Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

I spent my summer hiking on the Appalachian Trail with hundreds of Generation Xers. I hiked incognito so I got a pretty good glimpse of the secular Xer. They are a fascinating generation, quite different than their Boomer parents. The characteristics I discovered about generation X this Summer:

Burned by their parent's selfish divorces, they intend to marry for life, and thus have a higher view of marriage than the previous generation. They will wait for the 'right one' - even for a decade. As one 21 year old chemist put it, 'For me it's one life-one marriage.'

2. Lower view of sex.

However their view of sex is lower and largely disconnected from marriage. Living together before marriage, or having safe sex with somebody you like is accepted almost like my generation accepted 'making out' before the wedding night. One female medical student put it this way, 'Sex is like playing tennis -- something you do for fun with somebody you like and has nothing to do with marriage.'

One 17 year old hiker was picking up food in town soaked by the rain, when a pretty twenty-something women remarked, 'You look like you could use a shower.' He could, he said, and she took him to her apartment for the night. Apparently worried about statutory liability, she asked him point blank, 'How old are you?' When he caught up to me the next day and told the story, he said, 'Well, I couldn't lie to her of course... so I wound up sleeping on the couch.' This Xer was quite willing to sleep with this gal, but he wouldn't lie to her.

4. Tolerance.

They are accepting of just about everything except narrow-mindedness. They have absolutely zero tolerance for intolerance -- even appearing to be so brings shunning, scorn and rejection.

They openly explore their spiritual sides, and terms like spiritual, healing and soul are all common.

While they are spiritually oriented, their interest is much broader than the One God of the Bible, and includes Buddhism, Hinduism, and all kinds of New Age philosophy mixed in with remnants of Christianity.

They know next to nothing about the Bible. Out of one group of 15 Xers, not a single one knew the story of Abraham offering up Isaac, though, when they heard it, they approved it and thoughtfully pondered its meaning. One said, 'I went to church every week as a kid, how come they never told me that story?'

Their surety comes from experience, not objective truth. One 31 year old philosophy grad nicknamed 'Slider' who now works as a cook claimed he was an agnostic, based largely on his negative experience with a fundamentalist church in Texas. He joined me on the top of a thousand foot cliff to watch the sun sink softly one night. Moved by the grandeur of it all, he burst out, 'There's got to be a God... there's just got to be...' Personal experience had determined his view in both cases.

A guilt-relieving approach to evangelism doesn't cut it. These Xers don't feel like sinners, even though they suspect the church thinks they are. Instead of guilt, doubt is the issue, instead of forgiveness, faith.

Off-label beer especially. I saw only one instance of drunkenness, but off-label beer was everywhere. Not only would they walk five miles into town for a beer, but these hikers would add a half dozen bottles to their 40 pound packs, hauling them ten miles to a campsite just to share with others. (They sometimes brought me a Coke, assuming that a tee-totaler like me was probably a 'recovering alcoholic.')

They aren't non-alcoholic, but they are non-workaholic. These children of climb-the-ladder Boomers figure a job is what you do to earn money to live - a means not the end. The conversation reflecting this value best: 'Why do you choose to only work four days a week?' Answer: 'Because they didn't make three days available.'

They think they'll get to heaven, if there is one; that God will be more broad-minded and accepting than most church people are. They really have little fear of judgment, hell or eternal punishment, and doubt that 'God would do such a thing.'

They are good friends and value friendships. They're hungry for someone who will take time to listen, relate in a low-key way, and avoid being preachy. Their complaint about their Boomer parents: ' They never took time for me.' They thirst forfriendships with people their parent's age.

Generally speaking they consider 'organized' religion to be narrow-minded, hypocritical, money-grabbing, intolerant and irrelevant. They much prefer their own brand of do-it-yourself syncretism.

Most have had a personal experience with being evangelized somewhere along the line... and it was bad. They are open to friendship, but closed to (overt) evangelism.
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These 15 characteristics - good and bad - come from my own 'sampling' of secular generation Xers on the Appalachian Trail this summer. Of course, like all samplings, it has its limitations, so the conclusions are probably no better than George Barna's.

But, what do you think? How does the church reach this generation X?


Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu