Look around in your church. How many people do you see under 30 that are either in leadership or being groomed for leadership?  How many are 30-50?  How many are over 50?  Of those in the 30-50 range, how many are actively training up the next generation and how many are still working to define their own role and find their own stride?  The crisis, which is hidden but no less real, is the lack of church and ministry leader development of the next generation.  But to address this issue, one needs to know what characterizes the next generation and how to reach them.

Generational studies in the United States (understanding that other countries and other cultures will have different generational cohorts and characteristics) defines Baby Boomers are those individuals born 1945 to 1960.  Gen Xers were born 1960 to 1979, and Generation Y/Millennials were born from 1980 to 2001. Those born after 2001 do not yet have an established name, although some have taken to calling them Generation Z  or the iGeneration.

I have worked with Millennials for 10 years, discipling them and training them for leadership.  I often hear others speak of Millennials as having no work ethic.  If by that people mean that they are not going to work 50-70 hours a week for a job that provides them no job security and that requires much but gives little, then yes, I guess they have no work ethic.  But can you blame them?  They have watched their parents sacrifice much to have their retirement lost in a stock crash, pensions go insolvent, and are reminded of the looming promise that social safety nets for the elderly will be liquefied by the time they get there.  Why would they pour out their life for that?  In their experience, promises are never kept. Indeed, name a single institution that has not failed them.  Family? Marriage? College? The church?  They are cynical because they are keen observers.

So how does one reach the Millennial generation?  The answers are not complicated, but not easily executed.  Millennials respond to authentic relationship.  They are not looking for social events, they are looking for true life-on-life experiences.  They want to be sought out and raised up.  Unlike Gen Xers, Millennials are much less likely to volunteer for leadership roles.  But if they are asked out of a place of relationship and ‘knowing’ them, they will respond.  You cannot give a sermon or a book and expect to equip Millennials. They must be apprenticed.  This means that an existing leader must be willing to take a Millennial alongside them, be vulnerable with their strengths, weaknesses and the challenges faced along the way.  Millennials have no mentors, no heroes, no role models.  Few even have parents. They are hungry for these kinds of relationships.

This type of relationship frightens the older generations.  Boomers expect people to simply watch or know how to do things by serving time “in the trenches.”  Millenials aren’t going to do that, unless there is a relationship with another person at the center of that journey.  Gen Xers are consumed with questions of their own competency and that level of vulnerability scares them.  How can they teach what they haven’t figured out themselves?  What Xers need to know is that just because they expect themselves to be perfect, that does not mean their Millennial apprentice will.  Millennials, as a generational cohort, have much grace.  They also have a lot to show us, if we take the time to learn who they are and let them be the hands and feet of Christ in our lives.