A Letter From Generation X to the Institutional Church:
Dear “Church,”
First of all, you probably do not know me very well. I was born after 1965 and before 1983. We ended the Post WWII baby boom, but that may be about all you can really know about us. Many of us are still not married, especially since many of us suffered through our own parents’ “mid-life” crisis and come from a divorce situation. Our parents’ spent most of their lives working hard and gaining very little for the effort. Spending most of our afternoons, evenings, and weekends growing up alone, we really hesitate to bring children into a world of deadlines, dead-ends, and absent parents. Perhaps that is why we are so restless; nothing in our lives was ever a total comfort.
We have been accused of having a short attention span, perhaps because we were the first generation that was baby-sat by the TV set. Our homes have an endless array of electronic gadgets never seen in human history. And we discard last year’s gadget for only the newest, the best, the most current. We do not have our own style; our musical tastes wander to whatever works for us at the time.
And that seems to be how we approach religion, if we ever consider it. Whatever works for us at the time. Our own personal experience is almost always how we find "truth." We think that one truth is as good as another, and we dabble and seek to find something greater than ourselves.
Let me be clear, you probably don’t see us at your “church.” Since we have mostly lived with the results of our “if it feels good, do it” parents that felt so good enough to walk away from their own commitments to each other, we like more conviction than what we typically find in your churches. Most of us simply will not even come to your doors; you give us no convincing reason for us to be involved anyway.
If you can convince us that we need to be involved, please let us know
GEN X
Dear “Church,”
First of all, you probably do not know me very well. I was born after 1965 and before 1983. We ended the Post WWII baby boom, but that may be about all you can really know about us. Many of us are still not married, especially since many of us suffered through our own parents’ “mid-life” crisis and come from a divorce situation. Our parents’ spent most of their lives working hard and gaining very little for the effort. Spending most of our afternoons, evenings, and weekends growing up alone, we really hesitate to bring children into a world of deadlines, dead-ends, and absent parents. Perhaps that is why we are so restless; nothing in our lives was ever a total comfort.
We have been accused of having a short attention span, perhaps because we were the first generation that was baby-sat by the TV set. Our homes have an endless array of electronic gadgets never seen in human history. And we discard last year’s gadget for only the newest, the best, the most current. We do not have our own style; our musical tastes wander to whatever works for us at the time.
And that seems to be how we approach religion, if we ever consider it. Whatever works for us at the time. Our own personal experience is almost always how we find "truth." We think that one truth is as good as another, and we dabble and seek to find something greater than ourselves.
Let me be clear, you probably don’t see us at your “church.” Since we have mostly lived with the results of our “if it feels good, do it” parents that felt so good enough to walk away from their own commitments to each other, we like more conviction than what we typically find in your churches. Most of us simply will not even come to your doors; you give us no convincing reason for us to be involved anyway.
If you can convince us that we need to be involved, please let us know
GEN X
This is so true for us Gen Xers. Also we did grow up mostly alone, we wander from place to place wondering if we are needed and wanted. Churches have to say that we are needed and wanted. Otherwise, we are going to believe that we are not and go on until we find someplace, any place, good or bad that we are wanted and needed.
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