Millennials.
We’re the passionate ones who dream of setting the world on fire, we’re the ones with smartphones glued to our hands, and we’re the ones to want more information at a pace that’s faster than ever. We’re self-expressive, social media is our BFF, and we think change is a good thing.
According to Pew Research, our millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 2000, could be the most educated generation in American history, but we’re also a generation that is, as a whole, less religious, more liberal and more dependent upon the government.
Where does that leave Christian millennials, and how will the trends of our generation affect us spiritually?
Author and pastor Kevin DeYoung writes in his book Just Do Something that our generation has begun to stray from making decisions. He describes us as “tinkerers.”
“Those who tinker know how to improvise, specialize, pull things apart, and pull people together from a thousand different places,” DeYoung writes.
We millennials can do all of those things well, and we’re proud of it, too.
But DeYoung continues: “But tinkering also means indecision, contradiction, and instability.”
If we’re prone to tinker, how will we ever drop our tinkering tools to commit to one thing? We have dreams, ideas of a future we hope to enjoy, but when the rubber of life meets the rough and winding road of reality, our fear of commitment hinders our progress.
I think that, sometimes, our generation’s passions, our strong desire to change lives, can debilitate instead of empower. We hold an ideal in our mind (an ideal that may very well honor God and His mission), and we’re willing to do anything to reach the goal, but that’s where we stop.
Because we believe the time for real opportunity awaits us in the future, we lie dormant until we’ve received the diploma and entered the “real world,” where our dreams supposedly wait.
Or because we realize we’ve reached a fork in the road, we take the bait that this single decision may keep us from accomplishing the ideal.
Our generation has a lot to say about changing the world, but if we’re only tinkerers, our talk is cheap and less effective for God’s kingdom.
Have you passed over opportunities because you haven’t found “the one”? Majors, internships, jobs, churches, ministries — where will it stop?
We could spend our lives waiting for our dream opportunity, but what do we accomplish by sitting still?
What if our generation full of networkers, dreamers and innovators stopped tinkering, mulling it over, and analyzing the options and decided to drive toward a God-honoring commitment? What if we traded in our tinkering tools for real life tools that actually do set the world on fire?
If we’ve sought heavenly wisdom and we find ourselves at a fork in the road, why not take a turn? Left or right, east or west, hit the accelerator and make a decision, a decision that impacts future generations for the Kingdom.
