What Do We Believe?

Reading the book Reverse Mentoring by Earl Creps for school is fascinating to me. I feel like I'm reading a book that was written for somebody else about me. This book, taglined "How Young Leaders Can Transform the Church and Why We Should Let Them" to clearly show its intended audience, encourages older leaders to look to younger leaders to learn about culture and relevance.

It's fascinating reading as I see the authors write about these surprising insights that they gained from interviewing young people:

• "Rather than relying solely on research, they trust that the information marketplace will deliver items of value to them automatically, often through relationship." - p. 24
• "Things done just for the money are not to be trusted." - p. 25
• "Authenticity...commands much greater respect...than production values, no matter how impressive." - p. 26

These values seem obvious to me, but then again I grew up in this younger culture about which the author is writing. I see them in my own life very clearly. They are me. But what is the implication for the church? After discussing these values, the person that the author is interviewing says that "the average Sunday morning worship service sounds just like radio: homogenized, overproduced, shallow, and obsolete" (p. 26). The young generation that the author describes values realness and honesty, not perfection. Yet we are looking for churches that have all the highest quality music and preaching and the best facilities and smiling faces...no wonder today's young adults are not interested!

This is a remarkable observation even for me. After reading this, I feel like I am guilty of separating my life. In one life, I embody the culture that the author is talking about. In another, I have been raised in a conservative "Boomer" church and have remained there most of my life. I wonder if I have applied a different set of values to my daily life and to my church life. The interviewee's words reverberated so clearly in my head, resonating with what I strongly believe. But when I am at church, I put my culture aside and enter a culture twenty years older than I am. Perhaps I should stop abandoning my core values and be who I am all the time.