Joshua One Ministries

I am a member of a Facebook group for ministers of independent Christian churches. Occasionally someone will raise a provocative discussion question and solicit responses. Brad Pembleton, a pastor of Cy-Fair Christian Church in Houston, has raised an excellent question:

From your perspective what is the next battle we are going to have to face as a church?

Brad, I have been giving that question a lot of thought for the last few years. My answer is longer than suits “The Wall” on Facebook, so I will post my answer here.

The next great battle that will beleaguer the modern American church is already well under way, but it will get much worse. I am talking about the battle between the ages. Just as Christian churches split over speaking in tongues in the 1970s and over styles of music in the 1990s, today we are seeing more and more churches splitting down generational lines. During the next decade, that Great Divide will become the norm.

Don’t mistakenly synonymize the age divide with the debate over music. The music squabble is/was largely a dispute between us Baby Boomers, who prefer soft rock choruses, and senior citizens, who prefer the older gospel songs in our hymnals. Being forced to choose between the two, most younger Christians lined up with the Baby Boomers in that debate. But the growing division between the generations in the church goes much deeper than musical taste. This is about power: who is in control of the church and who should be. And as Baby Boomers move to the other side of the age divide and Christians in their teens and twenties mature, the rivalry will escalate greatly.

During the 1970s-1990s, beginning perhaps with Willow Creek in 1975, some churches began explicitly targeting younger people. That was occurring in an era when the older generation still had tight hold of the reins in traditional churches, and younger people were seeking a less stifling worship and fellowship environment. Wanting to share in the success of those younger, hipper and usually larger churches, by the 1990s most traditional churches began mimicking the same strategy.

As a result, senior adult members are increasingly being marginalized in our churches. In many, perhaps most, Christian churches today, senior adults are expected to go along with what the younger members dictate and not make any waves. And if you would rather go worship somewhere else, there’s the door.

In response, we now see churches being started by older members who left (from their perspective, were driven out of) their former churches. Your church in Houston has witnessed this first hand, Brad, and we have seen the same thing here in Oklahoma City. It is happening all across the country. In addition, we now see a new phenomenon: churches that are not only started by older Christians but which are explicitly targeting older people in their marketing.

Everything so far has just been the first act. Senior citizens today are the “silent generation.” They tend to take what is dished out to them. They are uncomfortable making waves. But we Baby Boomers are hardly known for keeping quiet. As Baby Boomers continue to grow older, the power struggle between young and old will intensify. And as Christians in their teens and twenties grow older, they will become much more comfortable in expressing their latent resentment toward the Baby Boomer generation.

As these tensions mount, Baby Boomers will clamp down hard on their control of the church. In most churches, they will have the numbers and the dollars to do it. Younger members will be driven off to start a new bumper crop of youth-oriented churches. In some churches younger members will gain the control and the Baby Boomers will march out — in large numbers and taking their large offerings with them — to start churches to their liking. All of this is already happening. But sadly, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, none of this is pleasing to God. But I do not hear anyone denouncing it. To the contrary, most church leaders continue to champion the strategy of targeting specific age groups, despite its obvious corollary of marginalizing other age groups. Ten to fifteen years from now, most churches will clearly identify themselves in all of their marketing and presenting materials as catering to a specific age group, and church-going Christians will never be forced to endure the distasteful experience of rubbing shoulders with believers of other age groups.

Such categorization and division of churches will be the norm, in the same way that we currently accept and even encourage division by age in Sunday School and small groups. Sunday morning will more than ever be the most segregated hour of the week.

But there will be many more battles and blood-letting in our churches on our way to the Great Divide. It can only get much worse as the demographics continue to shift.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 9:14 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.