Video Transcript: Generational Culture Continued

I hope you enjoyed our conversation with John Burden in our last session. He's been a friend  of mine for several years now. And I just appreciate the way he thinks through culture issues,  as he goes about his business of leading a large and growing church. And so today, I want to  

do a follow up on his conversation, but just some reminders about what we're talking about  what culture culture is found, in your note, the three circles there espoused values and the  words What do they say they believe? What do they a culture, a group of people, the way we  do things here, what do they believe is important, then basic assumptions on the bottom,  underlying, often unconscious assumptions. And unconscious assumption is, you know, as we  talked before, about the company that had all these men who were five, nine, and shorter, it  was, it was an assumed assumed thing that went into who they were defining who they were  as a group of people. So are they thought processes and actions and that sort of thing. And  then the artifacts or anything that's made as a result of that particular culture products  technology style of clothing, again, this is this model that I have up here is from the business  world. And so you know, what are the myths, the stories, the rituals, want to take this session  just to dig a little bit deeper into that idea of generational culture. Because in our world today, with all the technology, the changes in generations are becoming far more dramatic than they have been previously. And so I just want to spend some time talking about the millennials, the generation right now, in my country, I have a deep abiding burden for the millennial  generation because they are becoming unchurched. All the studies that have been done in  the United States show that that generation is leaving church in unprecedented numbers. And before we used to figure like with the baby boomer generation of those born after World War  II, that they would come back to church once they started families. But that's not happening  with the millennial generation. So I want to look a little more deeply, keeping in mind some of  the things that John said about his church and his experience and how he works with the  millennial generation. So who are the millennials? What does that culture like? Here in the  United States, again, you're gonna have to translate that into your culture, if you are  elsewhere. In the United States, millennials in general, this is a generalization. So it's not true  in every case, but in general, they have a sense of entitlement. In other words, things that  their parents and their grandparents had to work hard for, are now handed to them, are given to them. I just spent a week with my family, family, my son and his five children and his wife.  And I see this younger generation, not my son so much, he's in the baby buster generation,  but my my grandchildren are given things. They're given computer access, they are given  new sporting outfits, they are assumed that they can pay for registration in Little League to  play baseball, or in soccer or in football, there's just a lot of assumption. At Christmas, they  get not just little gifts, but they get they get tablets that they can use in their own gaming  time they watch TV on a large screen, there's a sense of entitlement things that previous  generations could only think about, maybe dream about, but not afford. They just feel like it  comes with a territory because for them all their life it has. They have a lack of delayed  gratification. Delayed gratification is something like in my case, when I decided that I wanted  to drive, I had to save up money for a car. And so I began saving, I was working at that time  as a busboy in a restaurant, and I saved money, I saved my salary, I saved my tips, I tried to  save every dime I possibly could, because I had this goal of purchasing a car. And I knew I  could not purchase that car until I had money saved up because in my family, there wasn't  anything like paying cash or paying on credit for anything. But nowadays, it's assumed that  we pay on credit. And then we pay back ourselves hopefully, rather than just keep the credit  out there. But the millennial generation has a lack of delayed gratification. If they want  something, they get it now they don't put it off until they can afford it or until they have the  cash ready to to purchase it outright. Now, all of these things I'm saying here sound negative.  And I don't necessarily mean that to be true. I just want to give a generalization that they're  used to getting what they want now. individualism and isolation. It's a fascinating thing. Mark  Zuckerberg the head the CEO of Facebook recently appeared before Congress and he shared  the mission of Facebook, you know what he wants a mission to be? We're going to be talking  about mission and value statements in the next part of this class, but, but he shared that his  mission was to connect people around the world. It's a beautiful mission, and yet it's  connected. And yet the connections are really, really tenuous at best. You know, what do you 

show somebody on Facebook, you show only your best side, you don't live life with each  other. And in fact, you can communicate with each other by never speaking to each other.  And so as a result, those who are studying the millennial generation are saying they are  disconnected. They're isolated from one another, they are individualistic in their thinking,  because they don't come together in groups very quickly or very easily. They are a postpone  generation. When I got married, I was 22 years old. And that was fairly common. The common time of getting married was somewhere between 20 - 21 Well, now, the first job that a person  holds in the millennial generation first full time job is generally speaking around 25 - 26 years  old, and they don't get married now until about 29, on average. And so it's this delayed,  delayed kind of reaction. A fast paced, unfocused, they live life of fast rap, and they're going  all the time. And as a result, they have hard time sitting down and focusing on one task. And I even find that I don't have a baby. I'm a baby boomer. And yet I find after working for so many years, now that I retired, I thought I'd be able to sit back and read but I kinda have trouble  focusing for a long time on a book, whereas I used to read these large tomes and just enjoy  sitting there for hours reading, I find that I've become unfocused. Well, that's the way this  generation grew up with all of this activity, all of this input, kind of a chaotic life of multiple  inputs and sounds coming at them all the time. undecided and indecisive. In other words,  they have difficulty making the big decisions. And they don't like to make big decisions. And  so they try to blur that put that off blurred sex roles. In America now of the United States. It's  law that men and men can marry a woman, a man can marry a woman or a man can marry a  man or a woman, a woman. There's kind of this tolerance of all sex roles. And so there's  nothing clear there for them. And they're comfortable with contradiction. They may sense this idea of not having absolute truth, you know, they no longer believe that absolute truth is  absolutely true. And so what they'll do is create this contradiction that they're comfortable  with a John Stott great English theologian once told a story about walking in the park. And he  ended up encountering two very young men, and began talking with them. And as was his  practice, he presented the gospel to them, said that he was somebody who had come to know about Jesus Christ. And so he told him about the creation of the world by a God who created it beautiful and good, and how it fell into sin as recorded in Genesis chapter 3, and how Adam  and Eve made that choice to disobey God. And as a result, all the creation is twisted by sin,  but God still wanted to have a relationship with us. But that sin that had to be paid for that  each of us now deals with in our bent nature toward sin. And so Jesus Christ came as the Son  of God in the flesh to die for our sins. And now He offers us eternal life. If we'll just believe in  Him, the resurrected reigning Lord will accept Him into our lives. And then he says, So and so  what do you think? And they looked at each other and said, sounds like it's true. And so he  said, Well, would you like to pray and receive this Jesus in your life? And the response is, no,  we don't think that'll work for us. That kind of contradiction. They can say it's true, but it's not going to work for us. So we'll just ignore it. That's this generation. It's it's a very confused  generation. Now, on the other hand, it's a very spiritual generation, even though we find that  their church going is less than ideal. The builder generation those born before World War II in  our country about 51%. attend church regularly. The Boomer generation, my generation  attend 38% attend church regularly, the busters, my children, 28%, attend church regularly,  millennials, somewhere around 17%, although it's hard to get those numbers down, because  the studies tend to be flawed, especially with younger people who will answer questions the  way that they think you want them to be answered. So you see, there's a big need there. And  yet there's a spirituality that is vibrant in that group. They rejected church in a way, but  they've not rejected God. I had the privilege of being in a concert just last two weeks ago, and it was a concert of a well known musical group, the Irish singing group Rend Collective, a  Christian musical group. And I was shocked because I figured I must have been one of the  oldest people, there was a younger gathering. But these people, these young adults were  excited. They were engaged in the singing, they were celebrating the goodness and the  greatness of God, and they were doing it with their bodies, and they were doing it with their  mouths as they sang along with songs, they are engaged. They are engaged to spiritually not  disconnected spiritually, it's just that church doesn't seem to fit them anymore. Why not?  Well, because you're going to reach a millennial, you've got to keep this in mind. These are 

the kinds of things that you should look for in the United States. These are their criticisms of  the church, as it exists right now in the United States, first of all, shallow worship. In other  words, they are not comfortable with just coming in, sitting in a pew, singing a couple of  songs, hearing somebody speak at them from the pulpit, and then leaving again. They say it's shallow. They say the preaching is confusing, is it's not very deep. And instead, what they  would like to have is engaged worship, where they engage with each other in worship, or  where they engage with the message in a different way where they have interactive kind of  experiences in worship. One church that is reaching Millennials well in our country, does it by  creating stations in worship, and they have a section in their worship time, where they just go to a station, and at this station, they maybe will paint a painting, or they'll write a poem,  they'll do something creative in response to what they've been hearing. As far as the Bible  being explained that day, at another station, they may have a discussion with a few other  people about some key points to of what was brought up in the message that day, at another  station, they might make something that they take home as a reminder of the message that  they can put on the refrigerator or hang from their car mirror or whatever. They want to be  engaged in worship. They say nobody listens to them, say when they talk, nobody cares what  they say. And, and in fact, they don't see a great deal of people like them involved in the  worship service. So if you're going to be involved in leading millennials, or engaging  millennials in your church, they have to be heard, they have to be listened to. And they have  to be empowered to be part of the worship experience. The staff in the church, I just just  completed my service in we studied as a staff, how we do this, because we realize that that  we've got to improve in this area, one of our vision statements, parts say that we exist to  reach the next generation. And so we began talking about that and realized that we've got to  have these people in worship. And so our worship director just took that and ran with it. And  so every week, there are teenagers who are up in front singing and playing instruments, there are teenagers who are in the back of the church who are running the sound and the visuals  for that day. There are teenagers who are teaching in our education department as our our  Director of Family Ministries, has caught on to this and is engaging them. So they feel part of  it, they feel like they're heard they feel like they belong. Another criticism, they say helping  the poor is not a priority. They see the church is taking in resources and just using it to keep  on doing it. You know, there's that old statement about the well, where somebody came and  saw this oil well, and the owner happened to be there and began talking with him and say,  Well, how much do you produce, and he's produced enough to keep the well going. And that's the way they look at the church, we just produce enough to keep the church going. And they  have a sense of the heart of Jesus for the poor, they don't see the church engaging, by trying  to solve the problems of the poor. And so that's a criticism. If you're going to plan the Ministry  for millennials, you've got to keep that in mind. They distrust the use of resources. In other  words, they see money being given to the church, but they've had so many examples of  church leaders who have abused that opportunity that they distrust, things that are given to  the local church, and they'll seek other ministries to give their money to, they have a longing  to be mentored. In other words, they want to have somebody come alongside them because  their life is so confusing in general, that they want somebody to help them walk through a  way but they don't know how to go about that. And so the ministry that reaches millennials, is going to have to provide some mentoring, and need to be valued. That's very close to what I  was saying with somebody listening, and no place for outsiders. They see the church as pretty closed. It hasn't been open to people coming in, who are like them. I was writing this  preparing this lecture. I thought of the first church I served where we actually had a pew fall  apart and it fell on the back of a woman And she sued the church as a result. And so we had  to work through that process of a lawsuit. And one of the things we had to do was look at our  pews and realize they were old. And they were crotchety. And so we decided to get new pews. And so we did this campaign with this little tiny church, it was only about 100 people. And we  said, you know, let's, let's each family that can, Let's donate a pew. And so they did. And we  were in a short time able to purchase new pews that increased our seating, so we able to  grow a little bit more on our worship attendance. And, and it also created some problems you  see, because we had a couple of families who purchase pews, and they thought they 

purchased the pew that they were sitting in. And so they would come in, visitors would come  in and would like to sit in the back, as they often would come in and try to get out. They really don't want to engage a great deal the first time. And yet, this family would come in later and  say I'm sorry, you're sitting in my place, in my pew, so they don't see a church as being open  

to outsiders. So what kind of church do you build? If you're going to reach millennials, if you're looking at engaging that culture that the way we do things here? Well, one of the things you  have to do is be Kingdom minded? In other words, what are the things that Jesus was really  concerned about? You find that he wasn't concerned about political power, a great deal. He  says very little about that. Does Jesus we got a couple of statements in in the writings of Paul, how we are to pray for leaders, even even kings, etc. But Jesus only has this one encounter  where they they try to do try to trick him by saying with a coin, you know, do we pay taxes to  Caesar or not? He says, Give me a coin whose images on it? It's Caesar's. Well, let me says  Give to Caesar, what Caesar's and to God what is God's. We in the United States became  obsessed, like to get political power over the years, and the millennials reject that entirely,  things like the organization's that used to exist by the evangelical organizations like the Moral Majority, and sadly, don't want any part of getting political power, they want to make a  difference in the world, they want to make a difference in people's lives. They want a tangible. In fact, there's some old statements about you know, why people will give to various causes.  Well, the builder generation will give just because they're faithful and giving. And so my  mother-in-law is 92 years old, is a builder. And she shops at the same stores. She buys gas at  the same gas station, and she gives money to her church, and she gives money to the  denomination and she'd go without food, if it meant she couldn't give regularly to her church  or denomination. Whereas my generation said, We want bang for the buck. We're not just  going to give money, we want to see that it's doing something and the next generation, the  busters. And then the millennials more want to see that they are engaged in the solutions.  They don't want to just give the money away, they want to see things that they can become  involved in. In the church I just finished serving, one of the big things we did was ministry to  Honduras. And these college kids will work, work, work, work, delayed gratification, but will  work throughout the year would save throughout the year, so that they could take a trip to  Honduras in June, and make a difference there among orphans. And among people who are  had not clean, didn't have clean water to drink didn't have the basics of life, like a latrine that  was safe. So they want to make a difference. It's got to be communicable. They communal,  excuse me, they talk about relationships being a priority in their very related group of people.  They are concerned about justice. And so they're going to stand for justice. And they have a  nose for authenticity that if you're just playing a role, or playing a game of some sorts, they  don't want any part of it whatsoever. And so how do you build a church like that? Well, the  question is, Who are you trying to reach? I've given you just a couple of examples. I've tried to create a picture of American culture, but then within that American culture, a slice a  generational slice of the culture, to try to give you an idea of how to go about this idea of  thinking culturally, who are you trying to reach? What is their culture, like? What strategies  might work in reaching them? Now, one example, I have a daughter, who is in a church in St.  Louis, Missouri. When she went there, she was going to Washington University. That's why she and her now husband moved from Michigan when my daughter moved from California, my  son-in-law from Michigan moved there in order to get an education at Washington University.  They became part of a church and that church had a college age group within the church  within the congregation. And so they join that college age group met In a bar on Sunday  nights, it was rather interesting experience. I go to worship with them a few times. But that  group of people decided that it was important to reach their generation for Jesus Christ. And  so they decided to start a church. They looked around the neighborhoods and said, Now  where would we feel God called by God to reach people who are our age who are in our  generation. And they targeted an area that was being gentrified as Lafayette Square  Lafayette Park area. And they ended up starting all of these single people, and they met for  over a year trying to learn the culture, they moved into that community. And then for a year,  they just met people. And they devised a church. First of all, the church was engaged in  service, they didn't do worship for the first year and a half that they existed. But everybody in

the church had a volunteer position in the community. In fact my daughter met people  because she volunteered at working with animals. And there was an animal park nearby, she  volunteered to clean it up. They had a dog and she'd bring the dog and she'd meet people  there. But but it was this idea of service, how are we serving the community, and through that service to engage people who would hopefully see the service part of the church and become  engaged in it. When they began worship, they define worship very carefully to fit the culture,  they found that the area where they were living was a made up of young adults of course  millenials. But a lot of them were kind of artsy in their, in their lifestyle. They were artists and  musicians as well as artists who paint and, and artists who write. And so they, they, they  research, what, what would reach this group of people, they did surveys door to door surveys, what will what would you like to see in a worship service. And they found that they were going to sing hymns rather than newer worship songs, because the story of the hymns was very  important. So first, they do it in a little in an upbeat way. But that was a big decision for them. And then they said, you know, we can't just come and sit in our chairs at what, at the  beginning. And we can't get we've got to have interaction, that communal interaction. So in  their worship service, they have set aside time, that is part of their worship, but they just  stop, you know, they've been singing some songs, they do some prayer together, and then  they stop. And they also go and get a cup of coffee, and they get a doughnut or they get a  piece of fruit. And they all sit in chat for a while to deepen community. And then in addition to  that, everybody who's a member of that church becomes part of a life group as it's called, in  other words, people with whom you do life, and they meet weekly on Sunday evenings. And  so it's got this community aspect to it as well. And so each of those life groups adopts  ministries, various places, in that idea of Kingdom building. Now, this group started, of course, they started all as single now they're old enough that they all have children, that original  group, but the church has grown. Just a year and a half ago, they were able to purchase a  building, which is right in Lafayette Square it was used to be a Baptist church many years  ago, the building on the left is a picture of a school that they they recognized that it was  important to provide some education in that area. So they created a charter school that is not officially a ministry of the church, but the church members served on the board of that school, because they the schools in St. Louis have a bad reputation. So they thought here we can, we  can minister to this culture, we can touch this culture with education. They took that building,  they rehabbed it, they've made it a beautiful place. It was it was derelict for many, many  years. And now I got to visit there with them a few weeks ago. And now you see not just that  original group of 30 or 40 people who started this church. But now there's a couple of 100  people attending. And it's downright interesting to go in there because I was by far the oldest  person there. Now they complain about that they recognize the need now to become  intergenerational, because there's nobody who's helping take care of their kids. And so  they've been reaching out to other churches, seeking to get some older couples to come in  and help with the outreach. But anyway, that's one example of a church that looks at the  culture and says, How do we reach this culture positively? How do we reach it effectively? And they've done a wonderful job of it. So in the next session, we're going to talk about how do  you look at your culture? How do you define in your ministry or ministry you're working with  or our organization that you're a part of, how do you go about figuring out what is this culture  that we're part of? And then how do you figure out how do we mold this culture that we're  part of as leadership involves change, changing culture? to a preferred future so we'll talk to  you next time