Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Who is the me generation?

“This generation is the most selfish generation – they can have anything they want at the touch of a button”. Three weeks ago a speaker to whom I was listening made that statement. It has been buzzing around in my head causing me to reflect ever since. My initial reaction was the young adults that I work with would say that the baby boomers were the most selfish generation! Of course such generalised statements need to be applied with caution – what do we mean by “the current generation”. When I say the current generation I mean the educated intelligentsia between 18 and 25 years old that I work with – they are not necessarily representative.
Yet I see a reaction against being able to have everything –coupled with a distrust of advertising and the media.

The thoughts I have been having are along a similar line to Paul Windsor’s recent post: peace corps revisited (http://www.carey.ac.nz/pauls_blog/2006/10/peace-corps-revisited.html)
Among the young adults I work with there is a new dedication to reaching out, to being involved in issues of poverty, justice and human rights. When I think back to when I was their age my friends and I had vague hopes of “wanting to help people”. But really we wanted to get great jobs and wear great suits and be yuppies (hey it was the late 80’s). Of course there are plenty of young adults who still have an essentially superficial faith, but those that are concerned with these issues have a level of commitment and passion that leads to action (yes practical application even in the educated intelligentsia). It also leads them to be vocal for their concerns and to try to influence the values of those around them.

I am concerned about what this means for the church. University students have always had a hard time with the church – yet this goes further. Now we have a strong educated dedicated subset of young adults who have different values to the mainstream church that is still primarily controlled by baby boomers. I have experienced two examples of this over the past few weeks. One is the importance of fair trade to young adults. The University of Auckland is all set to become a fair trade campus (in terms of coffee provision) - and yet our church is still not willing to supply and use fair trade coffee in spite of campaigning by the lovely young adults I know. This is a clash in values – fair trade is not seen as an important issue for the Christians who are decision makers, but by the young adults it is an important expression of their faith to care about the exploited workers in developing countries. The other issue is the realisation of young adults that as a church we should be emphasising people over programmes. They are feeling frustrated over the churches current focus on programmes to the detriment of authentic relationships both within the church community and reaching to those around us.

If these young adults have substantially different values to the current church leadership they are going to end up frustrated and disillusioned, where will they go then? I do not think that the emerging church will hold them either it is to full of disillusioned gen xrs (like myself) who are to busy trying to heal the hurts that the church has done to them (please forgive the gross generalisation) to adequately take action on the values of 18-25s year olds.

There is a challenge in this for all of us over 25 – are we still teachable enough to listen and be influenced by the young adults we know. As churches are we humble enough to put them in positions of influence – because they will change our churches and it will be for the better. I trust these young adults because I see in them a new dedication to the Bible, (perhaps that’s just after I’ve had three years with them!) coupled with an authentic desire to not just believe it but to put what they read in the bible into radical action. I’m excited about where the church will go if we place it in their hands and I’m willing to do that, are you?

Christina

Friday, October 13, 2006

Welcome

Hi
Today is the first time I have blogged, how exciting that I now get to share my thoughts with the whole world, rather than just people who I buy coffee for so that they listen to my ponderings!

This blog is called Vision of Christina in tribute to Christine de Pisan who is considered one of the first feminist writers. She wrote an autobiographical work called Vision of Christine in 1405. She also wrote a book called The Book of the City of Ladies in which she details a vision for a "utopian city for women inhabited by powerful, educated, and influential women both of antiquity and of her own time".

My vision is to encourage the growth of powerful, educated and influential christian women.