The "Millenials" are Coming.... speak out!

CBS News republished an updated edition of their assessment of the new generation entering the workforce. It's called "The 'Millenials' are Coming," a sound similar to the alarming cry of Paul Revere.

This is a risk on my part to see who will comment on an article like this. But I'd love to hear from those age 15-28 (and those who work with them) and throw your ideas about this generation into the mix.

In many ways, some of the aspects of this article are welcoming to me. That modernity has treated the workplace like a dehumanizing machine, I like these ideas of putting a human touch back into resourcefulness. The financial bottom-line may not be the only bottom-line necessary to call it 'productivity.'

I understand the concern as well (the delayed moving out on one's own, the demand for easy-going work, the lack of urgency to find work, etc) and the comparison to the Greatest Generation. After WW2, America emerged as a world-power and we've used it to develop technology and consumerism. So the habits of consumerism are all over the Millenials, whether they know it or not. Plus, I think the problem is deeper and involves more than a Mr. Rogers approach (as the article points out).

I work with teens all the time all over the country (and my book is an engagement into their questions, written in ways they understand). They talk to me and my wife, when we are at speaking events, and many write us emails about their daily struggles and questions. We've seen a wide-spectrum of the Millenials in high school and college, but I want to hear your take on it.

Is the "Coming" of the Millenials a good thing, bad thing, something we should be worried about, something we should celebrate? If you are a Millenial, are you frustrated with your peers, find the concern no big deal, think you are ready for the wider world (and why)?

I know the article is a little long. But read what you can and post some comments. You can even make it anonymous, if you don't want anybody to attach you with your opinion! :)

An Evangelical Primer on Culture

Certain slices of the church have been engaged in cultural awareness and culture making for a long time. Evangelicals, only in the last few decades, became aware that culture was something to be engaged (breaking from their isolationist, fundamentalist past), primarily to bring the gospel in relevant ways.

An artist friend, Jeff LeFever, of mine asked when evangelicals were going to stop merely engaging culture and start creating it. Many evangelicals have already been involved deliberately in that mission, while still many more have been involved in making it badly. John Mark Reynolds of Biola Univ says that making culture is not an option. The only option is making it well or making it poorly.

Andy Crouch has entered the fray to educate and encourage evangelicals to think more about culture, what forms it, what questions to ask of cultural artifacts, and to take responsibility to create culture beyond our consumerism and our evangelistic techniques.

IVP is publishing his book, Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. And you can read the first couple of chapters right away!

For those of you involved in a broader cultural conversation, you will not find anything new here.
But if you're looking for a very easy to read, accessible approach to understanding what culture is and how to think about it, this is a good book for you (or to recommend to your friends that you want to bring up to speed). The rest of the book will be released in a couple of months.

I think one of the reasons the mega-church model is beginning to fail is that a whole sub-culture has grown up within it that has cut itself off from the relevance of the mundane, everyday life. It's like walking into a concert, framed with certain rules, overwhelming our senses, pretending to be more important than any other place. And this becomes disillusioning after a while. Here's an article on recent statistics.

Some of us may wince that 'culture making' will be a new fad and so evangelicals will exploit it. That's the risk. But hopefully a few brave hearts will catch the vision while many others just try to be "cool" with their new sloganeering. I can already see the church marquees that used to say, "Real, Relavant," will now say "Culture Making." And it will only be a slogan and not a description of what's happening inside. This too, will be is part of creating culture gone bad. But we can't blame Andy Crouch for that!

And while you're at it, jump over to Amazon.com and pick up Dick Staub's The Culturally Savvy Christian. Staub "gets it" and has for a long time.

And, hey, since I'm making recommendations, subscribe to Mars Hill Audio Journal with Ken Myers. It is well worth the annual subscription and will fill your mind and hearts with solid ideas during your commute.

Make sure you check out yesterday's blog entry too.

A New Approach to ID: Ben Stein's "Expelled"

I feel like the last to hear about this...

While it seems some of the Intelligent Design (ID) dialog has been kept out of public discourse through the courts, media, and the academic esbalishment, Ben Stein is taking the idea to the streets in his new documentary-movie, Expelled.

His approach is 'free speech.' The theory of ID may be wrong (if future discoveries rule it out) but Stein's argument is that that is not enough of a reason to 'persecute' those who are intelligently speaking about it in the academy and the public at large. After all, 'Darwinism' may be wrong at some level as well, as we as a culture try to extract more answers from it than it can provide.

I see this movie as a refreshing approach to open up channels of discourse, like the way Gore or Moore opened up discourse on other relevant issues of the day (whether we agree with them or not). After all, cultural ideas sometimes feel as natural to us as instinct, yet they are not. It is always good to examine and re-examine what we believe in light of evidence, experience, and maturity.

Check out the Expelled website, see the trailers, and encourage those you know to attend. The greatest hope I have for this film is cultural awareness, that things are not as cut-and-dried as they seem, and that the common man or women will become more personally responsible for what they believe, rather than just taking the 'expert' or 'establishment' or 'theologian' or whomever's opinion as the permanent norm.

"Americans Hostile to Knowledge"

Susan Jacoby wrote a book I'm ordering today:

The Age of American Unreason

American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism is on a roll.... and many, if not most, Americans don't even think it matters.

Her thesis isn't new... but I'm hoping it will be accessible enough to recommend to those caught with the disease.

Read todays article: Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

In the article she equates the desire for many religious Americans to see Creationism taught in school as an anti-intellectual approach. I don't think she's familiar with the many intellectuals who are actually part of the debate. But I will admit many in the debate are not open to discourse or a nuanced point of view.

And I do think she is right that we're offering mainstream courses in our colleges on pop-art and rock music, sacrificing the higher arts and culture in standard education.

It can go without saying that this plight is also in the American church by and large. Church is infotainment, a passive collection of people watching a band and a preacher. Then the preacher asks why the ones on the stage are the only ones doing anything. And the people in the pews say that the system has made it that way....

I don't think it's a church problem. I think the weird, passive, too - much - knowledge - is - dangerous attitude in American culture of today is IN the church. So we should expect this from the seats in the pews to the seats in the subway.

And I think Jacoby is right: this is not a generational thing. It isn't about Baby Boomers vs. Gen Yers. Many parents want youth leaders to help fix their kids, when the parents need fixing too.

Like I mentioned a couple of days ago in "The Music Diversion," maybe we need to not simply fast from music, but also fast from television or seeking entertainment to make us feel 'normal.' Maybe we need to work on a creative project or read a Kathleen Norris book (I recommend The Cloister Walk), or Dick Staub's The Culturally Savvy Christian, or even Living with Questions.