Takeaways From Pastor Mary's Talk 'Why Millennials Are the Hope of the Church'

I thought Pastor Mary’s talk was amazing, too! I listened to it twice now – the second time to refresh my memory before writing a response here.

By the way, I am a “boomer.” CRC for life but grew up in the Air Force where my dad was a chaplain. Attending San Jose CRC where I have been a member for almost 40 years now.

I was struck by Pastor Mary’s statements regarding the Millennials’ reluctance to take on the label of “Christian” because of its association with other words such as racist, anti-immigrant, and so on. I remember having similar feelings when so-called Christians were bombing abortion clinics and killing the doctors and staff who worked there. Back then if I said I was Christian I would sometimes qualify it with “not the abortion clinic-bombing kind.”

I think nearly all of us have to work through the reluctance we feel in some social circles to openly say we are Christians. It took me many years to finally go ahead and say things like “…a woman from church said or did x” or any other reference to the fact I actually went to church. Often, I was also reluctant because I knew I wouldn’t measure up to the “perfect Christian” I thought I should be if people were going to know I was Christian. For me, what helped was to get older and become less and less concerned with what other people thought, plus I hoped that ultimately, even though I would blow it over and over – NOT be that perfect Christian – I would at least do things like admit and apologize when I was wrong, and show people that I loved and cared for them. The association with negativity is heightened now, but there’s always been baggage that goes with that label. I’d be curious what your thoughts are on this.

Kind of along similar lines, I have been thinking a lot about her discussion of the culture of tolerance, of “You do you,” and loneliness. I’ve been thinking about how I can do more things like ask people for coffee. I like having people over for dinner; I could do more of that. I’ll keep thinking about that, and, again, I’d love to hear your ideas.

Pastor Mary’s reference to pornography really struck home, too. I’ve been closely involved in a situation where pornography was at the root. It’s something I really hadn’t thought about before then, and now think about often. I wrote down the things Mary said to read. Does the subject of pornography touch you and millennials or others that you know? One thing that strikes me is what a different perception there is about it in a sort of abstract way versus when it has a real, serious effect on life, ourselves, and our loved ones.

It was good to hear her discussion of preaching and mention that music was at the bottom of the list of reasons people go to church. Music was a big deal a few years back in our church, and I’ve been on our worship team for years. I plan to talk to our church leaders about evaluating the preaching in our church, the faith questions Mary brought up, and I downloaded her interview questions.

This is something Pastor Mary did not talk about, but here’s something that is kind of cynical and comes up in my mind a lot when we’re talking about millennials or others coming to church. I’m pretty convinced that many people would not come to church no matter how great the preaching, how welcoming the people, whatever we did – because they just don’t want to get up and go to it. They don’t want to subtract the time from their precious weekend hours, and/or they don’t want to have to set an alarm, and/or other practical reasons having nothing to do with what may or may not be happening in a church service. And don’t get me wrong – it’s true for me, too! Now that we’re empty-nesters we love taking day trips and spending our weekend hours elsewhere! Any thoughts?

Well, this response has gotten very long – and I could go on. Love to hear your thoughts and ideas.