#8

"8. We Want to Feel Valued"

 "Churches tend to rely heavily on their young adults to serve."

1.  Without seeing any sort of objective support for this claim, I have to be skeptical.   If the premise of the piece is correct and Millennials aren't  attending church, then I suspect that no one expects them to serve of they aren't there.   

2.  The real question is a matter of proportion.  Are millennials expected to serve out of proportion to all other demographic groups?   any rational person would agree that this broad based and unsupported claim can't be taken seriously at face value.

3.  I'm confused, if one of the things the church is failing at is "serving the poor", then why would millennials not want to serve?

 

 "You’re single, what else do you have to do? In fact, we’re tapped incessantly to help out. And, at its worst extreme, spiritually manipulated with the cringe-worthy words “you’re letting your church down.”"

Has this ever happened, sure.  Is it "incessant", I really doubt it.  Is it right to manipulate, not ever.  But that is not specific to millennials.

Speaking from experience, one of the things that bothers my oldest son currently is the fact that his job schedule prevents him from serving.   Of course this is someone who has been serving in various capacities for years.  

"Millennials are told by this world from the second we wake up to the second we take a sleeping pill that we aren’t good enough."

If this is even remotely true, why would anyone ask people who "aren't good enough" to serve?  Sounds like a bad plan.

"We desperately need the church to tell us we are enough, exactly the way we are. No conditions or expectations."

On it's face, this doesn't even make sense ( as a general proposition).  I'm sure there are individual situations where this is an issue, but this piece is addressing the meta scale.     

I'd argue that this is a question of priorities.   From the earliest Church, there has been an expectation that the church members will serve others.  Servant leadership is the model.   To suggest that being asked to serve is somehow demeaning or more demanded of certain groups is simply not supported.


"We need a church that sees us and believes in us, that cheers us on and encourages us to chase our big crazy dreams."

I get tired of mentioning this, but I'd say that churches encouraging and supporting millennials to plant churches is exactly that.   I'd suggest that all generations in all churches should be encouraged and supported in chasing dreams.   I guess I'd think that there might be some limits to this (Not building an altar to Satan, or that some dreams fit better in some churches than in others) but on the whole it makes sense.

Solutions:

• Return to point #1: listening.
• Go out of your way to thank the people who are giving so much of their life to the church.

I have no issues with either of these, although they don;t seem to actually solve the problems he identifies.