It’s amazing how the important moments of life can be described in the smallest of sentences. They contain such ordinary decision making that leads to an entirely new trajectory or outlook. I threw away the moving boxes. We bought the bigger bag of dog food. She crossed the state line. He ignored the call. The letter came back undeliverable. They decided on a house with … Continue reading From My Experience: The Power of the Simple Sentence
Here is a master post for my Millennial Exodus series over at MORF. So grateful to all of you who helped me with the research and development of this project along the way. Hopefully this isn’t the end of the project, but just a catalyst. So here it is, why Millennials are leaving the Church and what makes them stay: Numbers and Faces Depth Authenticity … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus Series
So you’re sick of Starbucks and sitting on the sofa only leads to more Netflix. It’s time to jump start those creative juices with a change of location! Parks and rec – “Grab your ideas notebook and head outside.” It’s the start of every book, article and listicle on creativity because it’s true. But you don’t have to stick to a bench at your local … Continue reading From My Experience: 3 Best Places for Creative Inspiration
Hey everyone! Starting a new summer series today called “From My Experience.” Hoping my quick, proven tips can help you! When we were kids, my sister and I had an idea jar for the summer. Every May we filled the container with slips of paper, each one inscribed with inspiration to beat boredom. Whether you’ve recently moved to a new city or just want to … Continue reading From My Experience: 5 Ways to Explore Your New City
Throughout this series, we’ve talked about reaching out to Millennials with relationships, depth, authenticity, diversity,involvement and styles of worship. I know the question of “why Millennials are leaving the Church” won’t be solved by a blog series, but we can find key issues and examine how those issues affect the teens we minister to. In discussing this, however, there is an important difference in phrasing … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus: Obligations and Movements
Recently I discussed this series on Millennials leaving the Church with a long-time debate coach of high school and college students. He pointed out that the debate students he saw that left the faith weren’t necessarily the ones who felt the Church failed them intellectually, though they were some of the most intellectual of their peers. The students who left were the ones who felt … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus: Involvement
This might surprise you if you were involved in the Worship Wars of the last 20+ years, but style is the least important of all of these “ways to keep Millennials.” Millennials aren’t solely leaving traditional hymn-singing, tie-wearing churches or contemporary radio-hit-singing, jeans-wearing churches. They are leaving all churches (except for historically black ones, according to this recent Relevant article. Rock on.) However, for the … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus: Style
When I wrote about depth in the second post of this series, I first issued a disclaimer about how diverse the Millennial generation is in terms of age. According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials “are the most ethnically and racially diverse cohort of youth in the nation’s history.” This has paralleled a rise in political and cultural diversity, along with religious diversity. We no … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus: Diversity
When I wrote about depth in this series on keeping Millennials in the Church, I promised we’d also talk about authenticity as the bridge to and from depth. When we go deep in spiritual matters with each other, we open up the possibility to be more authentic. When we are more authentic, it provides the necessary trust and respect a healthy deep spiritual conversation is … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus: Authenticity
“The Millennial generation” is actually an incredibly broad name. Many studies refer to Millennials as anyone born between 1980 and 2000. This includes parents of young children, young professionals, college students, and of course, your teens. So to issue a disclaimer on this series before we get in too far: anything that refers to “Millennials” is a generalization that may or may not be specific … Continue reading The Millennial Exodus: Depth
Jenna DeWitt 