Millennials: Ready or Not, Here They Are
by Lawrence Downing
Millennials: Ready or Not, Here They Are!!!
Millennials: Those born between 1982 and 2003
Number of: 95 million plus
Methods: Networking
Effect: Disrupt existing orgs and institutions
The book, Millennial Momentum how a new Generation is Remaking America, by Morley Wineograd and Michael D. Hais (Rutgers University Press, 2011) serves as an informative guide to organizations and individuals that wish to better understand and navigate the ever-changing American cultural landscape. The Seventh-day Adventist church, its members, pastors and administrators might learn from the authors’ research and findings.
In the first chapter, the authors compare two speeches by two United States presidents, Lynden Johnson and Barack Obama. Each was delivered to an audience that gathered in the University of Michigan football stadium. President Johnson gave his speech in May, 1964. President Obama was the graduation speaker 46 years later. Both presidents challenged their hearers to be part of rebuilding a new America and urged them to participate in revitalizing our country. The hearers were implored by each president to restore a sense of community and restore American’s values.
When President Johnson spoke, he addressed the last of the GI Generation, who in 1964 were at the height of their generation’s political influence. These people lived at the end of the Great Depression. They had witnessed the threat of fascism. The president couched his remarks in military language, vocabulary his audience well understood. He asked whether his audience was willing to join him to create the Great Society; to join him in the battle to enable every citizen to escape debilitating poverty; to join the battle to enable all people to experience an enduring peace so that all will experience a richer life of mind and spirit.
The authors observe that President Johnson’s audience did not rise to the challenge. The Baby Boom Generation arrived on campuses the next semester, not to climb on the president’s band wagon, but to join the parade to protest the president’s war in Vietnam and the beliefs of the GI generation. The debate over abortion and other civil rights would divide the nation for the next forty years.
President Obama’s speech, in contrast, was delivered at the beginning of a new era of economic upheaval and political debate. He, as the president elected through the efforts of the Millennials reflected the attitudes and beliefs of this new generation whose numbers were greater even than the Boomers. He assured his hearers that government would help Americans respond to change. He identified what he termed “two strands of DNA.” One segment of society believes in a limited government; another affirms that government, though limited in its power, can help us respond to change. He said there are some things that can be done only when we work together, and government must keep pace with the times.
In addition to calling for togetherness of purpose, the president called for people to engage in discourse that did not question the motivation or patriotism of those on either side of the debate. This, he said, is what makes us Americans. We can, at the end of the day, look past all our differences; all our disagreements and still create a common future.
For his third point, the president called people to engage in public life. He invited them to take up the call of President John Kennedy who announced the creation of the Peace Corps on the very campus where President Obama addressed the students. In this call, President Obama stuck the resonating chord: the members of the graduating class, the millennials, wanted to serve. They wanted to be engaged and they expected to make a difference.
Prior to the president’s speech, Alex Marston, a member of the senior class, addressed his classmates. He pointed out that while they want change, they are afraid of it. He noted that he and his classmates grow uneasy as the world around changes. This statement provides opportunity for the book’s authors to ask a defining question: “was the country ready to embrace the changes the president advocated or would it continue to adhere to the beliefs and practices of its past?” This is the point where the challenge of the millennials intersects with the life and practices of the Seventh-day Adventist church, or any other organization. How will we respond when millennials interact with Adventism?
Wineograd and Hais, in their study of the millennials, inform us that this, the largest of any other previous American generation, will influence every aspect of society: how we learn, vote, entertain ourselves and how we worship. Millennials value community. As a diverse group, they are unified in beliefs that will change America and all its institutions. They are oriented toward one another, as evidenced by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, Linkedln, and numerous other social networks.
In the workplace, millennials open up corporate life. They consult with their friends from other companies. They are not driven by individual values, although they have values. They are highly pragmatic. They solve personal and societal problems by working at the local level. Their methods are to bring change from the bottom up. They do not respect a top down management style. The millennials will manifest the same disruption in American society that we saw in the Arab spring and in the music industry. They will shake up every institution that thinks things can be controlled or directed from those at the top. It is not that they reject government. No, they look to government and other institutions to provide guidance and assist to implement policy.
Wineograd and Hais are emphatic: Millennials cannot be ignored! If America is to have a clear sense of where it is headed in the future it is essential to have a clear understanding of the behaviors and attitudes that drives this generation. Is it any less important for the Adventist church and its leaders on every level to be less concerned? Less aware? And if we continue on our present course what then?
If Wineograd and Hais are correct in their conclusions, the Adventist church is in for a major institutional shock as millennials mature and make their presence known in the local parish. We have not prepared our congregations to incorporate the thinking that millennials hold. Our hierarchical management style is incompatible with how millennials think and function. How our local congregations (remember — millennials work from the bottom up!) respond to the opportunities that the millennials provide may well determine whether we thrive as a Christian organization or whether we become the equivalent of the Shakers or Christian Scientists, as one more obsolete or irrelevant organization on the religious bone pile.
Major institutional shock? Maybe not. If we keep driving millenials out of the church at the same rate we have been in recent years, by the time they take control there may not be much church left for them to take over. The Shakers, Quakers and other religious movements faded quickly into insignificance and oblivion because they became spiritually irrelevant to their youth. This should be an alarm call to finding ways the church can become attractive to them, a requirement many congregations will not be able to achieve.
The current "Occupy Wall Street" message that is being duplicated all across this nation is representatve of the young and willing, but largely unemployed and untapped potential for changes that will be made in the coming years. Refusing to listen to their needs and concerns could mean the death of the institutions that will not listen; top-down management is dead in the water; corruption in the highest echelons of government, business and even the church does not go unnoticed. They are demanding a voice in the boardroom and a place at the table.
Elaine,
But those in the baby boomer generations (myself included) thought they would change the world too and held protests. But most of them ended up being more materialistic than the "greatest generation" before them who went through the war. The BB spoiled their kids and gave them everything (generalizing here) and that has influenced the current generations in society. I don't think it is BB so much in the church that has held on to traditions but those before them who write a lot of letters. But on the other hand, SDAs are always behind the general society, so maybe they, too, were out of touch.
I'm not convinced that pigeonholing groups according to when they were born (Baby Boomers, Gen Xer's, etc.) is all that helpfull. "People is people and folks is folks." Teenagers are teenagers, and always have been. Some get into trouble and some don't. Those who grew up in different eras have had different experiences, but they've all had to learn to cope with the challenges of that era. Human nature remains the same. Some fit the descriptions attached to their "group," and some don't. Reading the Bible and the stories of the various characters, most of us can see ourselves somewhere in there, whether it be the boastful Peter, the Pharisaical Saul, or the scheming Judas.
Are we really "driving millenials out of the church," or is it that we have failed to properly ground them in the truth? I suspect the latter. The generation previous to mine was good at spelling out the rules, but not so good at articulating the principles underlying those rules. I studied them out on my own, as we all should be doing, anyway. My kids are in this group of so-called millenials. They haven't been driven out; they participate and have relevant contributions. Adult hyporcrisy and parental abdication of responsibility in training children to discern truth from error might be a bigger factor than irrelevance. The true gospel commends itself to those who are searching for truth. It doesn't need bells and whistles to make it attractive. The attempts to make it user friendly have not impressed my "millenial" kids. They abandoned the youth tent at campmeeting a numbesr of years ago because it seemed more like a rock concert than a religious service. Young people in every era want honesty, integrity, and a relevant message. It they want entertainment they can get that anywhere, but expect something better at church.
Horace,
Good observations, but I view their combination and impacts very differently. The Adventist Church in general has a big problem with confusing tradition and rules for gospel truth. Where this is the predominant view the youth are leaving in droves with some estimates being in the area of 50% and higher. I am aware of a number of churches that used to have a considerable number of youth, but today the youngest member is retired.
I agree with you that those who understand the Gospel are less likely to leave the church. But where the church is dominated by those more devoted to tradition and rules than truth it can be very difficult for real belief to survive. I have lost count of those who were believers but whose faith could not live in such a church. I doubt I would be in the church today without the opportunity to be part of establishing a new congregation of true believers.
I think that "those more devoted to tradition and rules than the truth" is a good description of a large number of church members, and they will not be able to teach their children the basics of the gospel. And it is kids without a firm foundation who are most likely to drift away. This not too different from how things were in the time of Christ. Only we are more at fault because of our easy access to the Scriptures, something the average Jew of 30 AD didn't have. And since parents have failed so miserably in this area of spiritual education, we need church leaders who can take up the slack, at least as far as possible. There's a limit to what they can do, of course.
Horace,
You are absolutely correct about our need to both have a personal relationship with God and to teach our children to have such a connection. Even so, I am hesitant to accuse the parents of millenials with failure to do this because many of those parents were raised in churches and families where devotion to doctrine and tradition substituted for a connection with God. So the problem has been growing for generations.
How does one, even a parent, teach their children to have a relationship? It's like telling them they must be a friend to the neighbor boy or girl, regardless of their personal feeling.
One may love someone they have never seen, only what they've been told, but better that children not read too much of the Bible as they will find a God that orders killing and worse. Carefully select what they read even in the Bible. But, sooner or later they may discover what was left out. First, there must be trust and how can that be built with a figure only known on paper, the Bible pages?
Most children were taught about Adventism via the home, school and church. Realizing they were far from uniform, it is no wonder that more children leave the church when they become adults. They must find their own way, and no amount of urging changes their impressions learned early in life: behavior was the representation of Adventism.
Change is frightening to people. After serving on a city council for 20 years – 10 of them as mayor, the most important thing I lerned is that people fear change the most. Change is the unknown. Fear that we are not in control. We get comfortable with things as they are. Change requires energy. We would rather "suffer ills while ills are sufferable" than face the unknowns. Yet – a survey asked the question of a sample of seniors "If you could do one thing over – what would it be? the most frequent answer was "take more risk".
Interesting report. Are you an AU student or employee? How did you get your information?
Response to original post: I am not so sure that the M generation stands out in wanting to make a difference .Most of those on this post probably dislike the top-down authoritarian style where a few people make decisions for the church.
Recent generations can attest that youth were even more ignored than they are now; and, of course, women were part of the wallpaper. Any suggestions by both groups were ignored until we just stopped trying. Maybe more of us stayed in the church than now but became inactive. I attended my senior year at an SDA school after being baptized. At a recent reunion not many came, and I suspect that perhaps half the class or more no longer attended church. It was the same with college as we heard the reports of others. This drop-out is nothing new, it's just that the church didn't seem to care so much in the past.