SYMPOSIUM: How NOT to Reach Millennials

on April 10, 2014

This is Part 8 in an IRD Symposium on Millennials in the Church. Here is Part 1Part 2Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

 

Lately, the question that has been all the rage in the U.S. church world has been “how can we better reach Millennials?,” in reference to the name given to those of us who were born in the 1980s or 1990s.

Many have been eager to exploit this anxiety for various agendas.  I vividly remember a large United Methodist denominational gathering a few years back at which a liberal, college-age delegate passionately urged support for a controversial denominational restructuring plan.  He did not offer any arguments on the proposal’s merits but rather simply declared “I’m the future!,” thereby suggesting that the church was somehow obligated to pander to whatever he demanded.

Such cynical attempts to exploit my generation has been nowhere more prominent than with those seeking to shift Christian churches away from traditional biblical standards for sexual self-control, including not limited to the prohibitions of homosexual practice.

Let’s be clear.  My generation is NOT a monolith, ideological or otherwise.  No one speaks for all of us or most of us.  Not me.  Not the solipsistic young Methodist delegate.  Not self-righteously truth-twisting, anti-evangelical blogger Rachel Held Evans (who happens to be exactly the same age as me).  And certainly not post-evangelical church-world celebrities clumsily trying to sound hip by treating us as a talking point for their agendas (you know who you are).

Nevertheless, we are repeatedly exhorted that in order to reach today’s young adults, the church must follow the recipe of blessing secular twenty-first-century secular Western sexual mores, avoiding “exclusivity,” touting “relevant causes of social justice,” and otherwise not being “too conservative.”  And we are told that the church is failing to reach more young adults because of its failure to do these things.

I recently visited a long-running Saturday evening service of a large, famously liberal United Methodist congregation in Chicago.  Its prime downtown location is very convenient for many nearby young professionals.  By the time I found my way to the service, I came across several signs and symbols touting the church’s GLBTQI-friendliness.  Lest there be any doubt, I also saw ads for some intersex-themed show being held in the church building.  They had available copies of the social-justice Religious Left magazine, Sojourners, and are apparently very big on interfaith cooperation.  Furthermore, this congregation is flush with financial resources it could use to reach young adults for Jesus Christ.

If any church in America is well-positioned to test the recipe for liberal pandering to Millennials, it is this one.

At the service, I counted a grand total of 18 people there, apparently aged from their 20s to their 60s.  This included myself, those running the service, and those who had come to hear the guest preacher.

To be fair, Saturday evening services are not the most representative services of most congregations.  But it is a wonder that this one has not been able to attract more people after running for years.

The hymns sung were surprisingly orthodox and cross-centered.  But I could not help but notice the lack of Bibles provided in the chairs or brought in congregants’ hands, or how the sermon barely made a pretense of connecting to its supposed Scripture.  It raised valid concerns about environmental degradation and income inequality and stressed the importance of human action on such problems.  But the purely secular focus and stress on how much the world allegedly needs our good deeds left me wondering what need there was for God in the sermon’s worldview.

And if God is not necessary, then why is the church?

Such liberal oldline churches have been remarkably successful in convincing people that there is, indeed, no need for church.

On a larger scale, whenever denominations have moved to embrace interfaith universalism, sexual liberation, offering-plate-funded lefty partisan politics, and otherwise sought to define themselves as “Not Like Those Bad Conservative Christians,” the result has been a dramatic collapse of membership.  There is no rush of flattered unchurched Millennials joining such churches out of appreciation for being pandered to.  While much of the membership loss is due to orthodox defections, much is also driven by secularized versions of Christianity generally lacking much power to attract and maintain people.

Not that long ago, I recall an Episcopalian friend observing that every other young-adult Episcopalian she knew was either ordained, getting ordained, or considering ordination.  Without a much larger number of Millennial laity, this is hardly sustainable.  (Unless the Episcopal Church has some plot afoot to take the “priesthood of all believers” to a whole new level.)

Meanwhile, Matt Marino, a regional leader for Episcopal Church youth and young adult ministry has recently noticed his denomination struggling to maintain the loyalties of even the sub-demographic to which it has most famously pandered: unrepentantly homosexually active Millennial churchgoers.  In a recent article (with which I have some disagreements), he reports that church affirmations of homosexuality are no longer seen as meeting as much of a great need.  The “fuzzy Christology, hermeneutic of suspicion, and denials of the bodily resurrection of Jesus” found in the Episcopal Church offer nothing.  He mentions a lesbian friend who, with her partner, regularly drives 40 minutes to attend a “not Gay-friendly” mega-church rather than a nearby Episcopal congregation.

Congregationally, I can best speak about my own experiences.  Since graduating from high school, I have lived only in culturally liberal, solidly Democratic urban environments (DC, Chicago, and the Boston-Cambridge area), where the alleged need to pander to secular liberal values should be the most pronounced.  In each area, the thriving, dynamic churches I saw packed with large numbers young adults were strongly evangelical congregations whose leaders were committed to a high view of Scriptural authority, including biblical standards for sexual self-control.  Yes, I knew of fledgling oldline liberal campus ministries and some more theologically liberal congregations with small “twenties and thirties” groups, but these were nowhere on the scale of their local evangelical counterparts.

In the Boston area, regional United Church of Christ (UCC) officials would not ordain a supremely qualified young Harvard Divinity School graduate because he was even a centrist evangelical.  So he went on to pastor a non-denominational congregation (now affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church).  While the intolerantly liberal UCC may not have wanted him, he was used by God to grow this congregation into being the friendliest church I have ever visited, active in the community, amazingly multi-ethnic, and filled to the brim with people in their 20s and 30s who the UCC has ensured are not and will likely never be a part of their dying, “inclusive” denomination.

So the empirical record is abundantly clear that pathetic attempts to pander to secular liberal social values simply do not work for wooing my generation into churches.

If our ministries offer people nothing that cannot already be found elsewhere in the surrounding culture, they offer little motivation for people to drag themselves out of bed on Sunday morning.

But most importantly, the false Gospel of Cultural Pandering is ultimately profoundly unloving to both God and the people to whom the Christian church must minister.

Through Scripture and 2,000 years of church tradition, the triune God has clearly taught His church certain boundaries for how we are to steward His gift of sexuality.  Yes, these boundaries pose more challenges for some individuals, such as those experiencing same-sex attractions, or hormone-filled young adults unable to find a suitable spouse.  But they are ultimately no more offensive in twenty-first-century America than they were in first-century Corinth.  (Incidentally, that city was home of the first church to take a “reconciling” or “open and affirming” stance towards sexual sin.)

Contrary to some of the rhetoric I hear from pandering proponents, the biggest missional problem facing the church in America today is NOT the alleged need to get more people into our doors to help pay for our crumbling roofs and our even-more-crumbling denominational bureaucracies.

Rather, the biggest missional problem the church faces is that all around us, millions of our neighbors are dead in their sins, are not enjoying the wonderful salvation that is uniquely available through Jesus Christ, and so are at grave risk of spending eternity in Hell.  For those of us who suffer from the terminal disease of original sin (and  that’s all of us), it is worse than useless to give us a placebo deceptively mislabeled “Christianity” that actually lacks the essential ingredients of repentance and personal transformation into a new life of holiness.  1 John does not give much wiggle room for divorcing love for God from obedience to His commandments.

It is true that polling shows my generation of Americans is more sexually permissive than those who came of age in the 60s (who themselves were hardly known for puritanism in their own younger days).  But calls for church cultural pandering are rather revealing.  Do we really believe that whether or not someone has become a Christian does not make a profound difference in her life and values?  That Christian churches should redefine their beliefs to conform to those of non-Christians?  That church outreach is a purely godless matter of selling whatever the market seems to want?  That the Holy Spirit plays no powerful, supernatural role in drawing people to Christ and His church – at least not in our ministries?  And if we really believe such things, what is the point of having a church, again?

We must carefully, prayerfully face the challenges of cultural resistance to Christian values and the spread of the true Gospel.  We must not think we can do it on our own.

But if Paul had listened to today’s apostles of cultural pandering, he would have preached to the Ephesians about how he, too, thought their goddess, Artemis, was great.  Acts 19 records how what actually happened was that his counter-cultural evangelism provoked a city-wide uproar as “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul” and many were brought into the Kingdom.

Diluted versions of Christianity that risk no riots will reap no revivals.

UPDATE: Since this article was first posted, the United Methodist Church’s largest legislative gathering of Millennial United Methodists, the Global Young People’s Convocation and Legislative Assembly (GYPCLA), was held in the Philippines in summer 2014. Among other things, this gathering of youth and young adult delegates from each of my denomination’s U.S. jurisdictions and overseas central conferences surprised many by voting decisively to reject gay marriage.

  1. Comment by Janet Varin on April 10, 2014 at 9:52 am

    My millenial son (20 years old) who was raised in a Christian home, mentored in his Reformed youth group, and was educated for 12 years in a Christian school with a heavy Reformed influence. He has not opted out of Jesus Christ, just “the church,” the male dominated (not lovingly led), top heavy, pride-fueled gathering that elevates and protects those that are supposedly called to serve. These young people can smell hypocrisy and partiality a mile away. He, and others, are actively seeking God; not the God you describe on whose behalf you denigrate those for whom He died because they don’t honor God enough. Don’t you get it? God doesn’t need you to be His gatekeeper. He calls all of us to seek and love the lost. Apparently where we part ways is in what constitutes love, and what degree of lost excludes you from being sought. You are young, John. What you are not is broken. When you at last weep with those you love who do not qualify for acceptance into your particular place of worship, you may glimpse the face of Jesus you haven’t seen yet. I have a totally sincere question for you: Are your remarks written to glorify God as you understand Him, or are they at least in part written to impress male leadership, to bolster what is thought of you by your own leaders? I wish you well in your growth. I think I will wander off to Rachel’s blog now…

  2. Comment by Gabe on April 10, 2014 at 1:32 pm

    John,

    This was a great article and I appreciate the points you made. One cannot follow God without denigrating His clear instruction. As the Scriptures say, “We were bought at a price”, so we should desire to be obedient to His instructions. We aren’t obedient to earn His love. We are obedient because of what He has done for us. If we water down His teaching and calling in our lives, we are neither preaching in love and truth.

  3. Comment by Didaskalos on April 11, 2014 at 7:10 am

    John Lomperis isn’t God’s gatekeeper, but like the Apostle Paul, he is a herald. God’s Word pretty plainly spells out who’s going to heaven and who isn’t. The first words out of Jesus’ mouth when He began His ministry were, ““The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Regarding repentance, the Apostle Paul warned the church of his day: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” The erstwhile Christian churches that have capitulated to the world say to their new masters, “And just what part of the Bible would you now like us to renounce?” The ELCA, the UCC, the Episcopalians, and the PCUSA preach grace without repentance. If the world approves of a sin, the quisling churches will be happy to accommodate the world and tell their congregations, “Don’t get hung up on this repentance thing. If you like your sin, you can keep your sin.” The real problem is not women’s ordination or male domination; the problem is the ersatz churches’ heretical bowdlerization of the Bible, whether it’s a man or a woman preaching the heresy. The Evangelical Covenant Church (cf. John’s reference to the Harvard Divinity School graduate now pastoring in one of its churches) ordains women.

  4. Comment by Pudentiana on April 15, 2014 at 6:59 pm

    I had to chuckle when I read the comments by Janet. Having been on this spiritual journey for over 60 years, I am happy to say that John L. has hit the nail on the head. The tiresome emotionalism and whining of the liberal church which tries so hard to be “relevant” falls very short of the wondrous Gospel message of repentance from sin to salvation which brings REVIVAL to the most dead church member. You may recall the passage from II Cor.2:15-17 – “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.”

  5. Comment by Ashley Proctor on April 10, 2014 at 2:04 pm

    I could not help to notice that the first negative comment out of the gate was written by a non-millennial.

  6. Comment by Luke C on April 11, 2014 at 5:59 pm

    Well said John. We cannot capitulate on the message of the gospel which Christ gave us. I think in many way, God is judging these churches for forsaking the whole message of the gospel. Sadly, many of them will probably not last for very long. This is sad because of the many forerunners who went before them who were faithful to Christ. Still, it is more sad yet that they have led so many to misunderstand the true message of repentance that Christ preached.

  7. Comment by Matt Marino on April 11, 2014 at 6:32 pm

    Hi John,

    Thank you for the shoutout in your very well-written article. Your conclusion, “Diluted versions of Christianity that risk no riots will reap no revivals” is money!

    I look forward to reading the other installments.

  8. Comment by John Lomperis on April 22, 2014 at 5:31 pm

    I’m glad you saw this, Matt! Thanks for your important ministry of asking people “where will this lead?”

  9. Comment by Marco Bell on April 30, 2014 at 2:05 pm

    Archaic texts have something to offer, if only to describe life as it was happening during it’s time.
    The subject of the Millennial generation seems appropriate to my point, and that is…
    Why should anyone expect to evolve while holding onto directives from the Bible or any other “holy” text, when no one has ever seen God… nor ever returned from the dead to guarantee “life” after this one?
    Why shouldn’t this life be enough?

    Why need we constantly confront one another just to prove whose God is the “right” one?
    I’m not dismissing the need for God, I’m just complaining about the ancillary activity that makes zealots of any religion seem arrogant.

    WE DON’T NEED RIOTS FOR REVIVAL!

    For the record, I’m delighted that many on this site have found solace and/or salvation through Jesus.
    I am continually amused by how those that claim Christ as their personal Savior, also seem to be the first ones to deny anybody else’s God(s).

    By the way, Ashley, Janet was speaking about her millennial son’s experience.

  10. Comment by A mathematician and scientist on May 6, 2014 at 3:58 pm

    You say “Why shouldn’t this life be enough?”

    This life is enough, but one always has to optimize for the future, right? For instance, if I spend everything that I have on every paycheck, I cannot afford things like houses, vacations, etc. As well, I cannot afford to burn bridges with my relationships (or use my relationships to maximize my personal benefit) because it is highly likely I’ll have future dealings with such people or people that these people know.

    Likewise, I can argue that I can optimize based on 1) truth, 2) living the truth (as opposed to living in sin, which causes relationship of all types to be fractured — my relationship with God, with myself, with others, and with creation) and 3) that ultimately, there will be a Day of Final Judgment.

  11. Comment by Jonathan Kuperberg on June 16, 2014 at 5:57 am

    This life is NOT enough. God offers eternal life through the Gospel and I have accepted His gracious and merciful offer. It is an absolute AFFRONT to suggest a few decades on a sin-ridden Earth where His light remains unapproachable is somehow “enough”. He has conquered death and wants us to dwell with Him in perfect harmony. I will do just that for eternity with or without your approval.

    WHY, unless you are aligned with Satan, would it be “amusing” to see Bible-believing Christians who know there is but ONE true God speak against false religionists and their false non-existent gods? Ye shall have NO other gods before Elohim. That is not a comedy routine.

    It is not a matter of “whose” or “my” or “your” God. God is not some personal possession. He rules over all whether they accept Him or not. It is wrong to try to marginalize conservatives by calling them “zealots”.

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