Millennials Suck


That was my attempt at a click-bait title.  Did it work?


I need to preface this post by saying that when I say "mothers and fathers"  I don't mean my mother and father, I'm talking about spiritual mothers and fathers, the older generations in the churches.  My parents raised us in a God-centered home and all 3 of us are grown and serve Jesus.  This also doesn't really refer to my local church, we have found I think a rare place that has a lot of generational diversity and I am so grateful for that.  We are part of a movement that seeks to serve the next generation and that's why we are raising our daughters in the Vineyard.  There are tons of kids and also tons of elders.  I also have had Mothers and Fathers in the faith who have loved me, believed me and empowered me so I'm grateful for them .  :)


Malachi 4:5-6 TLB
"See, I will send you another prophet like Elijah before the coming of the great and dreadful judgement day of God.  His preaching will bring fathers and children together again, to be of one mind and heart, for they will know that if they do not repent, I will come and utterly destroy their land."

Psalm 145:4
"Let each generation tell its children what glorious things that he does."

John 17:20-23
"I am not praying for these alone but also for the future believers who will come to me because of the testimony of these.  My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father-that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me."

I've been mulling and praying over these scriptures today.  I come back to Jesus' prayer for unity quite often throughout the years.  I pray it and hope for it and pray that one day we will see it happen... but those days feel far away.

It's kind of icky how things are right now, right? In the church? There is a lot of unhealthy stuff going on.  Older generations and younger generations are divided and there is a HUGE exodus happening right now in the church.  Millennials are leaving the churches.  I have read study after study and article after article about the Millennial void in church-and this was before the election of 2016...since then it's only gotten worse.  #EmptyThePews was trending on Twitter last week.

I'm not going to try to pretend to know every reason why Millennials are leaving.  I can tell you that I personally have had lots of reasons to leave church over the years.  In one of my classes in college we had to tell our faith/church stories and my professor actually said she was surprised I was still a Christian.  A lot of the church pain for me was honestly not feeling valued by older generations because our music style was different, we dressed/looked differently than older generations, or I saw preachers/leaders preaching this as gospel that weren't actually in the Bible.  It's also not helpful when older generations attack younger generations.  Experienced that too.  It's also been a bit confusing for me to read in the Bible that Jesus says "my kingdom is not of this world" but pretty much being taught by church leaders that Jesus is pretty much a Republican.  That's confusing and hard because Jesus isn't.  If he wanted to establish a system of government, he had every chance to when he was on earth, but he didn't.  I haven't left the church and I'm not going to, so I give the credit to Jesus and to my parents who really raised us to love God.  I'm so grateful for that.

It's painful for me to see people my age and younger leaving the church.  We are the future, and if we're gone, what will be left in the coming generations?


There's always been a trend for older generations to talk badly about younger generations.  In the 60s & 70s the hippies were the worst ever, then the generation Xers were the worst ever, and now Millenials are the worst ever.  But now, much like the effect of cyber bullying on today's kids, there aren't just magazine articles about how awful the younger generation is, there are Facebook posts and memes and videos and online news articles and jokes and like a constant stream of Millennial hate coming from the world and the church.   I've seen churches make videos about how sucky Millennials are.  But Millenials are literally leaving the church in droves.  And that's the future of our church.  And if the great hope of the world is Jesus as revealed through the local church, but our church's next generation is leaving....what does that say about our priorities?  Jesus told us to leave the 99 to save the one, but for some reason it's become cool to hate the 1 instead of go find the one, love the one, and have relationship with the one.  And there are millions of ones.   That are just..........leaving.    I know the world would just say #ByeFelicia; but we're supposed to be different than that.

Shouldn't that make us ask why?

Do we know why?

Do we ask why?

Do we pray about why?

Do we even care?

If children are a blessing from the Lord, and  an inheritance from him, what does it say that our churches don't have children?

This is across the board happening in all kinds of churches in the country.  I know it's cool to hate Millennials right now, but maybe instead of hating them, maybe mothers and fathers should be seeking them out?  Asking them about their lives?  Asking them about what is important to them?

I know that Millennials do carry their own responsibility for their own decisions.  I am not negating that.  But I'm not sure that sharing or saying hateful things about Millennials online is going to help in any way.  And if Jesus said to leave the 99 to save the one, shouldn't that be more what we are focused on than anything else?  What if older church leaders asked and empowered young Millennials who are called to ministry to kind of tackle this?  Partnered with them to reach a generation that we are losing?The forms and methods might be different, but connecting with an entire generation that is hurt and leaving should be more important, shouldn't it?

And back to that Malachi scripture:  does it mean that if the hearts of fathers don't return to hearts of sons and vice versa, that there will be a big mess?  Are we experiencing that mess right now?  What does it mean with the scriptures say children are inheritance from the Lord but many churches across America don't have anyone younger than 40?

These are questions that I have been asking myself a lot.  I think a lot of Millennials crave love and belonging like every human does.  We want meaningful, authentic relationships with older generations, it's natural to want those things.  We also kind of see the world differently.  We don't buy in to some Christianese things like "I'm too blessed to be depressed" for example.  Because people actually do struggle with depression.  We know that David in the Psalms writes about depressing feelings  so maybe the church should help equip people to walk alongside people who are struggling rather than just trying to  quote a simple scripture and hope it goes away?  Because depression is hard and scary and uncomfortable and we need to learn how to love people in that.  We don't buy into the prosperity gospel because it doesn't work in nations that live in famine and poverty.  We don't think that pastors and leaders should pretend to be perfect because we know that literally not a soul is perfect.  We need to see leaders that are genuine and real and faithful.  We do think that authenticity is better than perfection.  We cling to passages like the parable of the sheep and goats and take it to heart.  We believe that Jesus wants us to love everyone and so we have a heart for social justice.  And I think Millennials were really turned off by the church 2 years ago with all the LGBT hate that came out with the SCOTUS ruling.  What I mean by hate is this:  when a pastor says on Facebook that gay people are less than human.  And I'm sad to say that that was not just one comment I saw like that.  Anything that sounds like that in any way is completely wrong and hateful.  But it seemed church folk were more willing to take a stand against Gay people having equal rights than calling out Clergy that spew hate about souls that Jesus died for.  No one is going to win anyone to Jesus by talking that way.   The Millennials I know think we should love our neighbors regardless of skin color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc...etc...etc...And Millennial Christians I know think that being pro-life means All life:  our poor neighbors, poor children, refugees, single moms, muslims, christians, buddhists, every nationality and every color and every gender and sexual identity.

I think Millennials are open to dialouging about the things of Jesus but when older generations and the internet love to hate on them and call them snowflakes and libtards, it makes it hard.  I know it's cool to make fun of Bernie-loving Millennials, but gosh, most Christians I know that supported Bernie (there were so many) did so because they believe the Sermon on the Mount says the things Jesus wants us to care about and they connected with Bernie because of that.  Being liberal doesn't make someone a demon.  (I've actually heard a person who professes Christianity say that).  It just means they cling to different passages of scripture than conservatives do.   And on the other side of that, most conservatives vote on 1 issue: and that's being pro-life.  And gosh, that is a HUGE deal.  Seeking to prevent abortion is caring for the least of these and is seeking to defend those who can't fight for themselves.  But there are other pro-life issues Millennials care about that they didn't see represented in the current Republican party.  It's not all about politics but it would be dumb to think that that has nothing to do with it.

It just hurts to see this evacuation happening.  When I think of my peers and the younger Millenials I know, I see thoughtful, intelligent, hardworking, justice-oriented, creative, loving, giving, beautiful people.  GOOD THINGS.  GOOD PEOPLE.   Those are all qualities of Jesus.

It's painful because I idenitify with a lot of the pain Millennials feel, and it is hurtful to see Fathers and Mothers and Grandfathers and Grandmothers in the church hating on younger generations.  I don't see how it is helpful at all. But I love Jesus and I love the church and my goal is to live and be a peacemaker.   But I'm not sure that keeping peace is the same as making peace.  Sometimes we need to bring things to the surface and talk about them for healing to happen.  And that's what I see and think needs to happen with the different generations.  We have to do something because we're losing our future.



Malachi 4:5-6 TLB
"See, I will send you another prophet like Elijah before the coming of the great and dreadful judgement day of God.  His preaching will bring fathers and children together again, to be of one mind and heart, for they will know that if they do not repent, I will come and utterly destroy their land."


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