UNDERSTANDING MILLENNIALS

Most of my ministry revolves around serving those under the age of 40.  At first I found the task of trying to enter the world of the young a daunting one at best, impossible at least.  “What made them tick?” I asked myself as I began this Wonderland Adventure.  I had no idea.  I was opening up a closet with no clue what was inside. After all, how could I relate to these foreigners who had never used a typewriter, watched a movie on a VCR or written a check?  How could I ever make sense of seeing two love birds sitting side by side texting one another, or understanding a young girl who thought the microwave was an oven, or dealing with a generation that never heard of the Beatles, Harry Truman, the Twist or the French Revolution?  What possible connection could we have? But for reasons wildly outside of my own understanding, God threw me into a ring with these young people and asked me to do one thing, to just get to know them.  Well at first I didn’t want to know them; I wanted to show them my superior wisdom and holy sobriety. This certainly would gain their ear and respect. Wrong. Yes, the guilt-laden innuendos moved them to action, but they never wooed them. Yes, I could command raw obedience, but I could never garner their devotion. Then I got thinking.  How did Jesus minister?  As one truly God and truly man, Jesus treated His ministry as both divine and human. The divine elements we note clearly.  He preached and taught and modeled and served and exhorted and explained and prayed and healed and worshipped. His ministry was through and through divine. But His ministry was also uncommonly human. He ate and drank and laughed and shared stories and went on walks and attended weddings and asked questions and bowed to human frailty. This delicate balance, I discovered, was exactly what my ministry was to look like.  Here was the answer to ministering these young people or to any group for that matter. The divine interaction was necessary.  I understood that.  But to complement that there must be a vigorous human element. Suddenly things like vulnerability and hanging out and watching a movie and laughing over something inane and playing volleyball and smoking a cigar became important. A dash of humanity in my ministry served as the conduit to the divine. I began to learn that ministry must be disciplined yet available, timely yet spontaneous, assured yet humble, visionary yet practical, separate yet intimate. Over time as I practiced this human-divine ministry these young people, or as I call them millennials, began to respond. New revelations began to pour into my soul.  I had missed something that was patently obvious; these young people had identity markers that were totally unlike the identity markers that defined me.  I discovered that these “millennials” were relational, whereas I was analytical.  I learned they had no problem hanging out together with no particular goal in mind whereas I was brought up to believe one must always have a plan. I found these millennials thought little of stuff, whereas my generation found its identity in accumulation.  I discovered millennials have little regard for social constructs and naturally treat everyone like a familiar friend whereas I was always taught to use stiff titles of respect.  I found they were more likely to break rules than I was, and that simplicity rather than success was their key to well- being.  I discovered that they use technology as an afterthought while I saw it as a means to success.  And as I began to tap into the subterranean psyche of these “millennials” and took interest in their ways, I found an organic devotion uniting their souls and mine.  Indeed I had begun to learn that ministry was as much human as it was divine. I began to understand that in any ministerial endeavor nothing could be more important than to understand the morays, the social sensitivities, the ethos, and the view of reality of those to whom we ministered. Hudson Taylor reached the Chinese people not because he was a great strategist, or an indefatigable worker, or a brilliant communicator or a prayer warrior.  He reached the Chinese people because he studied them and learned to become humanly like them without compromising his beliefs.  In doing this he was simply following the guidelines of the great Apostle who knew the importance of becoming all things to all men so that by any means he might save some. When Paul went into Athens he quoted Hellenistic poetry; when he entered the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch he exposited the Law of Moses; when he wrote to the Philippians he complemented them on their “giving and receiving.” Nothing has changed since the ministerial days of the great Apostle. The ministry rests on a wholly divine message and a wholly human methodology.  To achieve one, a minister must first unlock the door of the heart through the other.

One of the chief challenges of the millennial generation which should be known by every minister is that they face a never-before-seen complexity of life. The advent of the industrial revolution, followed by the technological revolution, burst open doors of opportunity that were beyond the wildest dreams of prior generations. Mobility as late as the 19th century was somewhat limited.  Accessibility was almost non-existent. The world was big and foreboding and narrow.  Then something happened. A myriad of new horizons began to open up to the average person. Every day was now laden with an infinite number of choices.  The upshot of it all was that “choice” had become the new idol of this new millennial age. To the average young person choice was the one feature of life wholly indispensable. It quickly became the god of the age. To millennials the free exercise of choice is considered a divine characteristic. And they are not far from the truth. For truly unrestrained choice brings man closer to omnipotence than anything else. To choose where one goes, where one works, who one marries, and what one chooses for entertainment, gives man - and especially millennials - the sense of omnipotence. This inordinate right to “choose” unmasks the real issue behind the pro-life/pro-choice debates. When one reduces the pro-choice argument to its irreducible minimum it can be simply summarized as: one’s right to choose is a god-like right that must never be threatened. This unhindered right to choose is what every human being since Eve secretly wants, the right to be autonomous.

This then is the life setting (sitz im leben) in which every millennial finds himself. Only a ministry that has both human and divine elements will be able to address this deeply rooted issue.  How then do we address millennials pertaining to their god-like reverence of free choice? First we must help them understand that there is a price to pay for wanting to be like God.  Unbounded freedom tastes good at first but releases venom in the soul that threatens to kill its host. The reason for this is simple. Humanity was never designed to take on the weight of divinity. When the creature tries to play the part of the Creator, it destroys both his creatureliness and his ability to enjoy his dignity as one made in the image of the Creator. This dehumanizing result must be taught to our young.

Second, we need to impress upon them that if they religiously protect their rights to choose they may end up being stilted in choosing anything. Faced with too many choices feeds a volitional stuttering that fosters in man a despair of soul.  And when men become unable to choose because of too many choices, then they become less like men and more like the stones of the field.  This reminds us that the right of choice itself never fulfills; only choices fulfill. That’s because choosing something over something else accords with the very essence of our humanness. We all were made to choose something, to achieve something, to do something. Choosing enables us to fulfill a specific role in the world.  The fear of making the wrong choice, however, keeps many from choosing. This threatens our very humanity. This is the world in which the millennials now find themselves. Their lives are much like a man who visits an historic city who has the sights listed on a brochure but cannot decide which ones to visit so he stops at a restaurant and eats lunch all day.  But such a life can only lead to confusion or despair.  And this is precisely the despair that we see among many millennials today.  The internal dissonance created by having access to a plethora of choices yet being immobilized to choose any is as soul-killing as looking at the menu of a prestigious restaurant when you have lockjaw.  We must continually remind millennials to choose a pathway, for to choose is expressly human and wholly fulfilling and ultimately soul inspiring.   

Putting this all together, the greatest thing older generations can give to the younger is purpose in life.  And that purpose will only come when they are empowered to choose one thing over the many options.  We must therefore encourage young people to choose something.  We must remind them that making the ‘wrong choice’ is not the worst thing in the world. Making no choice is infinitely worse. Men for many millennia have been choosing the course of their lives. In doing this they have expressed themselves as men.  To choose nothing, however, is dehumanizing.  And this epidemic is robbing our young people not only of their basic humanity but of their god-like imagery as well.  The next time you find a young person sitting at the fork in the road and refusing to go in one direction or the other encourage them to be human and choose a path. And once they do this they will have become far more human than they ever were and far closer to fulfilling their calling as divine creatures made in the image of God.