at least here in the UK – are so busy and pressured with the demands of work and home life (both partners tend to have to work here to afford to pay a mortgage) that church life is often an extra strain – in some cases, only one service on a Sunday is all they can stretch to. So prayer meetings, Bible studies and the above-mentioned fellowships are peopled by older age-groups.
So I don’t agree with the CT article – at least not for my local context.
Adam Borsay wrote:
Me thinks you have a lack empathy and not much practical experience to offer.
Ken wrote:
To the tune of Frère Jacques:
Revelation, Revelation
21:8, 21:8
Liars go to hell, liars go to hell
Burn, burn, burn
Burn, burn, burn
Who knew judgment was so melodic?
@ Gram3:
This absolutely describes our experience to a T. We didn’t want to leave, but things got so bad we eventually had no choice. It was like living through a spiritual Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
We were fortunate to have another local church to attend. There are far too many faithful Christians who have been cast out with no place to go.
Tim wrote:
Well, it looks like we are all going to burn then.
There was a time in SBC circles where nonnegotiables included congregational governance, the pastor most definitely not being in charge but rather being the servant of the church, serving at the will and pleasure of the congregation, and the idea the SBC was NOT a denomination (top down rule)but a rope of sand of like minded independent churches.
Yeah right. When SBC churches are that kind of Baptist again where I live, I might join again. Maybe.
Until then, they are not, in my eyes at least, Baptists anyway.
Adam, if the “new music” is something an individual loathes and finds distracts them from worshipping the Lord, why would they just suck it up, stay, and support it?
Like it or not, pizza lovers usually do not run to McD’s. Hamburger lovers seldom frequent Pizza Hut.
Those that hate CCM or hymns should not be expected to just go along to get along.
If the majority in a church want a music (or other taste) change, do it. But do it understanding those that hate the change will most likely leave.
We left. Church went from Arminian to Calvinist, from traditional to contemporary, and from reverent to pep rally. Those of us who didn’t like the changes were urged to either volunteer in the nursery for the sake of the young marrieds, or make the coffee and food for the sake of the young singles, and of course bring our checkbooks.
Nope, nada, ain’t happening. We served in the nursery and the kitchen while raising families, holding jobs, and being young singles. We go to church to worship the Lord God in ways that are meaningful to us, that we believe are theologically correct, and that we believe will reach our community.
The preacher that did this “stole” the church building by stealth, but the checkbooks left. The seeker sensitive “feed me” crowd apparently either has no money or is tight fisted with it. They didn’t reach the community. That pastor left them in the lurch. Now the slow painful rebuilding is happening.
Sometimes the older folks, or the younger but in church there longer folks do understand the local culture better than a newby pastor. I’ve seen pastors want to bring rap and hip hop into a culture that listens to country music and loves southern gospel. Not gonna work any better than trying to force traditional hymns onto an urban skater church.
Shoot, do they ever even suggest at preacher school that listening is a skill a preacher needs?
About personal preference.
If person A likes something while person B hates it, why would we rush in and label it nothing but personal preference? Maybe not; maybe one or the other has legitimate concerns. Or maybe so, and both A and B should be ignored and the church should go with the possible personal preferences of person C? I am thinking that iƒ there is disagreement there should be a lot of listening to what is bothering people and a lot of looking for solutions before hauling out the charge of personal preference.
Then at that point I agree with Linda. If there is reason enough to do so people should leave. Throwing money in the plate to help support something that one does not value or support is not the right thing to do. I understand the urge to think you can’t run be off and I was here before you were. And sometimes that may be the path, but for me it is not worth tearing up my life to that extent.
Daisy wrote:
“Boomer Era Music” like the “oldies station” my shop’s PA system got tuned to for about three days. Playlist of 20 songs from The Sixties, repeated over and over — 10 Dope is Groovys and 10 Get Out Of VIETNAAAAAAAAMs.
I’m old enough to remember REAL Sixties music. It was a time of wild experimentation, not just “Dope is Groovy!” and “Get Out of VIETNAAAAAAAM!”
I mean, how many remastered Rolling Stones collections can you sell to the nursing-home set?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Don’t look at me. Try the old guy two doors down. My first job in a hospital as a late teen, working the night shift in the work room for labor & delivery washing and sterilizing and repacking sterile sets. we played the radio all-night-long, old WWII songs, only now it was Korea. For example:
Fly the ocean in a silver plane,
See the jungle when its wet with rain,
Just remember ’till you’re home again,
You belong to me.
Boomer. Millennial. Boomer. Millennial. Boomer. Millennial…
Meh. This Gen-Xer gets sick and tired of always being the ignored middle child.
While Boomers have been busy building “seeker sensitive” megachurches, and Milennials have been all “emergent” and “authentic”, we Xers have been doing what we always do… just pragmatically and quietly getting the job done.
…and listening to all the me-too-me-too kvetching from the temporarally provimate larger generational cohorts.
So, in good Gen-X form, I say this: “get ever yourselves already.”
Rant over.
OK, more rant. From the post:
“I believe the church is making a serious mistake in blindly following the youth strategies born of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.”
So who had these strategies foisted on them as youth, and by whom? Answer: Xers, by Boomers, for the most part.
Now what youth/young adult culture is being foisted? Milennial “authenticity” and instagrammed “social justice.”
Neither Boomers nor Milennials have any right to complain. Together they have comprised THE SINGLE dominant culture of the past half-century. And that steamroller moves forward unabated. Yet all I ever hear from both routs is angst, angst angst.
Once again, meh.
Uh, rant typo: “Yet all I ever hear from both groups is angst, angst angst.”
Let me give a case in point that I personally have witnessed.
Small town, local “mega” Baptist church runs about 150. It is traditional all the way, from dress to manners to music. They hired a new pastor who agreed to “do” church that way. From the moment he landed in the field he began to transition the church to the usual contemporary model, YRR, the whole nine yards. In one sense it worked–the church boomed to over 1000 in about 10 years. So far so good.
However, about 150 or so–some old regulars, some of the new folks, just don’t worship that way. They care about the lost, and can successfully reach some of the lost in the community that were not reached by the contemporary YRR model. So they split off and formed, if you will, a “second” Baptist church. So far so good. No rancor, no “we paid for this building and built it with our own bare hands.” For the life of me, I see nothing wrong with them doing so.
However, the new church plant had a devil of a time getting in the local association and state convention. How could they be such divisive upstarts, not supporting “first” church’s new pastor? Finally made it.
Several years into this, now a thriving church of about 250, they called a new pastor when the old one left. New guy agrees to do church in the traditional manner. That is, until he gets hired. Then begins the push to do the contemporary YRR thing all over again.
THIS time the folks were not having it. Not having another church building stolen from the congregation. Not ceasing to follow Baptist distinctives for some Presbyterian wannabe elder. Sent the dude packing.
I see nothing wrong with that. Truth is, we humans come in all kinds of cultures, from our clothing to speech patterns to worship style to musical taste to how we dress, etc. And there is nothing wrong with choosing to worship in the “style”, whatever it is, that fits us best.
The ranting we get from preachers that it is wrong, wrong, wrong, just might have a financial basis. Let’s face it, in a town of 4,000 with two Baptist churches, each pastor will be paid less than if the Baptists all grouped together in one church and paid one pastor. And of course, each pastor assumes “he” is the God anointed one who should have the job.
So here is what I suggest, to all pastors searching for a church. Be honest. If the search committee tells you the church wants to go in a new and different direction, bring it on. But if they make it plain they want to continue the present way of doing things, either do so or refuse the job. If you absolutely convinced God is calling you to that town, but to do church that differently, don’t try to steal a building and a tithing base. Do an honest church plant.
In the case I mentioned, it has left a bad “smell” to the name Baptist in the community that may take decades to overcome.
E.G. wrote:
No, it’s called MARINATING & (ed. delete) in that Oh-So-DELICIOUS ANGST! ANGST! ANGST!
And while you’re getting your rocks off on that ANGST! ANGST! AAAAAAANGST! you will NEVER want to actually come up with a solution.
ANGST! ANGST! AAAAAANGST! VIETNAAAAAAAAM!
ANGST! ANGST! AAAAAANGST! GLOBAL WARMING!
E.G. wrote:
As predicted by Strauss & Howe in Generations and 13th Gen (the latter specifically about Gen X). Gen Xers are doomed to be the forgotten “lost generation” between The Great Boomers and their Mini-Mes The Millenials. Yet like Sons of Martha, they keep things working while the Sons of Mary “seek” and “emerge” and preen.
E.G. wrote:
Before Instagram, the Boomers also had “Social Justice(TM)”.
It was Marxism/Leninism/Maoism with a Young Fresh coat of paint.
E.G. wrote:
And according to the Strauss-Howe Cycle, that’s what your kind of generation has done throughout history, getting the job done with what works while the Idealist generation before you takes all the credit.
In 13th Gen, Strauss & Howe speculated that Gen-Xers might be the ones who actually Save the World from the Boomers (with the Millenials taking all the credit). Using the Global Thermonuclear War imagery of the Late Cold War, they asked “Of all the generational cohorts alive at this time, which is the most likely to blow up the entire world Just To Prove I AM RIGHT?” Followed by “Some Gen-Xer in a subordinate command position might just be the one to prevent some Righteous Old Aquarian from turning the world’s lights out.”
So how come people have a screaming fit about generalizations of groups of people (stereotyping) unless we are taking about generational characteristics and then it is acceptable? Maybe some people do not want to be labeled by generational stereotypes.
H.U.G.:
Cool. And no doubt.
Anyhoo, off to listen to some Nirvana.
Within the Methodist Church,mother have been some shocking incidents of,ageism, including one district refusing to consider candidates for the ministry over 35 years of,age, and now more recently a church planting initiative open only to those under 30. I find it sickening. I am also opposed to churches that have forced retirement of older clergy. My priest is 73 years old and actually wants to retire but there is no one available to replace him. However he provides a lot of holiness.
A church that doesn’t want baby boomers in its congregation, but is only interested in young families, is sinning against the Catholicity, or Universality, of the church as required by Christ. Our Lord does not stop loving us at age 40. Older congregants can impart spiritual and practical wisdom to their younger brethren. While a church that only has older congregants is probably facing a bleak future, a church that only has young congregants is in a certain sense impoverished.
@ Nancy:
Thanks, Nancy – this really bothers me, and has done ever since the 90s, when articles criticizing so-called Gen Xers began appearing.
Nancy wrote:
It’s not a label of an individual. It’s a mean, an average, a general trend. There’s no argument that economics, history, generalities of upbringing, etc., have an effect on generational outcomes in the aggregate.
Okay, I’m sick of the tragic nonsense of what this post deals with.
Churches that focus on families with children? Seriously? Where? Our children have been treated as mere noise-making annoyances by the churches we have attended, and we as parents have been blamed for it. Sorry, but we’ve never experienced a church that truly welcomed children.
Catering to any kind of group whatsoever? “But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have THE SAME CARE FOR ONE ANOTHER.” 1 Cor 12:24b-25
“Need I spell this out for churches. This means less disposable income.” Gotta feed the beast.
“This Gen-Xer gets sick and tired of always being the ignored middle child.” There was actually a decent amount of focus on GenX, until the Millennials came along. Not nearly the focus of either the Boomers or Millennials, though. I, personally, sit right on that 1964 fence between Boomers and X’ers, so I feel your pain. 😉
Has anybody ever made note that the so-called “Greatest Generation” is the generation that RAISED the Baby Boomers?
“From a less cynical POV, it’s about reaching the next generation – not the parents, but their children – for Jesus.” Oh, you mean VBS?
@ E.G.:
But it quickly degenerates into caricature and stereotyping. I was born in the mid-50s, and i not only don’t like stereotypes about my generation – i *hate* the negativity toward younger people as well.
We are all interdependent, like it or not, and regardless of the natural tendency to criticize “kids today,” we were those kids, once upon a time.
Steve Scott wrote:
I think you might want to think that through a little bit, or I may be misreading you.
There are many factors that go into the culture of a “generation” so to lump all of the “causers” together because a few of them contributed to some of the “results” is totally unfair. And I would add ungrateful to those of the Greatest Generation who overcame enormous hardships even to get to the point where they could raise the Boomers and create opportunities for later generations to have much better lives.
Their childhood was stolen by the Great Depression, and their young adulthood was stolen, in many cases forever, by WW2. Let’s try to understand what that might mean and how that might play out culturally in the ways that they lived and raised their children. Some raised very frugal and responsible citizens. Others pampered their children because they were living their childhood that was stolen through their children. Others just had crummy and irresponsible Boomer children.
If you were born in 1964, then you had no real awareness of history before about 1974, and I can assure you that the general prosperity of that era did not characterize the childhood or even the postwar young adulthood of the Greatest Generation. I don’t think that you want to be held responsible for what your cohorts have done or will do.
Steve Scott wrote:
Gram3 wrote:
I was in the group that also lived a childhood of first depression then war then after a short interval another war. But I never went to war. This was not, however a stolen childhood. Perhaps whose who had other childhood experiences would think that it was, but that is a very off center idea. We early learned how to deal with certain difficulties and dangers, we learned an attitude of pride in country that I have not seen as much recently. We developed both actual and psychological survival skills that have served us well, and we developed work habits to such a level that my generation has been ridiculed for it. We do not feel that anything was stolen for us. Quite the contrary we tend to think that we are tougher and more self disciplined and more level headed and pragmatic and more apt to survive when the next SHTF happens than most of the population of the US. But we were raised in a more disciplined culture, and we don’t go around saying that because what would be the point?
When we were all getting back in touch with each other for the 50 year reunion of my nursing class some time ago the one thing I heard again and again when we compared our nursing school years with some current educational processes was, “Man, we were tough.” And we were. And are. Not smarter, but surely tough.
Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “David and Goliath.” That is the sort of thing I am talking about. David’s youth had him out there alone with the sheep and the large mammalian predators and his sling. Perhaps his young years were stolen from him, but look what grew out of that, and in part because of that.
Let’s not see the 1950’s through money colored glasses. Yes, there was prosperity for many in the middle and upper working classes. But there was also a great deal of poverty for others.
Not all boomers grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths.
@ Nancy:
And you demonstrate by your story the point you made earlier about the folly of generalizing the experiences of any generational cohort. There is always a broad spectrum of both experience and the interpretation of those experiences and the responses individuals make to their interpretation of their experiences.
linda wrote:
For sure.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Wow, HUG. I can always count on you for a tantalizing research rabbit trail to distract me from my intended destination. 😉
I read Strauss & Howe’s 13th Gen when it was first published. I had no idea it was part of a greater body of work on generational theory, but it helped me defend my argument that despite my birth year I am definitely not a Boomer.
Gram3 wrote:
Every group is marginalized in the church. The bright (who sit through sermons aimed at the lowest common denominator), those who like any type of music other than that chosen by the worship leader (I like Michael Kelly Blanchard – haven’t heard his music in church in over 30 years), those who are not targeted by someone who wants to control them (don’t be sorry you are not “Raising Kids God’s Way”), etc. etc. The only ones not marginalized seem to be the pastor and his close friends.
Jenny wrote:
So did I. It’s what first introduced me to generational cohorts and cycles of history. Another SF fan who was renting my back bedroom at the time remarked “It’s real-world Psychohistory.”
I seem to incorporate both Boomer and Gen-X characteristics, though my birth year puts me near the end of the Boomer cohort. Someone else suggested on a long-forgotten Website that the last few years of a generation are actually a transition between that gen and the next, incorporating attitudes of both; he called the Boomer-to-Xer transition “Generation Jones”.
me wrote:
Rank Hath Its Privileges, and Some Are More Equal Than Others.
Gram3 wrote:
Gram3, it was an attempt at dry satire. Such a cause/effect as we have been reading about in this comment section would, it seems to me, lend itself to somebody making this connection at some time, complete with stereotypes and generalizations.
As a side note, even though I was born in 1964, my parents were older than average when they had children. They lived through the Depression and my dad is a tail-end WWII vet. I got to hear many interesting stories and ways of viewing the next generation that my friends never had. I had to discover Rock ‘n’ Roll via my neighbor’s vacuum tube radios.
@ Steve Scott:
That’s a relief. Vacuum tubes. That was a long time ago…It was so aggravating to have to run out and buy new ones. If you mentioned a “TV set” to most people nowadays they would probably think you were talking about multiple TVs.
@ Gram3:
Taking all your tubes to the electronics store and finding the appropriate pin pattern for each tube in the test machine. And the 1961 version of Funk and Wagnall’s “How to Do It” encyclopedias. Lotsa junk on TV’s.
Steve Scott wrote:
I’ve often toyed with the idea of doing a “retro-tech” handbook for today’s writers. I’ve seen too many webcomics and fanfics where it’s “smartphones and screens in Ponyville” with no clue how to do a setting without 24/7 online. Or even automotive and game technology of 20-30 years ago, never mind the difference in attitudes. (In my SF litfan days, I remember when starships were navigated in hyperspace with slide rules and pencil-and-paper calculations.)
@ Michelle Van Loon:
I think that a lot of “Dones” are those who raised their kids in the church and wanted to show an example of attendance and involvement. But now that the kids are gone, going to church is perfunctory.
Relationships are key, and some leaders don’t get that. They think doctrine or entertainment or sermons matter. Actually, they really don’t, as least not as much as the leadership team imagines.
Steve Scott wrote:
Sometimes it’s good to be ignored – you can get away with more… (and yes, I realise your words are satire)
linda wrote:
The UK partly parallels the US on the boomer front. My father’s generation went through 6 years of war followed by a good 6 years when the material deprivation was if anything worse. Strict rationing, country effectively bankrupt, parts of London 80% bombed flat with all the reconstruction that entailed and few resources to do it etc etc. Real austerity. That gradually changed in the early to mid 50’s when I came on the scene (no cause and effect though). So the upcoming generation enjoyed the very real and widespread increase in prosperity that has largely continued since.
It’s hardly surprising the generation who knew depression and war and austerity wanted their children to have what they didn’t, but this perhaps inevitably led to the new generation taking what they had for granted and ending up spoilt. The great tragedy is that in more recent times the church has pandered to this with seeker-sensitive, feel good and prosperity theology, though this would more accurately be described as anthropology, man and his needs are in the centre, rather than God. What we seem to have ended up with is material prosperity and relative spiritual poverty.
Ken–agreed. I was thinking, however, of the fact that many in the 1950’s here in the USA were still unemployed or under employed. Many returning GI’s did get college degrees and do quite well financially. Many did find major manufacturing jobs. But many were still just grunt workers in industry and farming, and of course many were so destroyed either physically or mentally they never were truly employable anyway.
And so many of the dads were probably ptsd, untreated.
So yes, in some ways we boomers were incredibly spoiled and pampered. But in other ways many of us had pretty hardscrabble upbringings.
I don’t there ever has been a generation, including boomers, that were uniformly either spoiled or suffering. Most we can say is that most in a given generation experienced this or that.
I dare say society and the church would be much healthier if we focused on doing the right things, rather than focusing on doing what caters to any demographic grouping.
Ken wrote:
In the words of the Prophet Al Stewart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb1poMQXoiw
Haitch wrote:
Actually, E.G. (with Canadian flag) wrote “This Gen-Xer gets sick and tired of always being the ignored middle child.”
E.G. wrote:
Steve Scott wrote:
So he/she did. Apologies, all sorted out now.
linda wrote:
Or self-medicating with Three Martini Lunches and/or a couple Highballs after work. Depression kids learned to Suck It Up And Keep Going, as in the Depression there was nobody or no money to treat it.
That is for sure. Older, never married people are looked down upon – just being such a person is scandalous, sort of like divorced people used to be treated. Ministries for younger singles are understandably encouraged, but the idea that singles past the age of 35 should want to meet other singles is somehow bad or strange. It is almost like it is sinful if an older single wants to meet like-minded older singles at (gasp) church.
Daisy wrote:
@ Jacob C:
In my part of the country, singles groups are falling out of favor at churches. Instead, the singles are merged in with young professionals. Did you know that less than 6% of Christians now meet their spouses in church? I wrote this stat with a link on one of my posts on singles. Online singles groups are capturing those single.