I’m a part of the generation known as
Generation X. We don’t stand for anything, or so we have
been labeled. Our cry is very much biblical, just like that
of Solomon in Ecclesiastes. “Meaningless, meaningless,
everything is meaningless.”
How did Generation X become the way
they did? My own theory leads us back to the 1950’s and the
baby boomers. People flocked to the church. Baby boomers
were raised in the church. Some of it was legitimate, some
of it was because we didn’t want to be like the godless
communists. Whatever the case, the morals weren’t passed on
to the next generation. Perhaps their children saw through
their parents’ “playing” church, or simply didn’t wish to
have the uptightness of the church forced upon them. The
60’s and 70’s brought us hippies and a rebellion against the
establishment – church included.
Generation X saw that the drug use and
free love didn’t get anyone anywhere and along with the
materialism of the 80’s that we grew up in, we recognized
that there pretty much wasn’t anything worth wasting our
time doing. We decided we would just do as we felt.
Today, we face the “Net Generation” as
some have labeled them. This generation is all about causes
and trying to make the world a better place. Once again,
this is a reaction to the previous generation – standing up
for everything instead of standing for nothing.
So why the need for the history
lesson? The church is trying to reach all four of these
generations. The generation that the conservative,
evangelical, Christian church looks the most like is the one
that was born in the 1930’s. Most of this generation will
not be with us in another ten years, leaving the church to
look very different from everyone else around us.
Church people look different, act
different, dress different, and talk different than the rest
of the world. We are called to be not a part of this world
and we have succeeded admirably in some sense. Our problem
is that we are sitting in our churches, dressing, acting,
and talking like church people do and wondering why people
don’t come through our doors. We’re the only ones with the
gospel of life, why aren’t people beating down our doors to
hear it?!
According to the outside, we’re weird.
We don’t understand the world as it is today. When
missionaries prepare to go to another country, they spend a
lot of time in preparation. They learn about the people they
are trying to reach. They learn the language of the people.
They look at how they dress. They learn what their culture
values.
Yet the church in America says this is
how things should be, we are right, everybody should be like
us because we know what we’re talking about. And we make no
apologies if someone else doesn’t understand us.
America has a divorce rate of 50%.
This means that we have a lot of single mothers trying to
raise children on one income and possibly child support. Has
the church taken the time to understand what these women
value? Have we taken the time to learn how to best reach
these women?
Do we understand the needs of
teenagers and college students? Or do complain about their
loud music and shameful attire. Instead of trying to
understand the people we are trying to reach, we mock and
scorn them as a bunch of people that we don’t want to spend
any time around.
Many in the church think that the
world is just going to listen to us if we start talking. We
think that everyone should listen to us because we are
right. The problem is that everyone else thinks that they
are right as well and we are all yelling our solutions at
the world from our soapboxes. Our arguments can’t be heard
above the din of the rest of the world.
In order to be relevant the church
needs to earn the right to be heard. This means that we must
show people that we care about them. We need to show people
that we are concerned about their needs. Maybe we don’t
approve of the way they dress, or the music they listen to.
This is all superficial. If we show people that we care,
they will be willing to listen to us. When they understand
that we have something important to say, suddenly, the
church seems a whole lot more relevant. Maybe we still don’t
look and sound like popular culture but when we have taken
the time to earn the right to be heard, people will learn
that we have an important message. When others realize that
the message is important, they are much more willing to
overlook the fact that we may look and act weird. Suddenly,
the church is relevant. In time, they may even understand
and appreciate why we look and act so weird. But people need
to see the church as culturally relevant before those doors
can be opened.
Next Section - Wall
# 4 - People Need Time
