FAITH TALK: GENUINE RELATIONSHIP
I’m responding week by week to an online article about Millennials leaving church. The Millennial author advises, “We want to be mentored, not preached at.” As he points out, if you want a sermon you can get plenty of those online without ever leaving on your own sofa, complete with doughnuts and sweatpants. I’m married to a guy of the same opinion, except he doesn’t even want a sermon. He just uses an app for daily Bible study.
Papa Don’t Preach!
However, the author tells us Millennials crave relationship, “to have someone walking beside them through the muck.” The author points out his generation has the “highest percentage ever of fatherless homes.” You can always tell when someone thinks they’ve won an argument. They start giving you statistics. It was a statistic about “average” church attendance that convinced my husband he was safe staying home on Sundays.
I think modern churches do focus too much on sermons. Superstar preachers achieve celebrity status and reign over mega churches which resemble country clubs, more than they do houses of worship. The superstars not only serve their local congregation, they live-feed their performance into satellite churches and into homes all over the world. To me, that’s not church – it’s showbiz.
Database Mentoring
Let’s leave it at that. You don’t want sermons – fine. You do want mentoring – great. But the Millennial author’s solution just doesn’t work in real life. He suggests creating a database to match up adult mentors and young adults. Been there, done that Mr. Millennial.
While I have been involved in decades-long mentoring relationships, I never got there through a database or list. Occasionally a mentoring relationship will grow out of that sort of thing, but without exception, there is always a secondary connection taking these artificial relationships to the next level. In other words, save your database for online dating.
Intentionality
His other solution is to “Ask the older generation to be intentional with the Millennials in your church,” but mentoring really only works when both parties invest in the relationship. This means Mr. Millennial and his friends can’t access a database, read a few profiles and expect to connect with the perfect mentor. I’ve participated in programs just like that, from the days when I was the one being mentored, and it just never clicked.
If you want to be mentored, skip the database and get involved. Interested in ministering to the poor? Then volunteer with in one of your church’s local projects. Or sign up for a work day, most churches have them, and invest some sweat equity in your church while you interview potential mentors. Go on a mission trip. Serve as a greeter. Direct traffic on the parking lot. Work in the nursery. There are any number of ways to connect with your church and present yourself as a potential mentoree. My guess is you’ll be surprised how quickly you have a whole team of mature adults who are eagerly mentoring you before you even get around to asking them to do so.
Real People for Real Mentoring on Both Sides of the Relationship
The article’s author asks, “If we don’t have real people who actually care about us, why not just listen to a sermon on the couch?” Well, if we older adults don’t have real young people who actually show an interest in the same things we care about, why should we go chasing after someone who would rather watch a sermon on their phone or scroll through a database looking for a mentor?
I’ve signed up to be on mentoring lists several times in several churches. Each time I was formally introduced to someone as their mentor (or mentoree) it was a failure. Once or twice it was a pleasant six month contract that had no lasting impact, but a few times it was more like a disaster. The younger person didn’t want a mentor. They wanted a caped crusader to come in and pick up the mess they’d made. That’s not mentoring. That’s enabling.
If that’s where the story ended, I’d just say I stunk at mentoring and for a long time I thought that was the case. Then I looked around. I realized I had a bevy of beauties surrounding me, who had invited me into their lives and also took an interest in mine. I didn’t access a database to find these young ladies. I just chose to be active in my church and love on the people I came into contact with, some of whom happened to be young people.
Some of those people are no longer quite so young and they are still in my life after decades of mutually satisfying relationships. I also have to say that not all mentoring is older people mentoring younger people. Some of the people I have mentored have been significantly older than me and there have been seasons in my life when I needed younger people to take a role in my life.
So, if you’ve dropped out of a church because they didn’t provide you with a database of potential mentors, I’d suggest you go back and give it another try, because mentoring isn’t like dating. You are not likely to find your mentor online, but if you invest in your church, you will discover people who will invest in your life.
Faith Talk 