07/12/2024
Buckle up, friends, cause this one's been a long time coming, and I am FIRED UP today.
Church, we continue to ask why millennials and Gen Z either leave in droves or never darken our doors at all. Why the under 40 crowd is noticeably absent from our seats.
But we're not willing to look at our own actions as the reason, because it's all the world - the world is too loud, the world is too seductive. It's never us, right? It can't be.
We've taught women that their bodies cause men to sin. We've taught them that they can pray their way to a healthy marriage, regardless of their spouse's actions or feelings. We've taught them that they must remain pristine virgins until marriage, and then immediately transform into p**n stars overnight or risk losing their husbands to adultery and addiction. We've taught them that, even when the Lord gives them wisdom, insight, truth, and encouragement, they are not to share such things with men, lest they reveal a "Jezebel spirit". We've taught women that their value lies in their chastity and/or their childbearing. We've taught women that remaining in an unhealthy, dangerous relationship is preferable to divorce.
We've taught men that they can blame women's clothing and bodies for their own failings. We've taught men that, in spite of being created in God's image they are little more than animals, and that their s*xual desires are unable to be contained; that they're savage beasts, barely restrained by their own wedding vows or celibacy. We've taught them that "being a rock" is more important than protecting their mental health. We've taught them that consent and true partnership within marriage is irrelevant. We've taught them that protectiveness and possessiveness are the same thing, and that their wives and children are property to manage, not blessings and gifts from God. We've taught them that even the s*xual abuse of children can be swept under the rug and, if it's confessed in the proper way, our congregations will cheer, rather than express concern that r*pists are leading worship or preaching.
We have taught q***r people that they are abominations and that their existence is a blight on the earth, taught people of color that we consider them angry and lazy, and taught non-native English speakers that they are a burden. We've taught illegal immigrants that they have no intrinsic value, except possibly as underpaid peons. We've taught the mentally ill that their diseases are either not real, or a result of not enough faith. We've taught the world that we care more about the concept of a prosperous, conservative America than we do about the Great Commission. We've taught our kids that a 10-day missions trip to a developing nation is serving God, and out of the same mouth that praises them for "giving a cup of cold water to a child" in Africa, we call their friends (also children) "trashy" and "sl*tty" for wearing short-shorts in 95-degree weather. We've taught people that there is a sliding scale for sin, and that some are "more forgivable" than others. We've taught the people of the Middle East that we care more about the concept of honoring God's Chosen People than we do about their starving babies and crumbling lives.
Millennials and Gen Zers are realizing that what the "church" has become has NOTHING to do with the Jesus Christ of the Bible. They are RIGHT to run. They are RIGHT to deconstruct, if that process leads them closer to who He really is as revealed in the Scriptures. They are RIGHT to ask questions. They are RIGHT to be shocked when their friends insist on remaining with abusive spouses because it's "what God wants". They are RIGHT to want safe, healthy, supportive environments for their children, where asking questions and expressions of doubt or confusion are NORMAL and ACCEPTED parts of spiritual growth.
We have realized that we DO have the ability - and the responsibility - to stop the cycle of generational trauma, of denial, of self-hatred, of shame, and half-truths meant to contain and control us. We have to heal, protect our peace, and pass it along to our children. And we realize that this is part of what God wants for us and our descendants!
Y'all, my generation and my kids' generation aren't the ones who are "blind". We're the ones who have either determined to set things right from within the church if we can, or to walk away and find God on our own.
You call that dangerous, church. You say that isolation is the devil's favorite tool. And yes, it is. But you don't realize that so many of the people in the pews and chairs RIGHT NEXT TO YOU are already isolated. They're present, but their hearts are yearning for genuine love and truth.
They aren't getting it from you.
And before ANYONE types "not all churches!" yeah, I know that. There are plenty of Biblically-sound, Spirit-filled, gospel-preaching churches in America. Thank God for that! But the loudest ones, the biggest ones, the ones with the full seats and the massive budgets, the ones that wind up on the news...
They're the ones being noticed, okay? They're the ones that catch people's eyes when they look to the American church.
And that is a big, big part of the problem.
What are you going to do about it?
Image caption: a black-and-white, AI-generated picture of a well-dressed young woman standing alone in a large, elegant, traditional-looking church, its pews completely empty
