Reaching and Including Millennials - Challenges and Opportunities for the Church

Bjorn Ottesen

BibliographyArweck, Elisabeth, ed. Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity. 1 edition. London ; New York: Routledge, 2016.

Barna Group. “5 Reasons Millennial Stay Connected to Church,” 2013. https://www.barna.com/research/5-reasons-millennials-stay-connected-to-church/.

Brady, Loretta L. C., and Amanda Hapenny. “Giving Back and Growing in Service: Investigating Spirituality, Religiosity, and Generativity in Young Adults.” Journal of Adult Development 17 (2010): 162–67.

Brown, Halina Szejnwald, and Philip J. Vergragt. “From Consumerism to Wellbeing: Toward a Cultural Transition?” Journal of Cleaner Production 132 (2016): 308–17.

Brown, Megan B. “Relationships Matter: The Impact of Relationships upon Emerging Adult Retention.” Christian Education Journal, 3, 13, no. 1 (2016).

Bush, Andrew F., and Carolyn C. Wason. Millennials and the Mission of God: A Prophetic Dialogue. Wipf and Stock, 2017.

Couser, Tom. Relevant: The Church as It Relates to Millennials. WestBowPress, 2016.

Doering, Chelsey. Myth of the Millennial: Connecting Generations in the Church. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2017.

Dyck, Drew. Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith. and How to Bring Them Back. Chicago: Moody Press,U.S., 2010.

Evans, Rachel Held. “Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church.” CNN Belief Blog, July 27, 2013. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/.

Hobart, Buddy, and Herb Sendek. Gen Y Now: Millennials and the Evolution of Leadership. 2nd Revised edition . San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

Bibliography contd.Jenkin, Clint, and A. Allan Martin. “Engaging Adventist Millennials: A Church That Embraces Relationships.” Ministry Magazine, May 2014. https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2014/05/engaging-adventist-millennials.

Lee, Leslie. Millennial Faith. USA: No place given.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.

Lyons, Gabe. The Next Christians: The Good News about the End of Christian America. New York: Doubleday Religion, 2010.

McFarland, Alex, and Jason Jimenez. Abandoned Faith: Why Millennials Are Walking Away and How You Can Lead Them Home. Carol Stream, Illinois: Focus on the Family Publishing, 2017.

Raymo, Jim. Millennials and Mission: A Generation Faces a Global Challenge. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library Publishers, 2014.

Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious. New York: OUP USA, 2014.

Seel, John. The New Copernicans. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2018.

Smith, D. K. Millennial Voice: Why Do Millennials Think That? Independently published, 2017.

Stavris, David Rudrum and Nicholas. Supplanting the Postmodern. First Edition. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Sturtevant, Dr Karen. The Christian Millennial: Leading Generations in a Secular World. 2nd Edition edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.

Twenge, Jean M. IGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us. New York London Toronto: Atria Books, 2017.

Disclaimer.

1. Not all Millennials are the same

2. The Holy Spirit is real and can do what we do not expect.

Millennials

Born 1980-2000.

NAD Millennials about SDA Church

• intolerant of doubt,

• elitist in its relationships,

• anti-science in its beliefs,

• overprotective of its members,

• shallow in its teachings,

• repressive of differences

Clint Jenkin and Allan Martin, “Engaging Adventist Millennials: A Church That Embraces Relationships,” Ministry Magazine, May 2014.

Pluralism taken for granted.

• Increased travel

• Immigration

• Higher education

• Modern media

• The Internet

Pluralism

Values:

• Authenticity

• Tolerance

• Acceptance

• Understanding

• Respect

• Listening

• Curiosity

• Interest

PluralismFellowship does not need to be based on agreement and common understanding. Differences are seen as positive and interesting.

Andrew F. Bush and Carolyn C. Wason, Millennials and the Mission of God: A Prophetic Dialogue (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2017) 58-60.

Pluralism

If community no longer is built on the acceptance of the same propositional truths and/or shared world-views or values, and if pluralism is taken for granted, the very basis for traditional denominationalism is gone.

Bush and Wason, 46.

Pluralism - TENSION

If the Church is promoting a monoculture where all believe the same and have the same lifestyle, it is on

collision course with the Millennial perception of community.

Individualism- joining the

group on one’s own terms

Pluralism and individualism seem to

feed into each other.

Three generations

Growing up in the 30ies and 40ies

Growing up on the 50ies and 60ies

Growing up in the 80ies and 90ies

Individualism

“For Marianne [growing up in the 1980s], groups do not constitute a theme for conflict. If she no longer finds that a group fits her sense of self, she will simply leave it. For her, it is her subjective self that determines her religious worldviews, morality, and group membership.”

Inger Furseth, From Quest for Truth to Being Oneself (Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang, 2006), 297–98.

Individualism

Previous generations submitted to the group and had an identity as “Adventists.”

Younger generations have an identity in themselves and choose to visit or be part of a community on their own terms.

Individualism

• Individualism is not ego-centrism or selfishness.

• It is living life with one’s own authentic self as a main reference point.

• Community is still important

Individualism - TENSION

If the Church holds loyalty and submission to the institution as a category for belonging, this conflicts with the Millennials’ value of

loyalty to own convictions.

Individualism

2013, https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/national-individualism-collectivism-scores/

Authenticity- truthful, genuine and transparent

To be authentic and genuine does involve being transparent and vulnerable. For many Millennials to express one’s weaknesses, faults, sins and mistakes is just as important as the mention of success and strengths.

Authenticity

Millennials willingly share their failures, doubts and brokenness expecting others to do the same.

Tolerance and acceptance are prerequisites for this behaviour.Seel, John. The New Copernicans, 130, 145-149.

Authenticity - TENSION

If the Church keep presenting faith, joy, high ideals and one-sided success stories without also acknowledging pain, doubt, frustrations, suffering,

mistakes and defeat, it will stand as less than truthful and become irrelevant to Millennials.

(Truthful pro-s and con-s when arguing.)

Epistemology

Coming out of the aftermath of the Enlightenment the SDA Church has had a “modern” approach to information, an optimistic view of the human ability to interpret and understand and an appreciation of certainty and being right. This approach was thoroughly challenged in the postmodern period – the second half of the 20th century.

Epistemology

The postmodern:

It is all about interpretation

– the viewpoint of each individual.

Relativism.

Epistemology- after postmodernism

Leaving the postmodern – for what?

Neil Brooks notes that there is a shift towards a kind of neo-realism – a new faith in the possibility of finding “meaning , truth, representational accuracy etc.” But as other cultural critics will agree, the western world is not turning back to the “imperatives of 19th century modernism.”

“A Wake and Renewed” from Brooks, Neil. The Mourning After: Attending the Wake of Postmodernism. (Amsterdam/Boston: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2007). published in Stavris, Supplanting the Postmodern, 216.

Epistemology– living in the ”perhaps”*

Pontier and DeVries comments on the impact it [the uncertainty of knowledge] has on young people in their struggle with faith and the Church:

“. . . Millennials live in a world of ‘both/and.’

They live in a world of paradox, and embracing paradox might just be a key to reaching them.”

Scott Pontier and Mark DeVries, Reimagining Young Adult Ministry: A Guidebook for the Ordinary Church, 1 edition (Nashville, TN: Stone Publishing, 2017), 96.

*Josh Toth, The Passing of Postmodernism: A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary (Albany: SUNY Press, 2010) published in Stavris, 219.

Epistemology

Being the most educated generation in the history of the western world, Millennials are sceptical to those who claim to know things for certain.

They are perfectly happy to live in a pluralistic context and with open questions. It is more important to be authentic than right.

Things are not measured by their theoretical correctness, but by experience and practical results.

Alex McFarland and Jason Jimenez, Abandoned Faith: Why Millennials Are Walking Away and How You Can Lead Them Home (Carol Stream, Illinois: Focus on the Family Publishing, 2017), 116.

Epistemology - TENSION

An organisation or individual who make too strong truth claims, might come across as arrogant - or even stupid - by a generation that has learned to appreciate the uncertainty of knowledge.

Spirituality– “Spiritual, not Religious”

“Spirituality” used to be related to religious practices by religious people. This connection is no longer taken for granted.

The term spirituality is now used for the quest for meaning, having deeper values, altruism, authenticity, practicing tolerance, prioritising relationships and taking responsibility. These are not necessarily related to religious beliefs.

Spirituality

Spirituality for many Millennials is unrelated to doctrinal positions, dogmatic statements and organised religion. Rather, there is an emphasis on authenticity, values, relationships, altruism and for some an acknowledgement of a transcendent reality.

Spirituality

Discussing what kind of apologetic for the Christian faith that works for the Millennials, McFarland and Jimenez state that “The compelling truth Millennials truly seek is found in an authentic life.”

McFarland and Jimenez, Abandoned Faith, 60.

Spirituality - TENSION

As a caricature, SDA spirituality has largely been about believing the right thing. Millennials see spirituality in values, social engagement and responsibility, social justice, relationships and the meaning of life.

Discussion

New angles on

• Pluralism

• Individualism

• Authenticity

• Epistemology

• Spirituality

Millennial perception of church

• intolerant of doubt,

• elitist in its relationships,

• anti-science in its beliefs,

• overprotective of its members,

• shallow in its teachings,

• repressive of differences

Opportunities1. Epistemology + Spirituality:

Change the world. Live for a cause. (Not a system.)2. Pluralism + individualism + authenticity:

Dialogue is in. Monologue is out. All should be heard.3. Authenticity + Epistemology:

Recognise all sides of life. (Ps. 88) Pain. “I do not know/ understand.” Not perfectionism.

4. Plurality + Individualism:Belonging based on common cause. Hiebert: Bounded set and Centre set.

5. Spirituality + epistemology:Orthodoxy/ orthopraxis. Believe the “right thing” or do the “right thing.

6. Spirituality.Prayer, Holy Spirit, The supernatural, God’s leading. Strong values, Relationships . . .

Paths to faith/ church involvement?

Cognitive/ Intellectual understanding

Spirituality/ Experience

Service/ MissionCorporate Worship/ Fellowship

Thanks.