We are the remnant chosen to bring reconciliation to this broken world.
It’s clear we are not here to mess around. Christian Millennials are tired of the stigma placed on us by American churches today. People say we are entitled, bored, hard to please, and glued to our phones. We have become the generation of the “nones” - 36% of us affiliate ourselves with no religion whatsoever, higher than any other generation alive today (see this Pew Research Study). Churches think we want something bigger and better; the church striving for innovation to attract Millennials back where we belong.
But that isn’t working.
I’m here to speak on behalf of Christian Millennials who are becoming fed up with the church. No, we haven’t given up on faith. We are stronger than ever in a post-Christian world. We grew up in a Christian culture only to find ourselves matured in a world where Christianity is no longer the norm. But we have used this to our advantage. Christian Millennials all over the world are banding together through globalization, longing for deep connectedness, advocating social justice, and revering high church liturgy without the confines of a single church denomination.
We realize that the only way for Christianity to thrive in a post-Christian world is through our unity as a global church.
And this is the clincher: The blaring problem in our white evangelical conservative American church today is the simple fact that it is a white evangelical conservative American church.
We are too divided. Do not think for a minute Millennials are diluted enough to fall into identity, character, racial, political, cultural, and denominational divides. We have just grown up tired of people putting us in boxes. We don’t see homeless beggars; we see people with a story. We don’t see Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, and Anglicans; we see people trying to follow Jesus in the way they know how. We don’t see the LGBTQ by their sexual identity; we see the person inside longing for true acceptance. We don’t equate conservative with Christian, or American with Christian, or a certain denomination as Christian.
As the remnant of believers, we long for unity in the church. We are frustrated at the lack of progress when it is so clear this is our ultimate destiny as followers of Christ.
Ultimately, true unity will be restored at the end of the age when all nations are reconciled under God and evil has been defeated once and for all. We can look to the book of Revelation to catch a glimpse of this perfected unity. From Revelation 5:11-14, we read,
“Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
Worthy is the lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! And the four living creatures said, Amen! And the elders fell down and worshiped.”
No, we haven’t given up on faith; our faith is only strengthened in numbers. We long to infuse the global church today with life-giving relational intimacy that can only come from a unified community in Christ. We want to see churches banding together to bring justice to the world regardless of cultural, racial, or denominational “guidelines.”
We long to see Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, African Americans, Germans, Evangelicals, the rich, the poor, and the politicians worshipping Christ under one roof. What if every church in a city partnered together to bring diverse worship services and community-wide outreach events? What if Baptists put on a high church liturgical worship service together to serve their Anglican friends?
Revering distinctions of other believers can bring unity, but considering our white evangelical conservative American Christian upbringing as somehow superior only erects a dividing wall of hostility.
Let’s give a high church high five to all our brothers and sisters in Christ - not just the white evangelical conservative American Christians.
This is the remnant's call for unity. Heed Christ’s call for reconciliation.
