Trevin Wax has written a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings are Shaping the Future of American Religion. His concluding thoughts about the book and the subject are interesting and possibly worth discussing.
1... 2... 3... GO!
Friday, April 11, 2008
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5 comments:
Wax's first suggestion is this:
Raise expectations regarding post-boomer religious participation while simultaneously providing support for this generation.
By this he means that if we expect that young adults are "busy" and will drop out of church, then that is what will happen. It is mentioned in the summary of Chapter 1 that young adults make major decisions regarding careers, marriage, and finances, yet there are no institutional supports in place in society to help them navigate this stage of life. Quoting from the book:
"We provide care centers, schools, welfare programs, family counseling, colleges, job training programs, and even detention centers as a kind of institutional surround-sound until young adults reach age 21, and then we provide nothing."
Have you guys felt a lack of societal support? Are there concerns that people "in our generation" have that we can help meet?
I know nothing about investing and retirement funds, etc; and investing wisely and properly. That's one thing that I wish made more sense to folks like me.
The other things, I think I learned ok enough to "get me by" until I really understood them to act accordingly and make decisions about. And I learned them mainly through the mistakes of my parents or the wisdom of other parental figures with whom I looked up to.
Most of the time I feel like I have no idea how to be an adult. My mom barely taught me how to cook, and I never wanted to learn from my parents regarding finances (ha ha, yikes!).
I don't feel "lost" necessarily, though. I feel like I'm struggling against the whole "get-out-of-college, now-get-a-practical-job" bit. Our society is still like a rat maze, even when we get out of college. Young adults need a strong and helpful community where they can feel free to develop their own personal sense of self and learn how to live life in a healthy way.
Much of this review seemed "obvious" to me because... duh I am the demographic (particularly on worship, the fact that most of us dislike CCM). Two insightful comments:
1)the fact that our society provides NO social support for 20-30s besides churches and bars. Hardly compatible venues.
2) The other insightful comment was related to how young people respond to this gap of support. They essential become relativistic and individualistic out of necessity. They have no resources so they make their own! Interesting, maybe postmodernism is not the fault of mass media, bad philosophy, liberalism, globalization, etc. but due to the sheer void of societal support for 20-30s. The solution to countering postmodernism may not in fact be apologetics, conservatives gone wild, Christian mass media, but plain old fashion friendships with wise people that help young adults make wise decisions.
I have totally felt and recoginize the reacurring theme of young adults not having that support. I have recently wondered if we posted a flyer around town that said, "feeling post-college blues. Come find a community of friends." would we get a big response?
More evidence of this is the constant talk of a desire for "community" which is not well understood but badly craved. I attempted to teach on the theological topic of "what is the church?" to the youth on Sunday. The topic is huge but I asked them, "What do you want church to be?" Their overwhelming answer... ommunity.
Sorry... a theme this spring for me has been editing.
The last sentence should be:
Their overwhelming answer... community.
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