#5 – We’re Skeptical
We’re exposed to more ad impressions in a month today than any other previous generation experienced in a lifetime. I’m sitting in a hotel room writing this, and in this room (which I paid for in part to have privacy), I see more than a dozen marketing messages. If I turn on the TV, they’re there. Pick up my phone, they’re there. Online…you get the point.
So whereas generations before us expended energy seeking information out, now it comes at us in such overwhelming volumes that we spend at least the same amount of energy filtering things out.
This leads to somewhat of a calcifying of the senses, always assuming that whoever is trying to get your attention wants something, just like everyone else.
#6 – We’re Exhausted
I was lumped in as part of the Generation X group, also known as the Slacker Generation. This implied, of course, that we were lazy and unmotivated.
But consider how many of us go to college compared to generations before us. And consider that the baseline standard for family economics requires a two-income revenue stream to live in any level of the middle class.
Debt and credit are givens, and working full-time while also trying to maintain a marriage, raise kids, have friends and—God forbid—have some time left for ourselves leaves us with less than nothing.
We’re always running a deficit. So when you ask me to set aside more time and more money for church, you’re trying to tap already empty reserves.
#7 – We Don’t Get It
Young adults today are the most un-churched generation in a long time. In many cases, it’s not that we’re walking away from church; we never went in.
From what I can tell from the outside, there’s not much relevance to my life in there, and I’m not about to take the risk of walking through the door to find out otherwise.
I’ve tried to offer insight into what might be done about a few of these issues as I went, but I invite you also to sit with the tension of not having the answers. Better yet, seek some young adults out, ask those young adults if they relate to these. And see if they have ideas about what you (maybe not even “church,” but you) can do to help relieve some of the challenges.
I think the conversation that follows might pleasantly surprise you.
