The new culture I am speaking of is the emerging culture of today’s youth: those who are currently in middle school through college. This generation is known as “Gen Y” or “Millennials” and they are different from the Gen X Baby-Busters that have given young people a bad name in many church circles. You may not be aware of the significant cultural differences between “Builder” and “Baby Boomer” generations and these mostly un-churched young people. It is more than a “generation gap”, or different musical tastes – I would beg to say the major difference is a language barrier.

We live in Southern Orange County in California. All around us are people who speak only Spanish. I would not assume our English-only worship gathering would connect with these individuals. While we could provide a translator or some high-tech “ear piece”; to truly reach the Spanish culture we have to take into consideration their different values of time and relationships, of family and traditions. The same is true of this up & coming youth generation.

This youth generation may look like and sound like the older generations of the church, but they truly speak and value different things.

Tony Jones, in his book, Postmodern Youth Ministry, offers the following differences between the generations:

Resist the temptation to label either side of the value continuum as “good” or “bad”; both have beneficial qualities. Think of them as just – different. While there are exceptions to the rule and it’s dangerous to categorize any generation broadly; these differences result in the generations valuing different things, looking at life and truth differently and ultimately speaking a different language from each other.

The longer churches assume young people should become like the adults in our church, the less we will seek to speak their language and the more they will not connect with our churches. While we may have some young people who have been raised to speak the language of older church attendees – we will become increasing irrelevant to the un-churched youth. If this trend continues – many churches will close their doors too. May that never be true of South Shores Church!

Instead of getting depressed or frustrated with this generation, or the situation, or the author of this article. I want to instead suggest ways the entire church can begin to speak the language of this new generation. I am honored as the Youth Pastor to lead the way in reaching this youth culture; however, we must all think of ourselves as bridge builders between the generations, helping each generation learn to speak the language of the other. Let me suggest 3 bridges that I have found to be effective in connecting the generations.

First, Creation: God’s creation is enjoyed by all generations, although differently. I have found it is true, “Old Men Rule”, when it comes to surfing. When I first came to South Shores many of the older generation invited some of the teenagers to surf alongside them, and even teach some of the teens. I know of women in our church who enjoy walking at the beach for exercise; occasionally they have invited their teenage daughters to join them. What if all of us regularly invited younger generations to join us in enjoying creation? It is during these experiences that each generation will begin to learn the language of the other. The Youth Ministry is seeking to form Passion groups (surfing, mountain biking, walking) in which to connect these generations. If you have a “passion” for outdoor activities, let us know at pastordave@southshores.org.

Secondly, Mission Trips: This past year the Youth Ministry sponsored a mission trip to Costa Rica, but half of the team was non-youth people. We had a young family join the team and several others who were “older”. We spent 4 months building the team dynamics by having them work together to raise the funds for the trip. During the trip, they served side-by-side, doing different jobs. In the evening, they would sit and share stories of what God did through them that day and end the evening in prayer. The prayer times went into the late night every night as the generations prayed for each other. They had learned to speak each other’s languages; they had learned what each other valued and needed and they prayed fervently for each other. This team continues to be very close months later, because they have learned to speak other’s language – a bridge has been built. While not every mission trip is suited for all ages, please consider joining our Youth on a mission trip. We have several planned: April 8-16 to the Dominican Republic; July 15-21 to Mississippi to help rebuild from the hurricanes; July 25-Aug 7 to South Africa to help with AIDS orphans.

Lastly, Stories: The underlying foundation to the previous two ideas is they are experiences in which people will have time to tell stories. Too often, we are rushing to get some where at church. We are rushing to find a seat, we are rushing to our classroom, and we are rushing to the parking lot… Stories take time and a reason to tell the story. One idea we are developing to create story-sharing opportunities is we are looking to the “2nd-half” generation to become “prayer partners” with our youth. We will supply monthly prayer requests from that student. Sometime in the Spring the Youth ministry will sponsor a brunch on Sunday morning when both the student and the “2nd-halfer” would be there; this will become a time of great story telling as the student is able to give up-dates to the prayer requests. These stories become great bridges between the generations. If you are interested in becoming a prayer partner for one of our youth, please email the Youth ministry at pastordave@southshores.org.

We value young people being a part of our church. So what kind of bridge are you willing to build to reach this emerging culture?