I’m reading through some back copies of Leadership with articles relating to generational diversity. The Spring 2005 issue takes as its theme, “Bridging Barriers”, and includes three articles with reference to generational culture.
The first article is online at Christianity Today: “A Mad Multi-gen Strategy that Works, Dude – Bring generations together and reduce 20-something dropout, by Mike Breaux.
Breaux, in his late 40s, joined the staff of Willow Creek Community Church, Barrington, Illinois as teaching pastor on September 1, 2003. He was previously pastor at Southland Christian Church in Lexington, KY. Before 1996 Mike was involved in planting a church in Las Vegas and served as pastor in Rochester, IL, Cincinnati, OH, and Harrodsburg, KY.
As a youth pastor Mike made a silent vow that if he ever got to be a senior pastor he would do ‘Youth Ministry For Big People’.
The first opportunity to apply the ‘YM4BP’ principle was a church of 150 in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. One of the first challenges was to model and encourage a culture of openness across all ages. Mike tells the story of Russ, a reformed gambling addict, who helped his church in Harrodsurg talk about real struggle and real questions.
Mike provides cautions for churches that constantly segregate their members by age or generation. He says that churches that remain unchanged by new generations grow out of touch, ineffective, and inwardly focused. They also soon discover an absence of 20-somethings. He says that we need to include teens and 20-somethings in visible ways.
Mike talks about the importance of leaders spending time with each of the generations in ways that relate to their culture. He says that moderns and postmoderns can coexist – with humility, mutual submission and respect for different strengths and passions.
