Bob Wriedt

I’m getting ready to a give a talk with the above title as part of the Bridge’s “Dating and Mating” series, and I came across this quote from Peter Kreeft:

“No animal falls in love, writes profound romantic poetry, or sees sex as a symbol of the ultimate meaning of life because no animal is made in the image of God.  Human sexuality is that image, and human sexuality is a foretaste of that self-giving…that is the heart of the life and joy of the Trinity.” (p75, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life, by Dennis Hollinger)

I don’t buy that human sexuality (what is sometimes called gender) is the complete essence of the image of God, but I like Kreeft’s point.  More on Sunday at 11.

Steve and I have been talking a lot lately about how to improve our small group structure at our church, so I grabbed a bunch of small group books off my shelf and from Biola’s library.

My Favorites, with notes on what I got out of them:

1. The Connecting Church, by Randy Frazee – Small groups are geographically based (to the point of a few block radius), and demographically diverse (children to the elderly, and everyone in between, are in the same group).  Small groups all meet on Sunday evening as a part of making room for life the rest of the week, and a reflection of a meaningful Sabbath.  Small groups are the epicenter of missional activity for their church, so each group is expected to serve locally and/or around the world together.

2. Creating Community, by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits – The manual on how North Point Church does small groups.  Since it’s North Point, things are very planned and strategic, which is both a plus and minus.

3. Connecting, by Larry Crabb – A Christian psychologist explains how people connect through small group environments (and what prevents that, as well).

Books I’m planning to read as part of our planning and study (and why):

1. Activate, by Nelson Searcy – Curious about the idea of a semester based small group system.

2. Making Small Groups Work, by Henry Cloud – I’ve really enjoyed what Cloud, Townsend, and Donahue did in their DVD series ReGroup on small groups.

3. The 7 Deadly Sins of Small Groups, by Bill Donahue – Willow Creek’s small group czar’s talk about what not to do.

4. The Big Book on Small Groups, by Jeffrey Arnold – Not sure why I’m so intrigued by this one, but I’m giving it a shot, too.

What books on developing our small group ministry would you recommend?

I am terrible at naming things.  I scoff at every suggestion, and end up with nothing.  I lead a small group for young adults here that’s called the “Career Group.”  I’d like to find another name that is more descriptive, but I can never land on something.

Think about how badly named the generations are:

– The Builder Generation – Despite what they would tell you, they did not create any of the following: America, democracy, freedom, hard work, or frugality.  Admittedly, this is less vain then what they would prefer to be called: The Greatest Generation.

Some alternative suggestions:

1. The World War II generation

2. The Capitalism generation

3. The Hymns generation (Church only)

The Baby Boomers – Yes, there are a lot of them.  But shouldn’t the baby boom generation monikor refer to their predecessors, the one who were creating the boom?  Besides, the current generation being born is larger in numbers.

Some alternative names:

1. The Woodstock generation

2. The Vietnam generation

3. The Praise Chorus generation (Church only)

Gen X – Okay, this one really confuses me.  First they were called “Busters,” because they ended the baby boom.  Not really their fault though.  Then they’re renamed Gen X.  Why? It seems like the X is a placeholder that was never filled in.  I understand it’s drawn from the name of a novel that I’ve never read. Whatever.  We can do better.

Some alternative names:

1. The MTV generation (Remember when they showed music videos?  Really, you do?  You must be over 30)

2. The Cold War generation (Probably could apply to the artists formerly known as the Boomers, too, but I’m using it here)

3. The Short-Term Mission Trip generation (Admittedly a bit long.  STeMP for short?  No, no one likes that?)

Millennials – First off, I much prefer this to Gen Y, which was a lazy attempt to extend the unnecessarily named Gen X.  At least Millennial is distinctive.  But this should refer to those born in the new millennium, shouldn’t it?  Premature nomenclature, I say!

Some alternative names

1. The Global generation – Between the internet, increased free trade, the end of the Cold War, the EU, and the industrialization of China and India, this generation is used to the idea of a global village.

2. The Digital generation

3. The Holistic generation (Church only) – The number of times I’ve heard millennials dismiss verbal evangelism with the preference for meeting “real needs” would stun a herd of Baptists in their tracks.  Good and bad, certainly.

Any I missed?

Yesterday, I mentioned four ideas of what I would teach our church’s leadership about in our LEAD class.  The “winner” was on how this generation is experiencing social justice and evangelism.

Instead of just letting the loser ideas go out to pasture, I thought I’d post them here.  First up, what are the generational distinctives of the millenial generation?

Two disclaimers:

1. I’m defining “millenial” as those born from 1981-1995, because I was born in 1981 and relate more with the millenials than Gen X’ers.  There’s no real way to describe such a large swath of people, so these are generalizations.

2. They’re generalizations based on my experience in Long Beach and north Orange County.  There are great systemic studies (I’m a big Christian Smith fan, if you prefer actual sociology from an expert), but these are more worm’s eye view than birds eye view.

Okay, enough disclaimers:

1. Are millenials slackers? Some millenials feel a lot of pressure to succeed at everything, and are ridiculously over-committed.  Other millenials feel no pressure to accomplish anything, and are content to play Call of Duty all day.

Church application: Some students want to come to events, but they have a dozen other commitments.  Other students feel no pressure to show up, despite having nothing better to do.

2. Community service – Millenials feel that they have enormous power to effect change.  Around here, they have been required to do a certain number of community service hours for school, and have internalized that mindset.  They like to volunteer, and consider themselves (as a generation) unique in their interest of doing good.  They (generally) regard previous generations as either explicitly or implicitly neglecting the needs of the rest of the world.  There is a joke that the millenial way to be cool isn’t to start a band, it’s to start a non-profit.

Church application: Many millenials prefer starting their own churches to joining one of a previous generation.  I’ve seen many churches and organizations try to use their own fear of dying out as an outreach strategy.  This is beyond a bad idea.  Millenials want to be part of the solution, part of a change bigger than themselves (see Obama, Barack).

3. The Google Generation – There are a lot of websites one could turn to in defining millenials.  Wikipedia and facebook are fine options, but I’m going with google, because of the way it changes the way millenials think.  Google makes the memorization of information to be optional at best. Why memorize when you could just google it?

Church application: If you want millenials to actually memorize and meditate on one small bit of information (say, the Bible), you’ll need to give them very manageable steps, because it will seem foreign to them.

4. The Millenial Generation, sponsored by Best Buy –  Millenials are comfortable with corporations.  I know, you might find that hard to believe, but it’s the truth.  Millenials flock to corporate shows like American Idol, then go and buy their songs on iTunes.  They’re comfortable shopping at Target and Wal-Mart, and eating at Taco Bell and Subway.  They have been raised in an era of  free trade and franchising, and don’t have any moral predicament with neglecting mom and pop operations.  When giant companies like Apple and American Apparel are considered the little guy, you know there’s a generational shift (or maybe progression is a better term, since this is a development we could trace back through to the start of the Industrial Age).

Church application: Megachurches (those with over 2000) are the leaders in reaching and retaining young adults in every major rubric (percentage of congregation, percentage of community, new members, retention of youth group percentage, etc).  This isn’t to say that some millenials don’t prefer small churches (some clearly do), but few of them are inherently suspicious of them in a way that boomers and (certainly) busters are of very large churches.  Most of our church’s young adults either have left to or regularly visit megachurches aimed at their age.

Don (our senior pastor and my boss) asked me to come up with some ideas of what I could talk about at the LEAD class (for more on what LEAD is, go to the end of this post).

I love that we have this class, instead of just assuming that leaders will teach themselves, and I’m excited to get to be a part of teaching it, even if constricting myself to one topic is tough.

So, back to the title question of the post: Of all the things that I wish our elders and other leaders in our church understood about young adults, what do I say?

Here are the four finalist ideas I came up with:

–   What are the generational distinctives of the millennial generation? How do these compare with Busters, Boomers, and Gen X’ers?

–  What are the perceived strengths and weaknesses of our congregation according to the church survey?

–  How does social justice relate to evangelism and evangelicalism? – A historical discussion of our past debates and how they are affecting the conversation about what the gospel is.

–  How do we use technology at Grace? – How we use facebook, the church website, newsletters, telephones, twitter, the bulletin, and email to advance the mission.

Don ended up choosing the third option.   It’s certainly the most ambitious project of the four (how am I going to be able to explain 200 years of historical theology in 5 minutes?), but a vital one for understanding young adults.  I’ll explain why here on the blog in the weeks to come, and might take a shot at the other ideas as well.

Continue reading “What would you say to potential leaders in a traditional church?”

It’s good to know that the church isn’t the only place with generational battles.  A 60 year old boomer doesn’t think that he should have to retire yet.  After all, 60 is the new 50, or some similar poor arithmatic.

His Gen X heir apparent is tired of waiting. After all, he’s in his 40’s.  Why would anyone need to work longer than that to get what he wants (and expects)?

I’m not saying that either Jay or Conan is right.  I don’t know enough about it, or if Hollywood even has categories for “right” and “wrong.” (Those are so Middle America.)

What I am saying is that this conflict is happening (and will continue to happen) across the country in businesses and non-profits, and especially in churches.  As a generation, boomers are redefining how old someone can be “cool,” and seem to be pre-occupied with clinging to this status as long as possible. Combine this with longer life expectancy and 2009’s evacuation of retirement accounts, and boomers aren’t going to be leaving the stage at the same age their parents did.

The problem is that Gen X’ers are a generation weaned on immediate gratification.  The general response of Gen X’ers (whether on twitter, facebook, etc) to the late night battle is that Conan is vindicated and that Leno should just retire already, old man.   And, if he won’t, Conan should just take his ball and leave.

Anyone see similarities to church life?  Unfortunately, we too often look like the world around us.  Hence the rise of the mono-generational church.  But what if the church was conspicuously different from the world?  What if we didn’t cling to power, but delighted in seeing younger leaders get the credit?  Conversely, what if we honored the past and sought ways to point to what God is still doing through all generations?

The late night problem is endemic of generational friction between boomers and Gen X’ers, but the church doesn’t need to be like everyone else.  There is hope.  After all, the millennial generation (in this case, Jimmy Fallon) figures that the future is on the internet, anyways.

This is one of the major objections every leader runs into, and one Domino’s pizza has had to deal with.  Their market share of the pizza market is huge, despite the fact that they consistently rank last or next to last in taste tests.

By now you’ve probably seen the aggressive ad campaign they’ve put together highlighting their new pizza.   As the OC register said, they’re not calling it “New and improved,” but rather “New and improved, because our old pizza sucked.”  Domino’s didn’t have to change its pizza.  The old one sold fine.  But they sensed that improving it would help them fulfill their mission.

Would a church do that?   Sometimes, but more often not.  Let’s take Domino’s example.  Don’t wait until the budget forces you to make a better pizza.  Do it because you care about the mission.

If you’re tempted to take Pat Robertson’s comments about Haiti as representative of true Christianity (and I hope you weren’t), consider taking a couple minutes to read the response from John Mark Reynolds (a professor at Biola).  In addition to stating the obvious (“Robertson is wrong!”), he gives strong biblical evidence that Jesus would say the same.
(HT: JT)

We’re starting a new season in college ministry here at Grace, one that I’m extraordinarily excited about.  Rather than having one central midweek college group that I lead, we’re de-centralizing and having three smaller groups.  Each of these will be led by volunteers, and I’ll be coaching the leaders.

Each group will have between 6-8 people, last for 15 weeks, and have an action component to it (meaning you’ll serve together as Jesus’ hands and feet somewhere in the Seal Beach/Long Beach area).

Here are the reasons we’re doing it this way:

1. Scheduling – College students around here are having to take whatever classes they can get into because the state schools are so impacted.  It’s not feasible to expect everyone to keep Wednesday evening free, but they can look at their schedule and find a small group they can fit into their schedule.

2. More leaders, more connections – Some students love my teaching style.  Some don’t.  Now, students can connect with a variety of leaders.

3. Diffused ministry – Remember the old line about church being like a football game – 22 guys who desperately need rest and 80,000 fans who desperately need exercise?  That’s how I was starting to feel. This gives lay and student leaders a chance to really step out and do something that is challenging and meaningful.  Personally, Coaching small group leaders might turn out to be more “work,” but it’s exciting for me.

4. Group dynamics and ceilings – We kept bumping up against the 15 person ceiling of a small group, and couldn’t turn the corner.  With multiple small groups, we can stay small while reaching more students.

That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.  And don’t worry, college students, you’ll still get stuck listening to me at the Bridge!