By Eddie Pipkin
December 21, 2015
Much has been written about the younger generation’s disaffection for the church. They report being disconnected from a tired message, stale programs, and language that isn’t relative to their daily experience. They are unengaged and unenthusiastic, bored with the way we do worship. They can’t relate, and they are uninspired by the story we are telling (or at least the way we are telling it).
We tend to frame this discussion—and this discussion is happening a lot in meetings across the spectrum of mainline protestant denominations—in terms of what exactly is wrong with the younger generation: why are they so shallow, so dispassionate, and so undisciplined? But maybe it is we who, in our blinders of ‘how we’ve always done it’ and our own biases for the kinds of worship with which we connect, are missing a chance to motivate a new generation of disciples.
This blog is not another post about how we need to get hip and creative and relevant in the sense of throwing out all tradition in favor of jeans, personal stories, cool videos, and coffee bars (not that there’s anything wrong with any of those either), but it’s about the real evidence offered by pop culture that, for those of us who are worship nerds, at the end of the day we share a surprising amount of familiar territory with the popular geek culture which is being celebrated in film, television, literature, on-line, and in massively attended fan conventions.
Exhibit 1: Star Wars.
With the opening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens last weekend, box office records were shattered. This was the culmination of months of hype leading up to the big event. The merchandise is ubiquitous. Grown men and women have been dressing up as Jedi and Wookiees. They’