I am blessed to pastor at a church that is aware of life cycles in churches and as a result is fully engaged in raising up younger leaders to continue to guide and participate in the church and God’s work in the next generation. Every aspect of our strategic plan seeks to identify and empower the leaders God brings to the church in these ways.
As we think about and empower young leaders, we share articles and research among the staff. This week, one of the articles was titled, “Storming the Castle: Reaching ‘iGens’ Means Breaking through Inflated Self-Esteems” by Scot McKnight. McKnight identifies two aspects of today’s young adult culture and two ways in which he believes we can break through these new challenges. Challenges: 1) Young adults possess inflated self-esteems and high levels of self-acceptance that are nothing short of castle walls protecting them from a need for God’s grace. 2) iGens are pre-moral, in the sense that they don’t really have a sense of sin or feel guilt. Solutions: A) Start with Jesus instead of the person’s sin and alienation from God. B) Create a community marked by justice, peace, love, and holiness to connect with iGens.
As an “iGen” (whatever that actually means) myself and as a pastor who works with them on a daily basis, I want to question some of McKnight’s reasoning and assumptions, without actually challenging his conclusions. Perhaps this deeper understanding can help us reach this generation in more fruitful ways.
Yes, we grew up in a culture of affirmation. Sports teams celebrated participation more than winning. Elementary schools resisted giving letter grades or teaching games where a person or team lost. We were told that we can do anything we set our minds to do. We believe that differences are acceptable, or perhaps even good, and we are less likely to believe that the way we do something is the right way to do it.
In addition, many of us grew up largely unchurched. Our parents are children of the 60’s and 70’s, and their attempt to encourage creativity or “allow us to make our own choices” meant that we often grew up in homes where rules were absent and beliefs were allowed but not formed. While not all of our parents raised us without rules and beliefs, and our parents’ generation is no more monolithic than our own, these are true characterizations of many of our parents. As a result, you may have a difficult time convincing us of our sin. We don’t even know what that word would actually mean, so we certainly don’t feel guilty about it.
In both of his characterizations of iGens, McKnight is absolutely correct. However, I object to his assumption that that previous methods of evangelism were the correct ones. Since the Reformation, preachers have often preached a gospel that proceeds something like this: God loves you, but you are a sinner [this assumes that you understand enough of Christianity to know what sin is]. You cannot please God, and your sin (and therefore you) angers God deeply. You deserve God’s wrath, and he is angry. You can never do any good to get to God (or heaven), and you are trapped in hopelessness and despair [or you are stupid if you don’t recognize this fact]. But there is good news. Jesus came to earth, lived a sinless life, and then died on a cross where God (specifically the Father, although often unnamed) put all of his punishment and anger for your sin on Jesus. So believe that Jesus died for you and rose again from the dead, and God will accept you into heaven.
Laying aside for a moment the NUMEROUS problems with this conception of the “gospel,” we need to understand that for 500 years we have been preaching this message largely to Westerners who are churched/Christianized. We only have a conception of original sin, human depravity, right and wrong, and our sin because God has revealed to us what I means to be holy. When Luther struggled with his sinfulness, he was firmly planted in the Catholic Church. When Jonathan Edwards preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he was preaching revival in the Christian communities of New England.
This message was incredibly effective. It brought people to their knees in repentance. You can remind people who understand what God desires that they are guilty. Convincing non-Christians who do not understand sin that they are guilty might be the wrong way to approach them – this message had been far less effective in unChristianized areas. There, the gospel spreads through life lived together, as God reveals himself to the people by bringing his Kingdom into their midst. We do not travel to Asia and assume that they already know that they are sinners and are looking for a way to be reconciled to God (or if we do, we are incredibly ineffective and most likely quite damaging!). Instead, we approach these people in relationship, love them, and life in God’s Kingdom in their midst. Over time, they encounter God and learn what it means to be holy.
I want to suggest that we approach this generation more like the peoples in our mission fields and less like our Christian grandparents. While our parents’ generation often walked away from the church in which they had been raised, they often chose not to raise this generation in the church. If today’s young adults don’t believe “anything” or understand their own sin, perhaps we need to remember that it was their parents’ generation which taught them to believe that no beliefs are necessary and there are no limits on their actions. We are reaping the fruit of our own actions. We have created the first unChristianized generation in American history.
This is where McKnight has everything right. We should be starting with Jesus when we reach out to young adults, not because they believe that they are perfect like Jesus (they don’t by the way), but because we should ALWAYS start with Jesus. Our attempts to tell a gospel message that make Jesus tangential to God’s work are perhaps more unfaithful than we realize. We just didn’t understand that in the midst of another paradigm that we called the gospel because it was effective in bringing those who knew the story to repentance. The Father reveals himself to us through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Without Jesus, we have NOTHING to preach. We also present a compelling vision of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice, love, peace, and holiness. The Kingdom is not an evangelistic tool to reach this generation; it is our reality as the people of God. The Spirit has drawn us into this new community. When we live this new life, it will always be compelling. When our communities do not look this way, we need to be reminded (like Israel of old) that we are saying formless words which God does not honor because our lives are not lived in obedience to him. When we live in God’s Kingdom and share the news of Jesus, we will find that this generation is transformed by the power of God.
