Learning to Change The World

Eleven years ago I was immersed in my job as a high school counselor.  I spent my time trying to help students work through personal issues, make wise choices and to stay academically focused.  I guess I was aware that the students had changed, but I don't recall the term millennials being part of my vocabulary.  While I was aware of a societal shift, I really didn't think about the how and why.  I certainly didn't consider the long-term implications.  Fortunately, other people were.  Our son Mark and his wife, Kristen, are moving to a new apartment this weekend.  As part of the process he decided to get rid of some books.  One of them ended up in my hands, Generation 2K, What Parents and Others Need to Know about the Millennials.     Most shocking was the copyright date, 1999.  The author, Wendy Murray Zoba, was very aware of the new generation.  Wendy was an associate editor for Christianity Today and she used the resources of that publication to do some of the initial research on those born after 1980.

Other people were aware of millennials.  My wife was recently going through old papers.  One thing she came across was notes from the summer of 2002.  Our daughter, Katie, was getting ready for her freshmen year at Texas Christian University.  She and Barb had attended the orientation.  Barb's notes, "Millennials (ages 3-21): Sensory -emotional age, building relationships and believe they can make a difference."    The folks at TCU, like other college leaders across the country, realized that their student population was changing.  It was about that time that TCU changed their marketing slogan to, "Learning to Change the World," an obvious nod to a generation that "believed they can make a difference" (see my wife's notes above).

It's one thing to label millennials and even begin to attach characteristics to them as a generation, but it's a whole different issue when we realize the impact that they are having on our culture. On the negative side we can talk about the way our values have shifted on issues like same sex marriage.  On the positive side we can relate to their inclination to become involved in service to others.  I would also hope that we be disturbed over the fact that many of them have turned a cold shoulder to mainline Christianity.  When it  comes to this last issue, I would pray that we would find a need to react to it, rather than run from it.  We need to seek ways to relate to teens and young adults and try to be messengers of hope, rather than prophets of doom.  Maybe we need to take a lesson from TCU and learn to change the world.