Where are the Millennials? Part 1

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy.

Good afternoon. This is Roy Jones. I'm the white guy. And I'm Will Hardy, the black guy. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're just in the studio. You're getting ready to have a nice visit with Dom Jenkins.

He is the associate pastor at the Crossing in Kernersville, North Carolina. That's right. Welcome, Dom. It's good to have you with us.

I appreciate it. I feel a little bit left out because I feel like I should say, hey, I'm Dom. I'm the mixed guy.

Because I got both. Oh, there you go. And you're actually turning a little red too, as you say.

I am a little bit. I know. I know. That's funny, Dom. I don't think I've ever seen you embarrassed. Oh, yeah.

No, no, no. I'm a little bit upset about it. I'm messing.

I'm messing. Well, it's so good to have you with us, Dom. Well, folks, we're going to take a little bit of a break tonight. Today we're going to shift into talking about millennials. And I'm sure it'll come back into some of the current social issues we're dealing with as a part of the millennial discussion. But one of the biggest pieces that's missing in our church today is that probably 23 to 38 age range of people. And it's a problem across the country. For sure in the U.S., I'm not sure about worldwide, but for sure in the U.S. as it relates to we're losing that age group out of the body of Christ. And we're going to talk some about that today.

And you know, Roy, just to kick this thing off, I was looking at some stats. And one stat I saw was that there was 80, 80 percent of the millennials within that age range that you mentioned don't find church important. Yeah, that's not an important part of their life. And I think I saw that either on the Family Research Journal's website, or it was either the Washington Post.

Okay, good. Well, you know, one of the things that before the show started, we would mention just in passing about what possibly some of those elements are contributing factors. And I mentioned to Don, one thing that God put on my heart as I was writing over today was the absence of the father in the home, I think is a big piece of that. And you look at the last 25 or 30 years, that's been basically those that were raised up during the feel good generation were now parents. So I think that's a big piece of it.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And before we talked, we were, you know, before we got on, we were trying to figure out, okay, you know, what, what's the solution? We'll get to the solution here in a little bit. But yeah, I think you're spot on with, you know, fathers not being a part of the household, single parents, you know, is a huge problem. But but it's also I think this idea of, you've got these young people who their whole lives when they were growing up, they were told that they can be whatever it is that they want to be right. They were they were almost, you know, the parenting style in some ways over the past few years has kind of shifted into, hey, I'm a parent, and I'm going to discipline you to now, I'm a parent, and I'm your best friend, right? No separation, right.

And there's no difference between that. And so you've got a generation of kids who are growing up who are told, hey, you're, you're great, you're, you are the best person, you are special. You have all of these important qualities, you know, you know, we talked about a little bit, you know, with sports teams, right, right, you know, sports, when I was growing up, I would get everybody would get a trophy, right? So if you were awful, you went Oh, and nine in a season, still got a trophy, still got a trophy, and you were told, you're great, you're special. Good job. That's awesome. And what happened when when those kids grew up when those kids became older, and their brain they they thought, Oh, I'm perfect. I'm great.

I'm special. And then they go into the workforce, right? They go into society, they go to school, to college, and they realize very quickly that they're not, they realize very quickly that they that they're not necessarily special. It's not they're awful, right? But they're just not all that they're cracked up to be like everybody else is sitting around them.

Right? Absolutely. The most part for the most part, as we all are, right, right. And so, because of that, that's almost like a culture shock. It's like, Oh, well, I'm not as as good as I as I once thought I was. And and I think that that's obviously a huge problem when we're trying to reach, you know, a generation of people who, you know, think that they're great and, and in all reality, you know, they're they're really not That's a very good point. And you know, we let down is a big problem these days, right? You know, it's people don't know how to come out of a letdown. And Dom mentioned earlier, before we got on the program is the self gratification piece, which is a whole nother component within this thing of growing up, you're the best, you're the best, well, they never had to interact and never had to go out and create solid relationships. As a general rule, sure, they've got a friend, that sort of thing. But but the telephones in their hands, texting, communication skills are an all time low coming out of high school and college, you know, they don't much less know how to spell much less for the sentence together properly, because it's fragmented. And then to actually have a one on one conversation face to face, especially if it's not a friendly conversation, if you've got to have a difficult conversation, they don't know how to handle that. And hence, I think there goes back to the isolation point, I'd rather sit behind my computer, I'd rather sit with my phone, I'd rather be home watching Netflix, or whatever it is by myself, versus out in society, or, and back to our original point, they're not going to church, because that's a larger community, which they may or may not feel comfortable with.

And if they weren't brought up being a part of that, then they don't realize the importance of that in their life and their future. So I'd like to ask Pastor Dom. We forgot to introduce him. Well, no, we got him as a social pastor.

We did, we did. But I want to ask you, what as a pastor at the crossing, we want to mention the crossing. The crossing for sure.

What do you see? And by the way, Will, the crossing is located in Kearnsville, North Carolina, on Pecan Way, right across the street from Cracker Bell. So if you need a church to come visit, come visit us at the cross, or Dom at the crossing, on Sunday morning, and you can have dinner or lunch at the Cracker Bell. And we were not paid to say that.

Thank you for that plug. But as the pastor over at the crossing, what do you see as sort of like the five reasons, or if you have more reasons why millennials just don't want to come or decide not to come? What's, what's the reasoning behind that, that you see? So, yeah, so that's a, that's a tough question just because I think part of what we just talked about is part of the reason, you know, I think that it's, it's number one, it's not a priority because really, I mean, kids didn't necessarily grow up in church.

They didn't grow up in church as much as some of the older generations did. And I think one of the... He was looking at you, by the way, Will, when he said some of the older generations. Yeah, I know.

Okay, boomer. So we were, so I do think that that's, that's part of it. I think, and I'm, and I'm, and I'm kind of not going to answer the question, but I think one of the, one of the difficulties is as, as the church, and I'm, you know, I love the church, right? I'm a pastor. I love the church. Church is, church is what's going to make things move forward, right? As all of this stuff is going on.

Good point. You know, church is going to move things forward 100%. But there are things that I think that the church needs to improve. And I think one of them is to, to raise up kids in the gospel, right?

I think one of the things that we've missed is we've, we focus so much on, on games and, you know, all of these other things to attract the students instead of just making the gospel attractive to students and to young people. And so, and we see that with what we had just talked about, right? With the whole, you're great. You know, you're awesome. You know, you're, you're a great, you're a great person. Well, right now that's what we're saying to all of our kids. It's like, you're great.

You're perfect. God loves you so, so, so much. He's absolutely crazy about you. And that's the only thing that they're hearing. All they're hearing is this idea of God being ferociously in love with them, gracious to them. You know, he, he loves them and this and that. That they don't have to do anything as it relates to chasing God as well.

They don't have to chase back, I get in the scriptures, learn more, build the relationships. Is that what you're leaning towards? Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

It's, it's like, Hey, you don't have to do anything. God, God is going to take care of it. He's going to do this.

He's going to do that. They then move over to college and they realize they've got professors who are questioning all of these things and they have nothing to stand on to be able to, to continue, you know, believing in God. And so they're not grounded. Correct. So getting back to the question, I don't know if there's necessarily five big things, but I think that that is probably the main thing is that young people haven't understood or have taken root and set a firm foundation in Christianity.

And then what happens is once they get out of school, once they, once they're out of high school, once they're out of grade school, they don't know what to do. And then like you said, the 80%, you know, that number that's what's happening. Yeah. And so if it's not modeled by the father and when I said absence of the father, that was those that are in home, but absent in the raising of their children, but also those that are missing. So it's both. It's not just one or the other. It's both. We've got absenteeism, the fellowship going on, fatherhood in the home there, but they're locked down.

Like we've talked about before. Men are distracted today with two things. One being pornography second as the whole. And then the other is the gaming men are actually gaming.

I mean, grown men with children to raise or spend hours gaming. And I just struggle with that every day. But you know, when, when I was a youth pastor, things that make you go, Yeah. When I, when I was a youth pastor many years ago, we, we used to have, uh, sit arounds and, you know, we just talk things out. And generally that was on Saturday morning and there was a plethora of reasons why, uh, millennials didn't want to come to church. And one of them was the sermon is too long.

Right. Well, well, here's another one. The sermon is too short.

Really? The sermon isn't deep enough. You don't go into, you know, biblical theology, deep biblical theology, or it's too deep.

It's too deep. So see, that sounds like adults. You're always going to have that, those differences, right? You're always going to have the plus and the minus and it's going to, you know, sandwich in between what's right. You know, so you, that, that in the ones that's in the middle, that's that small percentage, you know, but you, you have the greater percentages either on the far right or the far left.

No politicalness intended. No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're not creating any blue or reds in here. No, no, but, but that's, that's a hundred percent right. Because you have to, and I think that's, that's part of the, see, I'm, I'm more willing to, to put the blame on, on like us. Like I'm, I'm more willing to put the blame on the church. It's like, like, this isn't the only generation that, you know, feels entitled or, you know, feels, you know, special, whatever, you know, that these things have happened before in the past. So I always like to ask the question, you know, how can we change it?

What, what is it that we can do to change those things? And you pose the question to that group. Yeah. Yeah.

You're asking that question to that group of people, that age group. Yeah. We're asking, okay, so like, what do you want us to do then? Right. It's like, and, and the, but the problem is, is that there's no, there's nothing to really, to put our foundation on.

Yeah. And how would they know what they want if they don't know what it should be? That's the thing. You don't know what you don't know. So they don't know what's missing, but they know they're not interested in coming, right? I mean, there's just, they're not necessarily anchored, but they don't know what's missing because they don't know what they don't know. That makes sense for the young people. That is you ask them, what is it that you want? And they don't, they don't know what they don't know. So how do they put that into words?

How do they articulate that properly? Yeah. Well, you know, and it's, it's coming up. We're going to talk about that too. We'll be right back. Break is coming.

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Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio and we're sitting here with Pastor Dom from The Crossing. And, you know, we were talking about during the break, Roy, about millennials and, you know, the things that they're asking for that they're not getting within the church. And there was some things that I listed that they said that they value.

They value transparency. You know, don't say one thing and do another. And that was some of the things that came out in the notes that I took from many years ago. You know, I see you living your life this way and then I see you living your life this way and there's a contradiction. So the hypocrisy. Exactly.

And then they said, we want to see leadership that has integrity. So, you know, be an integral part of my life and demonstrate to me not just missions and activities, but living it out every day. Living it out.

So when I see you living it out, then that will drive me to do the same. Right. And that's a direct correlation together, right? The hypocrisy slash lack of integrity.

So if you're saying one thing, doing another, then you've lost the integrity and they see the hypocrisy in the way you're walking it out. Yeah. And I think that's a huge thing, right? Like that's a massive thing is to be transparent. I think one of the difficult things for young people, and I've experienced this myself, is there are certain things that we want to hear that are true, but we don't necessarily want to hear the whole thing.

Right. So there's this level of, of transparency where, you know, we, we were just got done talking about, you know, millennials feel as if they're special and all that. Well then if you want transparency, you know, the transparency thing is you're not as great as you think you are. And that's, and let me tell you, that's a hard truth, right? That's a really, really hard thing, but I think it's a good thing. You know, I mean, if we look at, you know, if we look at the text, if we look at scripture, it's clear that, that none of us are perfect.

Right. And so that's a, that's a good thing, especially for young people to say, Hey, I'm, I'm maybe not all cracked up to be, however, I can serve a God who allows me to, to actually have meaning and have some sort of purpose in my life. And I think that's the message that's being missed, right? The message that's being missed is, Hey, you're not that great, but guess what? God is. And so because of that, because God is great, you can then be able to serve him.

And that in and of itself is attractive, right? The, the gospel story should be enough to be able to bring people back into church. I think the difficulty is we have to be able to wrap the gospel in a way that it actually engages that, that group of people, right?

The us, us, us young people. Well, going back to the transparency piece and a high level of integrity, if that's a great point, Dom, if we'll stay, the church will stay true to the word and not weaken down the word to be socially acceptable. I think that's another thing because folks will see through that right to your very point. How do you, how do you take a young person and say, okay, it says here, do not commit adultery, you know, or if it says do not kill somebody, but yet you support killing somebody. And we can go down through the whole list of things that we know we're not supposed to do as followers of Christ.

But if we sit from the pulpit and we say, well, it's okay to be an adulterer and I'm an adulterer as your pastor. How, how does that, how does that go back to this transparency and integrity piece? It doesn't because these, these folks are smart. These young people have got more, more at their access and their fingertips learning wise. You know, we used to have to go to the encyclopedia.

I'm dating myself a little bit, but to the encyclopedia to learn these things. And it wasn't, it wasn't as comprehensive as worldwide web is, you know, so is the internet. Exactly. And when you, when you talk about, you know, issues, we can think of all kinds of reasons why young people, you know, that's not even listed here on why they don't want to come to church.

You know, we could, we could have just rows and rows and rows and rows of reasons, as many people as many different reasons, because we're dealing with imperfect people as we all are. And so, well that, that encompasses everybody because I don't know anybody else perfect except Christ. Except him.

That's right. So that encompasses everybody. So because we're dealing with imperfect people, then imperfect people have a tendency to bring in things that does not, are not specific to the gospel. But it's more social related. For example, for example, one individual who I talked to years and years ago, they said, why don't you embrace people who just come off the street? Or why don't you embrace people who might have certain tendencies that I may not have? And you know what I mean when I say those tendencies. So it's like you, you shun these people instead of embracing them.

Why, why do you do that? Why do you preach against certain, certain things? Well, it's because the Bible says those things are wrong, but this is the thing. We have to put that, as Pastor Dom said, we have to wrap that and present it in a way to where it is acceptable to them. Because as you stated earlier, they may not know what they want.

So if you can present it in a way that's acceptable to them, then they are ready to embrace it. And I think, and I think that's, that's spot on, like that's spot on. And I think another thing that, that we're dealing with is like, where you just said, millennials are smart, like they're smart people. Like they really, really are. And they have access to so much information. It's, it's incredible.

I mean, you can look up anything on anything. And what I find fascinating is right now, it seems like it's what, that's what the Bible said. It's almost like that's not even good enough right now. It's like, you've got to go, you've got to go outside of the text to, to prove why Christianity is real and why serving God and being a part of a church is important.

It's like, this isn't, it's almost like this isn't enough anymore. And that's, what's really scary, right? Like it's scary that this book that used to be all authoritative and used to have all of these.

I mean, it was a book that made a lot of decisions is now really not as important. And so you've got to come up with other arguments and it seems like the older generation, they have to be even smarter than, than the millennials. Cause they're saying, Hey, you know, but what about this?

What about that? What about, you know, why, why are these things wrong? And you know, how come, why do, I mean the big one, I think the biggest question that plagues a lot of young people is why do bad things happen to good people?

Right. And so we gotta be on top of that to say, well, here's the reasons why here's, you know, here, here's the reasons why this is the way that it is. And so it's almost like everybody's got to kind of step their game up to be able to, to, to outsmart, not outsmart, but again, present the gospel in a way that, you know, that people can understand it. That's a great point, Don. This goes back to what we were talking about before and several shows back is the discipleship piece. It all comes back to discipleship every, and we've gotten so accustomed these days to back to the feel good piece. If you will, I'm saved.

We've talked about this standing on the sidelines. I'm saved. My salvation, I'm assured of my salvation, but then they just, they don't, they don't move there. They've gone stagnant.

So they don't grow personally. They're not becoming disciples of Christ. And I think if you become a disciple, then what's going to happen? You're going to disciple others.

It's just, just intuitively, it's going to happen. And you may set out to do that, but God will use you in those relationships so that you'll be grounded when the questions come up and the challenges come up, you'll be able to answer those much more effectively. And you know, this is why God said in 1 John chapter 2 verses 13 and 14, in part, he said, I write unto you young men because you are strong and you have overcome the wicked one. So you can look at those levels because he talks about children. He talks about fathers and he talks about young men. So that's almost like levels of maturity. So he's dealing with the maturity level.

And we have people who are at all three, you know, in that millennial group. And so the question is, is we are now bringing, we're bringing in all of their ideologies because that's what they're bringing, because they're hearing this on the outside. And so now they're bringing in the church and then that becomes their question. Their question is, why is, why is this? Why do, you know, bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow the World Trade Center to come down?

You know, couldn't he have stopped that? All of these things, you know, they're looking at and these generalized questions that they have, these are the things that they want to know. They want to know the things that's happening now. It's happening now. Give me an answer to it. Yeah.

How does the gospel relate to me today? You know, why is it, why is it not some old fairytale story that, you know, nobody really, you know, it's just a whole story, you know, kind of like you guys. No, I'm just kidding. I'm messing, I'm messing. Well, we were going to have Dom join us next week, but I guess not.

We just changed our programming plans. But back to your point, I think that's, I think that's so true, but I've, and I, and I've even, I think everybody, they have those, you know, they have those questions. And I think, I think one thing that, that we can probably do more of, again, I'm speaking as a pastor is to say, hey, it's okay to doubt. Like, it's okay to have questions about Christ. It's okay to have questions about, about Christianity, about God, about the Holy Spirit. Those aren't bad things. I think, again, where we run into the problem is the church has to be on the front lines answering those questions already.

Right. One of, one of the big things that when I was in, when I was in grade school, when I was, I just started going to church, I didn't grow up in church, but I started going when I was in high school. And I mean, my, my idea of God was so shallow, right? Like, like I was, I remember going to a conference and I was at this conference and I was, I was, I was an athlete growing up. I played soccer and when I was younger, I had a bunch of people, a bunch of scholarships and, you know, it seemed like, you know, I had some offers to go play school.

Well, all those offers started to go away and I started thinking to myself, well, what's going on? And, and I got to the point where I was going to say like, God, if, if you don't give me a scholarship, I'm not going to believe in you anymore. And it's like, that's how shallow of my understanding of who God was.

Instead of realizing he was molding you, taking you down the path he needed you to go. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great.

Well, we are going to have Don back on next, next week's program. We want to thank you all for joining us. And as always, you know, when you, if you're not born again, this is what you need to do. First, confess that you are a sinner. Believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross. He was buried third day. He rose from the dead and that he is alive forevermore.

Receive him into your heart, confess his name and you are born again. It's just that easy. It's all about believing. Isn't that right, Roy?

That's right, Will. Thank you so much for joining us. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.