The New Normal

It is finally happening.  Like the headlights coming out of the tunnel, the freight train has been bearing down on us.  2015 is the year that millennials (those born between 1980-2000) surpass baby boomers (those born post World War II) as the largest population group.  I am part of that later group.  Like my peers,  I have grown comfortable with the way things are.  I like normalcy.  There are certain restaurants that I enjoy because I can order without even looking at the menu.  I tend to take the same route over and over because it is comfortable.  I am also cautious.  I usually try to stay in the middle lane, rather than venture into the fast lane. I also hold to a familiar set of values, those I learned from my parents.  They were reinforced by school and church.  That was the old normal.

In the millennial world, values have shifted.  Behaviors once considered taboo have become acceptable.  The way we communicate has changed.  Established norms are no longer the expectation.  At one point single parent homes were the exception.  Today almost half of the children in our country live in such situations, and some live in home where the parents are of the same sex. In the old world, unmarried couples living together was looked down on.  Today it has become the accepted thing.  Probably 75% of couples who do marry have lived together before saying, "I do.  We can long for the "good old days," but they are not coming back.  We can complain to our peers about how the world has "gone to hell in a hang basket" but it is not going to change things.  The freight train that is the millennial culture has overwhelmed us.

While the world has changed, I do not think Jesus wants his disciples to compromise on who they are or what they believe.. Jesus did not do that.  He was very much out of step with the world that he lived in, but that did not keep him from interacting with that world.  He loved those who were different.  He embraced those who were lost and broken.  He also accepted people for who they were and not who he desired them to be. He frequented the place where the broken and lost hung out.  He sought those relationships, not to condemn them but rather to love them.  Now he calls for us to do the same.