Next Generation

When I was a Pastor in California, the local paper, The Pleasanton Weekly, did a series of articles asking questions based on current events. Below is a repost of one of those questions regarding the next generation.

Q: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the upcoming generation of young people now in their late teens and 20s? Do you see this group of people, often dubbed “Generation X,” as being more or less interested in spiritual matters than their elders?

A: In many regards, we have presented this generation with a set of challenges that no other generation has ever had to face. Raised in a world of MTV, AIDS and monumental federal government debt, people in this age group have been called a sundry of nicknames—Generation X, post boomers, baby busters, twenty somethings, slackers, whiners and who knows what else when all is said and done.

Statistics give us some insight into what they are facing: There are 38 million young men and women who were born between 1963 and 1977, with nearly 50 percent of those coming from divorced families. Many were latch-key kids who came home from school every day to an empty house and the responsibility of having to fend for themselves and/or their siblings. They also grew up in an era that was largely devoid of Christian culture. By that I mean they were raised in a society that jettisoned Christian values and morals as the foundation for its reasoning and structure.

This generation is also bearing the fruit of choices made by society during the 1960s and ‘70s. The chickens have come home to roost in a society that chased so many cultural and moral experiments. I often wonder where the Timothy Learys, Jane Fondas and Dr. Spocks are now, now that so many people have to deal with the pain and dislocation caused by the ideas they espoused.

Every generation longs for a sense of purpose and identity, something that separates them from the previous one. Every generation has the distinct advantage of having to build this identity. Generation X is no different. They have looked at the materialism and the price paid by their predecessors, the baby boomers, in trying to acquire “things.” They’ve, by and large, rejected those values and long for purpose and relational intimacy.

Based upon this, I believe there is an incredible spiritual hunger in members of this generation, not a hunger for formal religion, but for the real thing. As a result, churches today have an extraordinary opportunity to step up to the plate and if—and it’s a big if—religious leaders can demonstrate not only in word but in action the authenticity and intimacy of Christian faith, members of this generation will flock to church.

Young people today are incredibly perceptive and street-wise enough to see through all the smokescreens of a religious faith that lacks substance and reality. It is the challenge of the church, and a healthy on in my opinion, to live and demonstrate what one really believes. Many members of this generation have broken lives and live in a world that is shattered and dislocated, but they’re able to ask tough questions and demand honest answers. Churches that provide biblical solutions to their search for spiritual fulfillment are well-equipped to take the brokenness of this many-named lost generation and provide them with a sense of purpose and destiny.