Whether talking about social institutions, political ones, or religious ones, efforts to manage change that don't actually involve change are doomed to failure. Especially when people can vote with their feet.
"I don’t think that anything we said mattered much because I don’t think any of it was what they wanted to hear. What they wanted to hear was some secret trick that would enable them to bring Gen X-ers back to church as faithfully obedient spectators in the pews without the church having to make any changes to the way things have always been done. And emphatically without any change in who had always been in charge of doing it. They didn’t really want to hear about how the way they had shaped the church might need to change in response to the new generation. Instead, they wanted to find some way of changing the new generation to make it conform to the way they had shaped the church."
Christianity in this country is, in fact, dependent on the Millennial generation, just as it's been dependent on the Boomers. And for Millennials, there are far more options out there, both in terms of other faiths and in terms of not being churchgoing (or even religious) at all. How Christian churches will convince the Millennials to stick with them — and what that will actually mean in terms of how those churches evolve — will be fascinating to see.
And, for some folks, terrifying. Because for too many Christians, especially socially prominent Christian "leaders," remaining the ones "in charge of going it," not to mention being the leaders of the majority religious faith in this country is far more important than what their faith actually means and does. It's a battle for social and cultural dominance, not for personal salvation and discerning and acting on God's will, and that desperate battle will only increase as the numbers continue to change. #ddtb
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slacktivist » Millennials will change the future of the church
Tweet. First let me tell you a story from almost 20 years ago. My buddy Dwight and I were arguing over what I was going to wear to a meeting. “I'm not a catcher,” I told him. Catchers have to wear…