The Millennials

On Saturday I finished reading The Millennials, a non-fiction book by the father/son team, Thom S. Rainer and Jess W. Rainer. Most of its contents were the results of painstaking research with a credibly sized test group. But one chapter was devoted specifically to Christianity, as the authors identify themselves as evangelicals. Here is a sampling of all their findings:

• Millennials are more likely to take an international trip than those of any previous generation.
• "Family" is the single greatest motivating factor for them. And they would like to learn from people who have long-term successful marriages, with 91 percent holding up such people as their heroes and life examples.
• Most Boomer parents have good relationships with their children, resulting in a mutual respect between the generations.
• Millennials have turned to more centralized government. This doesn't necessarily mean they see this as the ideal, but there's a sense that nobody's offered any better options.
• They are "the learning generation," but by learning, they don't always envision a classroom. They read, and they appreciate being mentored.
• At work: Professionally they crave feedback, both formal and informal. And it bothers them when bosses fail to keep up with technology.
• Respect is key. They value listening/finding common ground approaches to politics and religion.
• More than personally going green, they want consensus on environmental issues. They loathe the polarization and lack of civility. The tone’s the thing.
• Younger Millennials use texting as a primary form of communication almost 20 percentage points more than older Millennials.
• More than 80 percent of graduate-level Millennials use Facebook.
• One out of four grad-level Millennials use LinkedIn.
• Music is more influential than religious beliefs by three percentage points. The Internet is more influential than a spouse by 30 points. And TV is more influential than a boss by 11%. Few sources of influence compete with the media.
• Brevity is a must for the Millennials (think: Twitter).
• They expect, typically, e-mail responses: within half a day. Facebook: answered in hours. Texts: returned within 30 minutes, though most respond within the first few minutes.
• 75 percent of Millennials define themselves as spiritual.
• Only 13 percent view religion and spiritual matters with any degree of importance.
• 24 percent of Millennials are active in church, attending at least once a week. (Notice that a bunch of them say they go to church but they also say they don't rank it as important.)
• A Millennial typically has a syncretistic belief system, taking portions from various faiths and nonfaiths.
• While 24 percent attend services, only 15 percent say they are Christians. That means a good number of churchgoers do not self-identify as Christians.
• Millennials are largely “anti-institutional church.” Seventy percent of them agree that American churches are irrelevant.
• Many feel organized religion leads to negativity and conflict.
• In most cases where parents showed true commitment to Christ and to their local church, their children have embraced their faith.
• "The Bible Belt has become a Bible string." With the Millennials we can no longer assume demographics give us significant clues about religious affiliation.
• "Humility" (and its synonyms) is the number one virtue of church leaders that Millennials desire.
• Unchurched Americans respond well to an invitation to church, especially if the one inviting takes them to church. (The authors’ application: Invite them.)
• “The good news is that the unchurched Millennials will likely be attracted to churches that demonstrate in deep biblical teaching and preaching what it really means to be followers of Christ.”
• Millennials distrust government and church. But unlike the Boomers, the distrust is not due to lack of respect. They perceive the churches and their leaders to be negative and argumentative.
• Those who will connect best with Millennials in the years ahead will understand these heartfelt desires to be the great reconcilers.

Okay, so that's what the book says. Now, we know this generation is putting off marriage as compared with earlier generations. And sometimes researchers (though not the Rainers) say this means they don't value marriage. I think the opposite is true. I believe many of them value marriage so much that they're hesitating before entering into it; they're taking it seriously.

The big surprise for me after reading this book was that the authors focused much of their application for Christians on inviting Millennials to church and for churches to provide good teaching/preaching. While these are important, they seemed to be lacking something. So allow me to add some possible applications of my own.

But what about calls to “be” the church? What about service projects, short-term ministry trips in the inner city and in the developing world? What about encouraging one-on-one discipleship? Why not urge small accountability groups to include seekers? And shouldn't we train lyricists and musicians to tell truth through oh-so-important high-quality music? And our authors--let's encourage them to get great educations (in and outside of a classroom) and write excellent books for these self-educators. And encourage family ministries that mix Millennials and their parents in the same adult fellowships, rather than always segregating by age.

I found the research interesting and well documented; but the application of inviting seekers to attend a service seemed Boomer-like. Let's have more imagination.