Interesting article today over at Relevant Magazine: Church Mutiny: Are young adult ministries killing the church? Some great issues are raised in this article. I don’t agree with every statement in there, but I also can’t count how many times I have run smack into “Arrogance Against the Old” in church. In fact, I was at a leader’s meeting just over a week ago when I ran in to it.  People in the 20 somethings age bracket really do feel that older adults have nothing to offer them. I have heard them say it directly occasionally.  Usually, however, they like to couch their arrogance by saying things like “I don’t want to hear about how you dealt with this issue 20 years ago – I want someone who is dealing with it right now, so they can give me empathy.”

Really? All you want is empathy? Dude – I want to change and get better. I want to know how the older person survived their issue 20 years ago… so maybe I can to. It gives me even greater comfort to know that someone actually survived what I am going through – not just that they are also going through it and can only “empathize” with me. You can empathize with me? Big deal! Show me how to get through what I am going through.

The crazy thing is that if you actually give “old people” a chance – they will usually give you empathy and help. But you would have to give them enough credit to maybe know more than you do in order to even sit and listen long enough to get help.

I’m beginning to feel that the problem most young people have with Church really has nothing to do with the Church itself.  The reason they don’t come is that Church is for the broken and messed up people in need of savior. If you already have all of the answers – who needs to be saved from that?