To think about…
Why
Boomers resist the “Emergent fad.”
Emergents trying to convince Boomers that there is a
new generation with new needs that requires new approached often meet a brick wall from Boomers. Boomers say, “I’m tired of chasing fads in
ministry.” Why is it that boomers (my
own generation) are so resistant to the emergent generation’s claims that the
church must change or die?
Frankly boomers are
weary of change. My generation pioneered change! We are the ones who overthrew hymns for
choruses, screens for hymnals, paper agendas for verbal ones. It is my generation who invented the idea of
a “generation” that must be reached by lecturing the oldsters about boomer
needs and boomer values and “what boomers want.” We used “boomers” and “outreach” to install
our own preferences in both worship and church management in our own revolution
of the 80’s and 90’s. We coerced the
oldsters to give up their worship styles, management approaches and even their
architecture in order that we can “reach the coming generation [boomers, us!] with the gospel.
Eventually we won—we
enshrined our own preferences as standard operating procedure in the church—“tradition.”
In the process we became our parents—we
got protective of our own traditions. Thus, my generation is tired of chasing
new generations and “new fads.” We have either forgotten our own speeches or we
now doubt that our revolution accomplished much outreach after all (other than
reshuffling the Christian population among churches). Revolutionaries always become conservatives
once they succeed. We don’t have the
energy left to learn what postmoderns are like and to
be quite honest many in my generation do not even care. We cared little for the needs and preferences
of the oldsters when we revolted to change the church in the 1980’s and 1990’s—and
now we care little about the needs of the youngsters now that we are firmly in
control of everything. We care deeply
about things—but mostly we care about our own generation—that may be our
besetting generational sin. After having won the war we are tired of
battle. We now longer have an appetite
for revolutions and are now comfortable with things the way they are. Of course “the way things are” is they are
like we wanted them, or mostly so. We now
forget all those 10 point lists of “what Boomers are want and how the church
can change to reach them.” Or if we
remember them we now scoff at them and no longer think they are totally
accurate. So when someone younger
comes up with a new list claiming their generation is different than ours we
are simply too weary to even inquire into the matter so we blow them off.
And to be quite honest with you, as we
boomers have aged we are less sure that we actually did the right thing in the
violent overthrow of our parents’ traditions. We are admitting to each other that we did
some pretty manipulative things to overthrow the oldsters and now we’re not
totally sure we made a gain for the kingdom.
Have we really reached the tons of unbelievers we claimed our musical
styles would bring in? Is the quality of
discipleship greater now than when we took over? We are doubting this
now that we are approaching 60 as a generation.
All this makes us suspicious of the next generation’s agenda and their
certainty that the “church has to change or die.” We don’t dismiss postmodern/emergent thing
because my generation is evil or selfish—but because most boomers are just
tired of revolutions or we are beginning to doubt the gains of our own
revolution, thus the claims of the next one. When we were trying to convince the oldsters
they had to "change or die" we got miffed when they retorted,
"people don’t change and the gospel doesn't change." We hated
hearing, "I don't buy it that the coming generation needs things packaged
differently--why copy the world?" Now
we find ourselves saying similar things.
Emergents, we need you to be patient with
boomers-turned-oldsters..." the definition of
a conservative is ‘former revolutionary.’" And we boomers need to remember
ourselves in the 1980's when we were arguing, "boomers like bright
sanctuaries and fast upbeat music” when we hear the next generation say “Emergents like dark sanctuaries and slow reflective music.”
We boomers may not like what the Emergents plan to do
with it, but to who else can we pass on the church? We’re
stuck with the emergent generation. They
will inherit the earth. Perhaps we
boomers need to confess more publicly some of the errors in approach and effect
of our own revolution. Who knows, that
may help the Emergents avoid some our mistakes?
That's my bet (er, ah, I mean "hope.")
Keith
Drury 7/21/05