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Any of us over 40 know that in 25 years, church and mission leadership will be handed over to those who today might be tattooed, body-pierced or showing their boxer shorts over their saggy, baggy trousers. With that in mind, I offer five concerns for this generation. That I have only five may indicate that I am twice as excited as concerned. Consider the following.
SLOW STARTERS. My earlier piece affirmed the energy of the young and their hunger for challenge. But they seem to take a long time to “ramp up” to what my generation considers adult responsibility. They marry later, flounder longer through start-up careers and drag out their educations. Many live at home or move back home with Mom and Dad (or sadly, just Mom) into their late twenties. Mission mobilizers see this most in young people’s reticence toward long-term commitments. My students at Gordon College (they take missions courses as an elective, indicating they’re already missions-motivated) consider anything longer than 18 months “too long-term.”
What my generation considers slow could stem from several causes:
• The fast-paced changes young people live with have created high school graduates who consider five or six different careers as normative for their futures.
• Decades of broken families in our society have created a generation of un-parented youth who may resist the pressure of “adult” society.
• My generation has cultivated our disdain for aging and thus created a culture of adolescent perspectives (witness our previous president and his junior-high behavior sneaking around the Oval Office).
Whatever the causes, mission recruiters had better be ready to patiently walk candidates through multiple steps toward commitments.
NAIVE. On the positive side, young people seem cross-culturally equipped and tolerant of ethnic diversity, but their multi-cultural optimism may be a little naive. Worshiping and experiencing God at the ethnically rich Urbana student mission conference is not the same as struggling to form a cohesive multi-ethnic team. Multiculturalism always sounds great—until we start living together, owning each other’s histories, and working out our cross-cultural conflicts.
Short-term missions may add to this naiveté. At Urbana 2003, I listened with amazement as a veteran missionary introduced himself to a student interested in his agency. The missionary described his 27 years of service in the Middle East. The student bounced back, “Well, I’ve been a missionary too.” He then described his youth group’s two-week mission trip to Latin America.
Granted, the young guy was excited, but that recruiter had to bite his tongue as his quarter-century of service was made equal to a two-week youth group trip.
UNABLE TO FOCUS. As energetic and techno-savvy as young people are, our entire culture has developed collective Attention Deficit Disorder. With so many impulses and changes in our daily lives, we struggle to pay attention to any one thing for long. My generation has observed rapid-fire changes, but I’m not sure the emerging generation has. A culture raised with headsets and watching TV while banging on a computer keyboard may have a hard time focusing 10 to 20 years on a specific people group or translating a language.
LIVING IN VIRTUAL REALITY. Technology, the abundance of short-term missions teams, and the experience-driven priorities of the emerging generation make me concerned that they live in a world in their heads. There’s a reason why fantasy games and the “Matrix” movies are so popular with the younger generation. Virtual reality has become virtually indistinguishable from reality.
Books on this generation speak of their love for relationships. They don’t want to be alone. They love hanging out with their friends. They have much to teach us about prioritizing friendship, but I’m concerned they don’t know how to build the depth of friendship they desire. Consider Starbucks: a virtual living room with overstuffed chairs and a fireplace beckons people to meet their friends in a virtual home. Older people face the challenge of helping younger ones move from “Starbucks” relationships to the real thing—assuming, of course, that we know.
DROWNING IN DEBT. Even if we address relational foibles, a fifth obstacle to the upcoming generation furthering God’s global purposes is indebtedness. Students routinely take huge school loans without thinking about how much of their future salaries will go to debt repayment. I regularly ask graduating seniors about their debt load. Most awkwardly tell me sums between $10,000 and $40,000. Then I ask, “What will that be per month for the next ten years?” Very few know. Unlike a mortgage or a car payment where the monthly amount is clearly spelled out before the loan is granted, school loans mushroom with little thought of payback.
School debt, however, is just the start. The next generation has become so used to taking loans that they multiply credit card debt and car loans on top of school debts. One of my students, anticipating after-graduation service as a teacher in China, discovered that she could defer her school loans while she taught. She’s not going, though. Her $200/month credit card payment cannot be deferred.
Bottom line: if we’re serious about mobilizing the next generation, we must teach financial stewardship and create ways to help young people erase debt to free them to serve as quickly as possible.
TWO APPLICATIONS. My concerns about the next generation, if exaggerated, can create a fair amount of pessimism. But I’ve learned two things as I examine the pros and cons of emerging culture. First, I need to look in the mirror. In many respects, my concerns about them are a result of the long-term self-absorption of my generation. I need to hold myself up to the critical list and work on the “log” in my own eye.
Second, I need to look for a few young people to listen to, befriend, influence and mentor. Their generation is not as resistant to me as I was to my predecessors. If they are suffering from being “unparented,” I’d better be ready to adopt some kids.
Paul Borthwick trains leaders with Development Associates International and mobilizes students for global ministry at Gordon College.