Bloggin' Bout my Generation, Part III

So... what's the answer to this generation dilemma?

I don't have a foolproof solution, but I do have a suggestion.

My generation needs to transition from feeling challenged to feeling called.

We needed challenges. We needed to be pushed out of our comfort zones. We needed to be inspired to sacrificially serve God. We needed See You at the Pole rallies and Newsboys concerts and Summer Projects. Even those of us who haven't gone into "full-time ministry" needed them. (Perhaps we're the ones who needed them the most.) Those experiences, I believe, have made us unique, and we need to not be ashamed of that uniqueness.

But to hold onto our uniqueness, we need a sense of calling. Os Guinness defines calling as "the truth that God calls us to Himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have in invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to His summons and service." Challenges come in lumps (sometimes mountain-sized lumps); calling is continual. Challenges lead to growth in fits and spurts; calling leads to a journey. Challenge brings change from the top down; calling brings change from the bottom up.

Here's to praying we become a generation that answers its call. Not a call to abandon our "normal" lives in exchange for something "better," but to live out our extraordinary relationship with God in our "normal" lives. I think that's how God wants us to change the world, and I think He's prepared this generation of Christians to do it in a unique way.

The other side of the question is how the church can help us do that. I don't exactly know. But I hope current and future church leaders will see this need and dream of ways to encourage a new, called generation.

Bloggin Bout My Generation, Part II

Earlier, I talked about how my generation of Christians doesn't generally fit into the church.


The great irony is that, in a lot of ways this lack of fitting in comes from the church, itself.


Think about what the church (youth groups, college ministries, Dawson McAllister retreats, See You at the Pole Rallies, etc.) told my generation growing up:

• "You need to step out of your comfort zone."
• "You've got to reach your campus for Christ."
• "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot live without."
• "Serving God is worth any sacrifice."
• "You have to power to tell your sphere of influence about the gospel."
• "Your generation can change the world for Jesus."
• "Your generation is going to see Jesus return."
• "You should go on a mission trip every summer."
• "You've got to serve out of God's strength, and not your own."
• "You're too busy not to pray."
• "All of life is ministry."
• "All of life is worship."

My generation of Christians learned to live out those truths in high school and college. But now that we've grown up, two things have happened: 1. It's much harder to live out those truths in real life (in which your boss doesn't care whose strength you're serving in), and 2. Many Christians in the earlier generations find these ideas foreign. To many of them, the Christian life is about "family" (by which they mean "children") and "morality" (by which they mean "watching the right movies"). They've never cosidered their comfort zone or their sphere of influence; they have little if any vision about changing the world; they think of ministry and worship as something that happens only on Sunday morning.


I know what you're thinking at this point: This is not true of every Christian older than we are. After all; it was Christians older than we are that laid down these challenges. For that, I am eternally grateful.


But, I think the fact remains that the church challenged my generation in a way that no generation has been challenged in a long time. And we're now at a point where we can continue to live in that sense of challenge and take risks to follow God, or we can resign ourselves to "normal life." The first sounds thrilling. But the second looks tempting when I'm tired and when I see others doing it.