By Erik Parker
ChristianWeek Columnist | December 6, 2016
The ‘Millennials and Church’ thing has been written about to death in recent years. Theories about what millennials want in church range from the newest, flashiest, most technologically advanced thing, to the oldest, most artisanal traditions.
If you are sick of reading about how to get millennials back to Church, join the club. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you for not reading yet another blog post about the topic; but bear with me, I promise not to talk at all about what millennials want or how to get us back to Church.
That being said, figuring out millennials is big business for Christianity these days and finding the magic bullet to get us all back to church would make someone rich. Lots of church consultants and ministry experts are making the speaking rounds telling the Church all about millennials and the big “change” the world is experiencing.
And yet, as a millennial myself, I am rarely asked why I didn’t follow the rest of my exiting generation and when I am asked why I am still around, it is usually after I have pointed out that I am rarely asked.
Being a millennial and an ordained Lutheran pastor has provided me some insight into the Church’s quest to regain millennials. Almost always the starting point for this conversation is, “how do we get the young people back?”
Yet, it is almost never asked, “Why are young people leaving?”
Why are young people leaving the Church?
Church people are convinced they know the answer to why people are leaving. The surface level answers have to do with sports on Sundays, shopping on Sundays, lack of commitment, not having prayers in the schools, boring traditional worship, not enough youth ministry, too many rules, too much organ, etc.
The experts have more sophisticated reasons: like people being busy and carefully choosing how to spend their discretionary time.
Yet, none of these things seem to really name the reason that my contemporaries are not going to Church. None of these reasons seem sufficient to explain my anecdotal experience.
Admittedly, I have never had parishioners my own age in the last six years of ministry. Yet, there is one area where I have consistently done ministry with millennials.
Baptisms.
I have met with dozens of millennials who are bringing their babies to be baptized, but who don’t otherwise go to church. Since I require to meet with parents for friendly conversations about baptism, I have the opportunity to ask about the role of faith in their lives.
And there are two things I have taken away from these experiences:
Even though I fit the big teddybear-like white-guy-with-a-beard mould of the stereotypical pastor, I don’t fit the age mould. I don’t talk about faith like they expect me to. And, I tell them way more about baptism than their parents, grandparents or my predecessors have.
Almost always, the millennials I meet with find it refreshing that I didn’t just expect them to magically know everything about church and that I encourage questions and skepticism.
While the first takeaway is troubling, the bigger takeaway when I meet with other millennials (even ones that are almost completely unchurched) is that I don’t have to make the cultural commute that I am constantly making with most of the people I serve.
What is a cultural commute you ask?
Well, it is the whole “iPhone pastor in a Typewriter church” thing.
It is the idea that in order to engage or interact with a certain community or group of people – or generation of people – you need to speak in their cultural language.
An easy example is actual languages. Even though I am an English speaker, I took grade school in French. It was draining to operate in a second language all the time.
It is the same for immigrants and foreigners, even when they already speak English. You don’t just speak the same language, you learn a whole system of symbols, images, colloquialisms, inside jokes, history, and baggage that go along with a group of people. And, when you don’t get that culture, you feel constantly like you are on the outside.
An iPhone pastor in a typewriter church
I remember when I first got my iPhone and would pull it out to make appointments or send messages in front of parishioners. They would often look at me like I just beamed down from the starship Enterprise; these were people who remember riding to school in a horse and buggy.
But more than that, when I sit in most meetings or conversations with church people, the discussion ends up being full of cultural references that pass me by. TV shows, music, movies, and historical references from the 50s, 60s, and 70s of which I don’t understand the meaning, are regular parts of conversation.
At the same time I have to park my own cultural baggage. I can’t make Friends or Breaking Bad or Jay-Z or Mumford and Sons or Hipster or Twitter references because most people won’t get them.
But it isn’t just pop-culture symbols. It goes deeper than that.
It is the whole way Church and faith were approached 50 years ago versus how things are approached today.
The most draining cultural commute that I experience as a millennial pastor is the difference between congregations who still expect that every good Canadian (or American) citizen would be a church goer versus my expectation that only people who are interested and for whom faith is very important would be a church goer.
It is a cultural commute that takes shape most clearly for me in this way:
When I go and talk to unchurched millennials about baptism, I often get asked about why faith and church is important to me. This is often the most exciting part of the conversation.
Yet, when I ask church boomers and older members about why faith and church is important to them, I get uncomfortable looks and uncertain answers.
Now don’t get me wrong.
I love the people I have served and do serve. And, I don’t begrudge them in anyway. If anything, this is a failure of church leadership to not help people think through why church is important to them.
I also think that it is an important part of ordained pastoral ministry to be constantly making cultural commutes towards those whom we serve in order that they might hear the gospel (wasn’t the whole incarnation a cultural commute?).
But this cultural commute, this expectation that as a millennial I will always cross the bridge in the cultural gap and engage in a world that is culturally different, is not just because I am a pastor.
Church people so often expect that anyone outside the dominant culture or generation – millennials, foreigners, seekers, new converts – will be the ones to make the commute. And, this expectation is often unconscious.
It is okay for a millennial pastor to be the one crossing the bridge, making the cultural commute in order to be a part of a church community. But, it doesn’t always work the same way for millennial church members.
And, I think this is a big reason millennials aren’t in church. It just isn’t a world that most of us can even access.
When I attend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada’s (ELCIC) National Convention, we talk about how to do ministry in remote parts of country where pastors are unavailable. We talk about right relationships with Canada’s indigenous peoples. We talk about working for justice in the correctional system. We will pass resolutions on climate change and immigration issues. And, we might event talk about “how to get the young people back.”
These are important issues, things we should talk about, things we should speak out about. But, we aren’t talking about why people are leaving church.
And, we certainly aren’t talking about how to translate ourselves into a church for 2016 and beyond. Instead, we are talking about restructuring, right-sizing, which is the corporate language of the 80s and 90s.
I suspect that this is where a lot of conversations in local churches sound like, and where conversations in districts and national offices sound like. Churches are trying to catch up to the 80s, while my millennial contemporaries are leaving churches because the cultural commute to even access church is just too far a journey.
Commuting to make church work
Being commuting pastors is something that many of my millennial colleagues and I just accept. I know that helping congregations and church bodies move into the 21st century (hopefully before it ends) is just going to be my lot. And, not just our lot, but our calling.
