Called to Account

In this season of my life, the Lord has granted me a front row seat to what he’s up to in the lives of the “rising generations.” I’d like to serve as an ambassador between the rising generations and our church. Young adults I meet love Jesus. They’re great with Jesus, but they’re much more skeptical when it comes to the church. Their concerns can be roughly gathered into three categories: money, sex and power (see “The Powers that Be,” CC Jan. 13). These are old gods – Mammon, Eros, Mars. And our young adults are warning us that these old gods are seducing the church in ways that they find deeply troubling. Let’s look in particular at money. 

The millennial generation – those between the ages of 22 and 35 – is the first generation that will earn less over their lifetimes than their parents. Adjusted for inflation, they will earn up to 20 percent less. If they graduate from college, they do so with an average of $40,000 of debt. So that old eye-roll about millennials living in their parents’ basements usually isn’t because they’re lazy; it’s because they’re broke. This generation has the highest number of people who are living in poverty.

Behind the numbers
Because of this, they have a different view of money. They see their purchasing power as a way to do good in the world. They may not have a bigger house than their parents had but they can maybe make a bigger difference. So 84 percent of millennials donate to charity. If you’re in the food service industry, you want a millennial in your booth – they tip more than Gen Xers or Boomers. They will gladly pay more for a pair of socks if the company that made the socks also gives fresh water to developing countries. They will frequent a sushi restaurant because it also gives food to the homeless. They will support a local taco joint if it sources ingredients from local farmers. These things are millennial catnip. They can’t get enough of it.

What does this have to do with the church? As one young man told me, “I feel like when I’m giving to church and it goes into the general fund, it’s just going into this hole and I don’t know what it’s doing.” For millennials, money has to have a story. So when they’re reading your bulletins, they’re looking for a story. And usually our budget story is “Given today. Needed today.” That’s a boring story. If that’s the story they’re reading in the bulletin about money, they begin looking for other clues about the investment of this congregation in its neighborhood. Are all the Bible studies and book clubs and music groups for people already in the church? Is there engagement with the neighborhood school or homeless ministry? 

They wonder about how we spend our money when they’re in worship and don’t hear, ever, a sermon about greed and how it is taking down our countries. And they really wonder when they see a Gen Xer or Boomer pull into church in a new car, with hair perfectly coiffed and nails manicured, with a pricey bag over her shoulder, and they know she’s not volunteered in the nursery and she hasn’t had people over for coffee. And the story they make up is that here is someone that has more than enough and she’s not giving back. 

And they don’t only look at our congregations, they look at our cities, at pockets of significant wealth. And our younger members wonder why our cities don't have lower rates of homelessness than the national average. This is because our young people actually listened when we read them the gospels in Sunday School. They paid attention! And now they come into their own financially, and they are looking at us. And too often, when they look at how we spend our money, they are unnerved.

Sold out 
We’ve made this one of the things we don’t talk about. How many pastors are scared to preach about money? How many deacons are scared to stand up in church and ask people to give more? And how many of us don’t want anybody to ask how we spend our money? We would rather you ask how much we weigh! But we can’t get away with this anymore. Because the rising generations are networked like no generation before them. 

They know the story about the pastor who gave away a year’s worth of wages to the poor in his city. They know about the high-powered exec who left her six-figure salary to go run a struggling non-profit. They have friends living in tiny homes to reduce the impact on the environment. In their network, they actually have people who are following Jesus, selling all they have and giving it to the poor! So when they hear about a church elder who’s buying a second home on the lake, or the church that has to hire because not enough people are volunteering, that doesn’t sit well with them. Are they great with their financial stewardship all the time? No, they are not. But is this causing them to ask good questions? Yes. Do we need to listen? Yes. In what practical and prayer-filled ways can we respond to emerging young adults who want to submit their bank accounts to the risen King?

Money talks
What if your church rented out a local restaurant or coffee shop a few times a month and offered free financial advice to anyone under the age of 30? What if in our newsletters every month there was a little article called Our Money Story, and it said, “This is what it cost to run Sunday school, and this is the difference Sunday school is making.” “This is what it cost to run the air conditioning on the eight summer Sundays when we need it but let me tell you the difference it makes.” Money has to be connected to a story. When they are in worship, are they hearing the call to confession include the sin of greed? When we have the offering, do we talk about the joy of giving? How is God calling us to speak and spend differently as a sign to the rising generations that we are sold out to Jesus Christ? Is our money preaching what God wants it to preach? When it comes to money, the church can give the rising generation better tools and we can tell them a better story. They’re begging us to show them, to mentor them, to model for them what it means to live a life committed to Jesus Christ.