Generation X

Jesus

Newsweek’s hipster Jesus article all hype

How do sell copies of a dying medium? Put a hipster looking Jesus on the cover. It’s kind of interesting… the whole, “What if God was a dude?” routine. Hipster, yeah, it has been done before and we get it. Not really surprising.

What is more shocking is that Newsweek thinks Jesus is an Anglo-Saxon looking dude who doesn’t like buttons but snaps on his shirt. The Atlantic thinks he looks more like an Urban Outfitters Jesus. Give the cover a look and you decide which one it is:

The cover article is by Andrew Sullivan and he writes of the decline of Christianity. It takes him about 500 words to get to the point: Christianity is in crisis. I’m not troubled by the inaccurate depiction of Jesus or that Sullivan tells us what we already know about Christianity, but that he makes a bold statement without follow through. The article accurately describes the crisis but without remedy. Sullivan goes into great detail about how Thomas Jefferson and his edited ‘Bible’ sought to make faith palatable and how that’s supposed to correlate to solving the crisis.

The article really does not contribute anything to discussion of how to concretely connect Christianity to post-moderns or to enact reform. Sullivan writes, Continue Reading…

social media, White House

Three ways social media impacted my White House meeting

Yep, that’s me there tweeting away. (Photo: EthicsDaily.com)

As many of your know, I’m finishing up on reflecting upon my meeting with the Executive Office of the President and White House staff (read part 1 and part 2). It was an honor to be among 60 other Baptists who met with several advisers to the President. One of the unusual facets of this meeting was a media blackout. None of the tradition media outlets were allowed in this meeting.

The media blackout arose from the administration’s frustrations that past clergy leader meetings were nothing more than a photo opportunity. This meeting was supposed to be different, and so it was. We attendees were allow to tweet during the meeting and used the hashtag #BaptistsatWH. This created a direct link to our friends, congregation members, followers, and community individuals back home. Our four-hour long meeting was unencumbered by reporters interrupting or distracting from the meeting’s goal.

My friend and fellow pastor Dr. William Shiell and I discussed how the administration had a message they wanted to communicate. The byproduct of a media blackout, but social media friendly meeting is threefold:

faith, family, religion

Parents Not Guiding Children Through Faith

Poll after poll shows that Generation Y is not living the faith patterns of previous generations. Many parents of Generation Y choose not to “force” religion upon their children because of their negative experiences with church or because postmodernity has enabled them to see all truths as equal. It seems that parents are not bringing their children to church on a regular basis, not sharing the family story of religion, and are not making religion a part of their family of creation’s life.

NPR interviewed Asra Nomani, professor of journalism at Georgetown University; Kara Powell, author of Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids; and Regina Brett, author of God Never Blinks. You can listen to the interview here.

One of the churches that we’ve been working closely with asked 20 kids it they knew how their parents decided to become Christians. And zero of the 20 kids knew how their parents became Christians, knew about that process. And so to me that’s just a wake-up call for all of us, regardless of what religious tradition or creative tradition we are following right now, to simply talk with our kids, ask questions and listen.

Religion and spirituality in America is becoming so individualistic that we are not sharing our faith experiences with our children. Based on Nomani’s book, this is a culture which is quickly losing their family faith connections. Nomani even reflected personally on her research:

I went back-to-school shopping with my three kids. We tumbled into the minivan for the drive home and I wanted to put on a song that was meaningful to me. So I put on a worship song, a song that talked about how God has changed our lives. And before our research I would have just put the song on and not talked about it at all. But because of our research I put the song on and then I said to my kids, guys, would you like to know why I chose this song and why it’s meaningful to me? And they said, yeah, sure, Mom. So I told them. So I think part of what, regardless of our faith tradition, our opportunity for us as parents is to share, both from our past as well as our present, our spiritual highs and lows.

Somewhere in American family life, parents have come to believe that teaching faith is an injustice because the child has not had a chance to make a decision. Parents teach all types of things to their children in which their child has no choice. Ethics, morality, table manners, family vacations, educational priories, when they can date, what friends they can hang out with, what they can eat, what they can watch, and what music or video is deemed appropriate. The family table is full of guiding principles.

Why is religion not on that family table too?

change, Church Leadership, Churches, Culture

Why 9 in 10 Believe in God but not Church

Many in the religious right have been running for the hills because this “godless” nation has become too secular. The rhetoric of our nation’s direction is flawed by the growth of atheists and secularists is over played. It seems a recent Gallup study confirmed what has simply is unknown to many: We are still a religious nation. More than 9 in 10 Americans still say “yes” when asked the basic question “Do you believe in God?” Perhaps even more encouraging is that 84% of 18-29 year-old segment and 94% of 30-49 year-old segment answered in the affirmative.

And this is not a statistical bump, but historically, since 1943, the vast majority of Americans believe in “God”.

It would seem that we are still a religious nation, but obviously church leaders want to know how many of those 90 plus percent are Christian. Logically, many ask the question, “If we are such a God-believing country, then why is church attendance so low?”

Generation X, Generation Y, Millennials

Millennials value Parenting more than Marriage

A recent Pew Poll and study among 18-25 year-old adults found that parenting is more important than marriage. The majority of Millennials, (generally those born between 1982 and 1995) about 52%, said being a good parent is “one of the most important things” in life. About 30% said the same about having a successful marriage. This Pew Poll points out that there is a 22 percentage point gap in the way Millennials value parenthood over marriage.

Sometimes called “Generation Y”, Millennials differed from their Generation X counterparts:

When this same question was posed to 18- to 29-year-olds in 1997, the gap was just 7 percentage points. Back then, 42% of the members of what is known as Generation X said being a good parent was one of the most important things in life, while 35% said the same about having a successful marriage.

What does this mean?

worship

Age Segregation in Church

In the last 30 years, age-segmented worship was an unforeseen effect of the contemporary worship movement within Christianity. What has developed in many (not all) churches are two worship services. A traditional service with older adults and a commentary service with younger adults. This results into a type of age segregation in congregations.

Rev. Tullian Tchividjian the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, TN is one ~~successful~~ example of a leader who end years of age-segmented worship in his churc.h This process was not easy for Tchividjian, but he gives us an important reality of age separation in worship:

The primary reason, though, that stylistic segregation in worship shrinks our souls is because it prevents us from knowing God deeply. The only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself. This means the great tragedy of segregation isn’t so much that we see less of each other but that in separating from each other we see less of God. All of us need other lights than our own to see more of his myriad facets.

Will we see a reversal of age segregation in worship services in churches in the United States?

Most likely, we will not see a drastic change. However, you will see a large minority of churches in the next 10 years beginning to have blended worship. Robert Webber, considered the father of modern blended worship, proclaimed in several books that the way to enrich our worship is through both the proven practices of our shared historical Christian heritage and modern approaches to worship.

Leonard Sweet, professor and author, continues to speak about the four keys to worship that is passionate and connects the people. No matter what the worship tradition, churches that are reaching people are doing four things “EPIC”:

Experiential – worshipers encounter the Divine
Participatory – worshipers do more than sit
Image Based – symbols and images are used
Connective – the worship connects people to people and people to God

At my church, we continue to slowly employ various forms of authentic Christian worship and music. We sing contemporary songs, hymns, responses, pray printed prayers, pray in silence, pray informally, gather, hear the word, use multimedia, use different ways to receive communion, use organ, piano, guitar, bass, choir, song leaders, and use a diverse mix of worship styles. It is a tension of beloved methods of worship and new.

The future of American churches depends on how church leaders can adapt and worship in authentic ways and not use gimmicks. Remember, Christ commanded us to make disciples, not converts. The glam of emotionally charged, arm twisting, and entertainment based worship tends to produce converts. We need richer worship practices.

People want to experience God. People want to have spiritual encounters with God and that can be done by including everyone: young, old, youth, children, black, white, gen-X, gen-y, and Baby Boomers. Let us end the segregation in worship by having a rich, diverse, and authentic worship that praises God and feeds the worshiper.

Albany

A Pastor Goes to smAlbany…

No, it is not the start to a lame joke, but I served as a panelist at smAlbany. smAlbany is a yearly small business gathering put on by Liberteks.com. This year was the 5th Annual smAlbany Small Business Expo. smAlbany focuses on the technology aspect of networking, business, and career development. I quickly discovered that smAlbany is a pejorative term for Albany, NY – “small-bany” The urban dictionary even has an entry for it.

So how did a pastor end up on a panel for a business expo? Good question. In addition to my blog here, I also blog for the Times Union Newspaper as their protestant religion blogger. Michael Huber, the online content manger, thought it would be a great idea to have me as a panelist on the subject of, “Local Social Media and Your Customers.” In addition to myself, the panel consisted of

Vic Christopher, Assistant General Manager, Tri-City ValleyCats
Merci Miglino, Speaker, trainer, and author
Sonja Stark, Videographer and owner of PilotGirl Productions
Lissa DAquanni, Adjunct Professor and small business owner

As you can see, it is a very eclectic mix of people and professions. I would say the seminar was well attended and provided people loads of information on social media. Alright, enough with the background. You are probably thinking, “What did they talk about?”

Generation Y, Millennials

Shocker: Young Adults Want ‘Religion’

In churches, we often hear the warning giving to youth off to college, “You’ll lose your faith in college.” All those competing ideas about religion, philosophy, and knowledge working against everything a church has built up! I once had an old timer in my home church tell me right before I left for seminary, “Be careful, you can lose your faith in seminary!” Is there something about education and youth that are dangerous? Sordid stories of youth going wild in early adulthood often lead people to think that young people want nothing to do with church, God, religion or faith.

In a surprising new study, we have learned that young adults/youth actually want a life of faith and religious practices. Duke Divinity’s Faith and Leadership blog sums up the study:

In the National Study of Youth and Religion, 72 percent of young adults said they had positive feelings about the religious tradition in which they were raised. And nearly half of the young adults in the religion panel study said they would like to attend worship services more often.

The fact that most young people have “positive feelings” towards their religious tradition and nearly half of respondents want to go to church more, should tell us something about Generation Y.

So, how can churches reach these young people?

Book Review, Book Reviews

Book Review: NuChristian

As part of Judson Press’ blog tour for Russell Rathbun’s new book, nuChristian: finding faith in a new generation, I have had the wonderful opportunity to preview and review this insightful book. In addition, Wednesday of this week, I will feature a Q & A with Russell about his new book. On Friday, Russell will be featured as a guest blogger.

nuChristian begins with a very brief forward by author and activist Shane Claiborne (fellow Eastern University alum), of the Simple Way. Claiborne, known for being a radical voice and champion for the poor, harmonizes with Rathbun’s message of how Christianity must shape “nuChristians”. That is, Christians who are no longer identified by hypocritical actions, scandal, and hot button issues.

In the preface, Rathbun lays out that the purpose of this book is to join the conversation of David Kinnamen’s book UnChristian. Back in 1996, Kinnamen’s Barna Group, found that 83% of Americans identified themselves as Christians, and that fewer than 20% of non-Christians held an unfavorable view of Christianity. Between 2004 and 2007, nine out of ten non-Christians between the ages of 16-29 found Christians to be too anti-homosexual. In addition, almost as many saw Christianity as it as “hypocritical” and “judgmental.” Seventy-five percent of non-Christians thought Christians were too involved in politics. UnChristian used these statistics and made the case that non-Christian resentment is focused on perceived Christian attitudes. Kinnaman used these statistics to form a bleak picture of Western Christianity.

Generation Y

What You Don’t Know About Generation Y

The Baby Boomer generation is often thought as the generation that worked hard, help get us where we are, and was the backbone of the 20th century. Now that Baby Boomers are retiring, many have asked the question, “Who will take their place?” Generation X? No.

Generation Y (the Millennials).

Within 5-10 years, Generation Y will be the largest generation of our time — some think it is already. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 60 to 78 million fall into Generation Y. The typical Generation Y’er is internet savvy, technology driven, socially linked, and was born somewhere between 1977-1995. Generation X is only third of the size of Generation Y.

Why should you care? This is why:

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