I’ve heard various conversations about how a church can attract young adults. One comment I heard recently was that we need sermons that are not theologically deep if we want young adults and young families. I find it insulting to myself and others seen as young adults that there’s a presumption that to cater to us, you need to treat us like we’re stupid.
If you want shallow sermons, don’t blame my peers.
This comment led to this little rant below. This as written as “we” – I’m not writing on behalf of a specific team of people, nor in all cases of myself, but to communicate where I think 20-30 somethings are coming from. I’d love your thoughts. This is still a rough draft only slightly tweaked since I shared it with a few friends on Facebook.
Treat Us Like We’re Stupid
We 20- and 30-somethings don’t actually want to be treated like we’re stupid. That shouldn’t be surprising. We don’t want things that are shallow, nor do we want things that are disingenuous. Marketers have lied to us since we were small children and now we’re tired of being lied to in sales-pitches, whether it’s for a product or a truth-claim.
Our parents and teachers told us we were all 1st place winners and we know that wasn’t true either. We know the world does not revolve around us, so don’t tell us that it does.
We like to think critically, and are at a stage in life where we’re open to asking very challenging questions about the core of what we believe, what others believe, and what we were taught growing up by our families, churches, schools, and culture. We have the passion and energy to pursue what is true, even if it isn’t convenient.
We have a tendency to question authority which means if you stand up as an authority, you need to back up what you’re saying, and be willing and eager to engage with our questions and challenges. Even if we come across as on-the-offensive or argumentative, we’re not being insulting – we’re seeking to get past all the sales-pitches and agendas and get to what what is really real.
While we’ll take advantage of free stuff, we won’t actually sell-out on the basis of free pizza, t-shirts, coffee or movie tickets.
We value relationships and community. That’s why we’re on Facebook – it’s to connect with people far more than it is to annoy you with status updates about Farmville. Community cannot be faked. If you don’t value your relationships with us, please don’t fake it. We can tell, and it’s insulting.
We believe that we can seek what is right and true together through these relationships. We believe that we and our friends are in this together. We think we can spur each other on by both encouraging and challenging each other. We can argue and disagree with each other without destroying our relationships, because those are so very valuable to us.
We aren’t stuck in our ways. Not yet – apparently that will happen to us in a few years. Right now, we change our minds. Sometimes frequently. The benefit is that we can move in the right direction, which is what we want. The danger is that we can move in the wrong direction. Treating us like we’re stupid is more likely to repulse us from what you think is the right direction. The people who don’t treat us like we’re stupid earn more of our respect.
If you want yourself and your worldview to get our respect, treat us like real people. Give us what is real. And deep. And genuine. Admit where the complications are with what you want us to believe – if you say there’s no struggle in believing what you believe we’ll just assume you’re being disingenuous.
Don’t treat us like we’re children. We’re about the same age as Jesus when he was active in ministry. We’re not junior adults. We’re real adults. We’re going through life’s struggles, starting jobs, businesses and families. Many of us are mothers and fathers with children of our own. We’re already your baristas, computer techs, medical staff and servers. Soon we may well be your employers, professors, doctors, and religious and political leaders.
Please don’t treat us like we’re stupid. We’re not. We see through the sales-pitches and are seeking a story that we can believe in because it’s real, not because it sounds nice and comes with an X-Box or it feels like Starbucks.
We’re not stupid, but we have a lot to learn. We’re working on it. We think the ability to change our minds is good, and hope we don’t settle in our ways so much that we stop challenging ourselves. It’s because we want to learn and change for the better that we’re so inquisitive and challenging.
We’re sorry if we are difficult to understand. If you think we’re hard to understand, just wait for the next generation that has been on MySpace and cell phones since they were 3. Good luck with them!
Copyright Jonathan Green April 9, 2010
