REV. DARRELL HALL - Propel Now · 3 Haydn Shaw, Generational IQ: Christianity Isn’t Dying, Millennials Aren’t the. 2 Millennials Matter Scripture, life stages were a lot simpler

REV. DARRELL HALLEBC: CONYERS CAMPUS PASTOR

REV. DARRELL HALLEBC: CONYERS CAMPUS PASTOR

4245 CASCADE ROAD, SW | ATLANTA, GA [email protected]

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@DarrellEryxHall

Darrell Hall

@DarrellEryxHall

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Millennials Matter 1

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever heard about the popular Millennial generationand wondered who they are? Great! The Millennial generationcomprises those who were born from approximately 1980 through2000. Why have Millennials become so important? Because theyare now the largest generation in American history!Millennials have overtaken Baby Boomers as America’s largestliving generation according to an analysis of Census Bureau data.1The analysis, conducted by Pew Research Center, definedMillennials as people aged 18 to 34 in 2015 and Baby Boomers aspeople aged 51 to 69. There are approximately 75.4 millionMillennials compared to 74.9 million Baby Boomers, according tothe report.2 Major cities are targeting Millennials for theirworkforce in large part because they are also the most educatedgeneration in American history. Cities like Atlanta are buildingwork, live, play complexes, revitalizing downtowns, andgentrifying older communities in order to attract Millennials by thedroves. So where does this leave the church? Honestly, the churchby in large is already late to the concept of reaching and impactingMillennials. Yet there is always hope! As a theological andanthropological fundamental, because Millennials are people andGod loves all people, the church should love Millennials.However, we cannot completely love a people group that we refuseto try to understand.

One key to understanding Millennials has nothing to do withMillennials per se, but with being sensitive to cultural factors thatimpact every living American generation. For example the factorof improved healthcare has lengthened the human life span. HaydnShaw says in Generational IQ that, “People now live thirty yearslonger than they once did. In 1900 the average life span was forty-eight; today it’s seventy-eight.”3 In the Jewish culture described in

1 http://time.com/4307820/millennials-baby-boomers-largest-generation-2/2 Ibid.3 Haydn Shaw, Generational IQ: Christianity Isn’t Dying, Millennials Aren’t the

2 Millennials Matter

Scripture, life stages were a lot simpler than they are today. See this simple list below:

• Nursing from age 0-2 [Psalm 8:2]• Weaned Child from age 2-12 [Genesis 21:8]• Adulthood from age 13+ [Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah]• Elders [Leviticus 19:32]

Not only are people living longer now but other factors havecolluded to complicate the human life stages in our times.According to Jackson and Ulmer, in the early 20th century “at least5 factors combined to lengthen the period of time calledadolescence, in effect creating a class of pre-adults (Cobb 1998,26; Bakan, 71).”4 Those factors are:

• Puberty – Now that it starts earlier, bodies are physicallyin adulthood while minds are still very much inchildhood. This effectively ends childhood but does notquite begin adulthood as it is defined by our culture.

• Postponed or No Marriage – The gap between pubertyand marriage has widened to at least 15 years for mostpeople. This allows for a longer time to be biologicallycapable of being an adult without having all of thetypical adult responsibilities.

• Child Labor Laws – A person could be 15 years old andphysically able but too young and educationallyuntrained to legally work some adult jobs. This factorkeeps a person considered an adult in antiquity as a not-quite-an-adult in modernity.

• Compulsory Education Laws – Because law stipulatesthat students have to stay in school until 16, they can nolonger drop out of school with a 5th grade education to gohelp their parents on a farm. This factor lengthens thetime a person is in school and acts as a feeder to post-

Problem, and the Future is Bright (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers,Inc., 2015), 13.4 Allen Jackson and Dwayne Ulmer Introducing the 21st Century Teenager(Nashville, TN: LifeWay Press), 27-28.


secondary education. In the days of Scripture, theaverage Jewish boy would finish primary school aroundage 15, whereas nowadays High School does nottypically end until age 18.

• Juvenile Justice System – The laws in the U.S.differentiate between juvenile and adult criminals. Forjuveniles many laws take corrective instead of punitivemeasures. So then there is a cultural separation of lifestages modeled after the legal separation.

Thus, gone is the day of the simple life stages experienced inbiblical times. Nowadays the traditional life stages are interspersedwith in-between stages that present both real opportunities andchallenges. Modern life stages are generally more like:

• Infancy (0-2) [ended by potty training or weaning]• Childhood (2-11) [ended by early puberty]• Adolescence (12-17) [ended by high school graduation]• Young Adulthood (18-23) [ended by collegegraduation(s)]• Emerging Adulthood (24-29) [ended by marriage, kids,and/or mortgage]• Adulthood (30-54) [ended by early retirement or an empty nest]• Second Adulthood (55-69) [ended by release ofsenior/retirement benefits]• Senior Adulthood (70+) [ended by declining health or death]

So, conflict is sure to arise when Boomers (the first generation toface Second Adulthood) are parenting, or in some cases grand-parenting, Millennials (the first generation to face EmergingAdulthood). Second Adulthood is when a person finds themselvesold enough to have retired from their first career and/or raised theirchildren, but young, healthy, and energetic enough to work another10+ year career. Emerging Adulthood is when you’re old enoughbiologically to be an adult but not prepared financially to become


completely independent. In his book The Next America, PaulTaylor gives stats that reflect the new life stage of EmergingAdulthood. He says, “Thirty percent of all men ages 18 to 34 (and22% of all young women that age) were living in their parents’homes in 2012, the highest share in modern history. And by 2015,despite years of slow but steady improvement in the labor market,the share of young adults living with a parent remained stable.”5Basically, cultural factors have created an environment wherepeople can grow up slower, and it be considered okay. Forty yearsago a person would leave home the day of their high schoolgraduation and never return. Nowadays people graduate highschool, get an undergrad degree, get a master’s degree, or work afull-time job and CHOOSE to still live at home. That is whyboomerang children (and helicopter parents) are the new familialnormal!

Now that we have a basic understanding of factors that haveshaped every currently living generation, let’s focus on how toreach Millennials. In order to reach & connect young and emergingadults to the church we need to become multilingual, cross-cultural, and strategic/intentional.

The Language of Millennials

“Dealing with five generations is now the biggest issuechurches face, regardless of denomination,”6 says Haydn Shaw.Now we all have to figure out how to speak the languages ofTraditionalists (born before 1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964),Generation X (1965-1979), Millennials (1980-2000), and whatmight be called the iGeneration (Born after 2001). Differentgenerations speak as different a language as different ethnicities.We are all by nature generationally unilingual. You fluently speakthe language of your generation. We must all become at leastgenerationally bilingual, able to speak the language of your

5 Paul Taylor The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the LoomingGenerational Showdown (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2015), 48-49.6 Shaw, 13.

generation and the Millennial generation. But the goal is to becomegenerationally omnilingual, able to speak the language of everyliving generation. When I say language I don’t literally meanEnglish, Spanish, or French, I really mean cultural dialect. Culturaldialect focuses not only on what words they use, but primarily onwhat a word or phrase means to a generation and why. Here is theunmistakable reality – your church is filled predominantly with thegeneration whose language you speak. Through the type of music,comfort level with technology, length of service time, rhetoric andreasoning in preaching, etc. all of our churches are speaking theknown tongue of a generation. For many of us the language of theMillennials remains an unknown tongue.

Because we usually speak one generation’s languagefluently, we may either unintentionally or sometimes evenintentionally alienate other generations. That means then that yourchurch is empty of the generation whose language you cannot orwill not speak. Doug Webster says in his book Outposts of Hopethat, “Western culture’s generational segregation leads tosignificant relational fragmentation and disorientation in thehousehold of God. Peter never would have envisioned the churchdividing along generational lines, but today it is common to dividealong generational lines. This is not a fault of any particulargeneration, but the multigenerational nature of the household ofGod is a New Testament expectation.”7 A “gray headed church” ora “church for young folk” is not the biblical design of thehousehold of faith. But, in order to become multigenerational wehave got to become multilingual.

Imagine there is a room of five people, one from each ofthe living generations. The teen from the iGeneration throws awaya working iPhone because the screen is horribly cracked. The

7 Douglas Webster. Outposts of Hope: First Peter’s Christ for Culture Strategy(Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015), 153.


“We don’t want Christians to be our only friends,” and “…we want to be ‘normal’ while following Jesus.”

– Carson Nyquist

Traditionalist says, “Why are you throwing that fancy gizmoaway? Make do and mend!” The Generation Xer says “make doand mend? Ha! That’s true for you, but not for me!” The Millennialgets upset about the Xer speaking on truth and says, “Truth. Whatis truth? I’m living my own truth.” The Boomer in the room walksover to the confused iGen teen and says, “Just do your own thing,don’t worry about everybody else.” These phrases of a generationalso represent the culture that shaped these generations. It’snecessary to understand a people group’s language, because howthey understand words will determine how a communicator useswords. For the church it is not the content of our message thatshould change, but the rhetoric we use to communicate thatmessage that must change! Leslie Williams says “…I have to usereasoning that works in this day and age and not logic from thepast. For example, I can’t say, ‘I believe in Jesus because the Bibletells me so’; no, in the general culture, the Bible no longer carriesthe authority it used to.”8 The language of a generation impacts therhetoric of the communicator, who must use effective reasoning toshare timeless truths.

8 Leslie Williams, When Anything Goes: Being Christian in a Post-Christian World(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2016), 5.


The Culture of Millennials

Leslie Williams, in When Anything Goes, helps us tounderstand how America has changed into a Post-ChristianCulture. She says, “…in the late 1980s… the world was now ‘post-Christian.’ Sophisticated and intelligent people no longer believedin the Judeo-Christian metanarrative or the Resurrection.”9 Shegoes on to add that, “We live in an age in which Christianity is nolonger the ocean everybody swims in, but faith is more like rivers,streams, and lakes on individual property. Still, I find it interestingthat the current age has not come up with a new label for itself butdefines itself in terms of what it has lost: the influence ofChristianity.”10 Now that Christianity is no longer religion bypopular majority, many Millennials develop and nurture closesocial relationships with people who are not like them. ChristianMillennials say, “We don’t want Christians to be our onlyfriends,”11 because, “…we want to be ‘normal’ while followingJesus.”12

Fans of the National Basketball Association will understandthe culture of Millennials more easily. The world’s best player,LeBron James, is best friends with other star players DwyaneWade, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul. Although James andWade played together for 4 years in Miami, these four guys havemostly played for different teams. A few summers ago, during theNBA offseason, they were pictured sharing a glass of red winewith each other on a fancy yacht. Older retired NBA playersroasted them for being friends with their rivals. Many older NBAfans balked at the thought of Michael Jordan having wine withIsaiah Thomas or Magic Johnson being pictured on vacation withLarry Bird. Many older fans and players in the NBA displayed thatthey neither understood nor appreciated Millennial culture. Oldersaints do this all the time to younger believers. For example, in

9 Williams, xiv.10 Ibid, xv.11 Nyquist, 44.12 Nyquist, 49.



efforts to point out the holy distinctive between Christians andother religions, many older saints won’t understand how aChristian Millennial could be best friends with a devout Muslim,biracial atheist, and openly gay Buddhist. Older generations seethe uniforms we wear that separate us, Millennials see the causeswe share that unify us. James, Wade, Anthony, and Paul all madea powerful stand together for the Black Lives Matter movementat the 2016 ESPY Awards. That night none of them wore theirteam’s jersey, all of them wore a black tuxedo. That’s Millennialculture! You don’t have to love it, you don’t have to agree withit. But, if the church is going to reach emerging adults we dohave to understand it.

It’s not however that Millennial Christians don’tunderstand or appreciate holiness. Nyquist says, “Our generationknows God expects the church to be different from the world…Our problem comes when the church substitutes lesser,moralistic or cultural preferences for these biblicaldistinctives.”13 Jesus had the same problem with the Pharisees!Jesus said, “‘neglecting the commandment of God, you hold tothe tradition of men.’ He was also saying to them, ‘You areexperts at setting aside the commandment of God in order tokeep your tradition’” (Mark 7:8-9 NASB).

13 Ibid.

“…I have to use reasoning that works in this day and age and not logic from the past. For example, I can’t say, ‘I believe in Jesus because the

Bible tells me so’; no, in the general culture, the Bible no longer carries the authority it used to.”

– Leslie Williams


Churching Millennials

Millennials will come to church… but not just any church…and not for the sake of just coming to church. Barna Group’sChurchless captures sobering stats about church attendance. BarnaGroup describes four categories of churchgoers as: The ActivelyChurched, the Minimally Churched, the De-Churched, and thePurely Unchurched.14 The below numbers are noteworthy becauseas American population has increased (75+ Million Millennials),American church attendance has decreased.

• 1990s – 30% of America was unchurched• 2000s – 33% of America was unchurched• 2014 – 43% of America was unchurched

Shaw clarifies though that many Millennials aren’t antichurch andeven consider church to be a good thing. He adds that churchedand unchurched Millennials alike just don’t think it’s thatimportant. Going to church is not generally at the top of aMillennial’s priorities. The anxious church leader’s kneejerkreaction then is to do something to make the church important(relevant) again. There is very little we as church leaders can do tomake the church more important and relevant than what Jesus didat Calvary. Jesus’ promise in Matthew 16:18 will stand firm untilthe end. So if the church’s importance is fixed, there is little aleader can do to make the church more relevant, and Jesuspromised survival… why aren’t our church’s reaching moreMillennials? May I suggest that while we cannot make the churchuniversal more important, we can make our local churchesirrelevant and out of touch. The type of music, style of clothing, orversion of Scripture we preach from are not the primary reasonswe are not reaching Millennials. The fact that we make ourpreferences in the previous list the only biblical way to do churchis why we are not reaching emerging adults. Which style of musicwe play, for example, is really a theological issue fought as agenerational issue masquerading as a biblical issue. Long meter isnot godlier than a jazz baseline. Keller calls this TheologicalVision in his book Center Church, and challenges us all to beintentional and strategic in developing one.

14 George Barna and David Kinnaman Churchless: Understanding Today’sUnchurched and How to Connect with Them (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale HousePublishers, Inc., 2014), 1-7


Here is what I’ve discovered about how to church Millennials:

1. Make a ChoiceAndy Stanley is known for saying, “Marry the mission, and date

the model.” If we are going to church Millennials we have to makea choice to make an adaptive change. Scripture (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) is clear that, not being willing to change your approach to reachthe lost is unlike God, unlike Christ, and unlike Paul. A choice notto adjust your approach to ministry is an immediate choice to makeyour ministry ineffective.

2. Model C.H.R.I.S.T.• Compassion for the Skeptic (John 20:19-31)• Heart for the Lost (Luke 15; Luke 19:10)• Relationships are Paramount (Levi’s House Mark 2:13-17;Mary, Martha, Lazarus in John 12:1-8; Last Supper Luke 22:14-23)

• Invest in Millennials (Matthew 4:18-23)• Servant Leadership (Mark 10:42-45; John 13:12-17)• Truth & Grace in Balance (John 1:14; John 8)

3. Maintain the Connection• Keep Dialogue Open (i.e. Focus Groups, social media interaction, etc.)• Keychain Leadership (SEE Churches Growing Young by Powell/Fuller Youth Institute)• Take them deeper

i. Think and embrace thinking. Millennials may leavetheir bibles in the car, but don’t want to leave theirbrains in the car when they come to church.

ii. Teach them how to think critically, biblically,theologically, and practically about a range of deepsubjects including suffering, purpose of existence,and how to handle silence. Dr. William H. Curtisdefines the modern pastor as an Ethical Mentor.

Most Millennials aren’t antichurch; most of them think it s a good thing. They, including Millennials who attend church regularly,

just don’t think it’s that important.

– Haydn Shaw


BIBLIOGRAPHYBarna, George & Kinnaman, David (2014). Churchless:Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect withThem. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Powell, Kara, et. al (2016). Growing Young: Six EssentialStrategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church.Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Jackson, Allen and Ulmer, Dwayne (2001). Introducing the 21st

Century Teenager. Nashville, TN: Lifeway Press.

Keller, Timothy (2012). Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Nyquist, J. Paul and Carson (2013). The Post-Church Christian:Dealing with the Generational Baggage of our Faith. Chicago, IL:Moody Publishers.

Shaw, Haydn (2015). Generational IQ: Christianity Isn’t Dying,Millennials Aren’t the Problem, and the Future is Bright. CarolStream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Taylor, Paul (2015). The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, andthe Looming Generational Showdown. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.

Williams, Leslie (2016). When Anything Goes: Being Christian ina Post-Christian World. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

Our generation knows God expects the church to be different from the world.Our problems come when the church substitutes lesser, moralistic

or cultural preferences for these biblical distinctives.

– Carson Nyquist


“Dealing with five generations is now the biggest issue churches face, regardless of denomination.”

– Haydn Shaw

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Date: _________

Born and raised in Atlanta, GA, Darrell Hall receivedChrist as his Savior & Lord at a young age. He has been a member of the Elizabeth Baptist Church, where

General Overseer Dr. Craig Oliver serves as senior pastor, sincechildhood. In 2003, at age 17, Darrell accepted his calling into theministry. For 5 years he served as Youth Pastor within EBC’smulti-site context. Ordained January 24, 2015, Rev. Hall currentlyserves as the Campus Pastor of EBC’s 5th location in Conyers, GA.

He has a Bachelor of Arts in Religion (2008), a Master ofArts in Christian Studies (2010), and a Master of Divinity (2016)from Luther Rice Seminary. He is currently pursuing a Doctor ofMinistry degree from Beeson Divinity School at SamfordUniversity.

The joy of his life is his best friend and the wife of hisyouth, Eboni. They are the parents of sons Dylan Elijah, DanielElisha, and Dixon Emmanuel.

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REV. DARRELL HALL - Propel Now · 3 Haydn Shaw, Generational IQ: Christianity Isn’t Dying, Millennials Aren’t the. 2 Millennials Matter Scripture, life stages were a lot simpler