don't leave for me a twenty year old says....

generational gap

so the former 

"mainline" denominational church 

has been wringing their hands

and wiping their brow over the 

absence of those under the age of 40.

we used to talk about 

the absence of 20 somethings

now we wonder where the 

30 somethings are? 

i recently read an article 
by a young evangelical 
presbyterian.

i do not consider myself to 

be "evangelical" in the way 

the term has been defined in modern america.

i am 

however 

evangelical in that i 

have been called to share
(speak and live) 

the story of faith 
as i've come to understand it and experience it.

to tell the story i've experienced 
is to tell the 

story of a generation gap. 

i've grown up

in the middle

of two generations.

i'm on the very fringe end of the

baby boomer generation

which means i was just a baby

when hippy

free

      love

flowers in your hair

snub the establishment

"grooviness"

was in full gear.

in adulthood and in ministry 

i encountered the "yuppy era"

that strange moment when

the former 
snub the establishment generation

became the establishment

in a very big way.

of course

sweeping statements

such as the ones i write

fail to acknowledge that

not all of any group can

be so easily define

and categorized.  

some baby boomers are still hippies.

other baby boomers

helped to replace one establishment

with another kind of establishment.

and yet other baby boomers

more readily identify with

the generation before them

or the generation after them.

what ever the case may be

baby boomers

are currently the base of

leadership in denominational churches

and are the very ones

faced with the question....

where did the

under 40 somethings go?

and 

what must we do to

bring them back into the fold?

with this question 
a young man defining himself as an evangelical 
in the presbyterian church (u.s.a. ) writes:

It’s not that people under 40 don’t care about denominationalism.  No, it’s that we don’t care for the way in which the baby boomers have fought and bickered for decades now. And we really don’t care for baby-boomer definitions and labels.

“Conservative” means less to my generation than “connected.” “Liberal” means nothing compared to “unified.” “Progressive” is a meaningless term when compared to “missional,” and “tradition” is only appealing when associated with our church traditions — not our American political traditions.  If “denominationalism” is simply a smaller stage for the same dramas acted out in the American political scene, then no, we don’t like “denominationalism.”  (article from the Presbyterian Outlook: http://pres-outlook.com/infocus-features/current-features/17173.html )

as i said 

i am not an evangelical 

in the way "evangelical" 

has been defined in america.

when i saw the term 

evangelical attached to this

young man's article i flinched

and almost didn't read it...

but,

i read on

and 

i am thankful.

what should we do

at this juncture in the life 

of our denomination?

stop

drop 

and listen!

we talk an awful lot 

on behalf of

those  who are under 40.

what we learn 

with this young man's 

words 

are 

we need to do a lot 

more listening.  

connected

unified

missional

these terms 

don't divide

and separate. 

i was born 

in a time which puts 

me in between two 

generations.  
that fact does not get me off 
the hook...

i've done my fair share
of tugging and talking. 

i pray

for no 

more tug of war!

some of us need to 

stop 

drop and listen...

others of us need to

speak until 

our voices are heard.  

but 

honestly 

it feels 

as if it is too 

                            late

and then again

this isn't the 

first time 

GOD has had to 

face 

a stubborn 
people.