Addie Zierman, author of When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love and Starting Over, recently wrote about churchy phrases that scare off millennials (those born from 1981 to 2000) or keep them from more seriously considering participation in the church.
Zierman, herself a millennial, writes about the topic as one who has recently returned to church while raising two young boys. She returned not because the church was so wonderful, but because she recognized it could meet her desire for community. Additionally, she offers this wisdom about millennials:
We grew up on easy answers, catchphrases and cliché, and if we’ve learned anything, it’s that things are almost always more complicated than that.
So What?
A church that offers black and white answers about the world and all of the many ways humans may interact within it, is increasingly irrelevant to younger generations. Likewise, simple clichés or catchphrases do more to alienate rather than unite/reunite young outsiders with faith communities. Millenials expect that their questions will be welcomed, and that as a whole any given local church will care more about questions and less about providing predetermined answers.
- What sorts of churchy phrases or easy answers in the form of clichés have you heard in your congregation?
- Do you think of your community of faith more as a place to go for answers or a community that encourages questions and welcomes you on your personal journey toward possible answers?