Let's move away from the demographic of age, ethnicity, and economics and look at culture from a religious perspective. Put on your shoes, let's walk down the hallway of years gone by, step into the room full of cultural spiritual archives from a half a century ago.

In those days you would find yourself standing in a culture that was largely Christianized.
Most believed in a personal God, in the existence of heaven and hell, and the concept of one truth and moral authority. If for you were to use the language of that day you would refer to conviction of sin and a need for redemption through Jesus Christ.


Back then a pastor or minister could say, be good, and the typical youngster would know
what he or she meant. Religious life was straightforward and essentially binary in nature. What's more, church was generally seen as a good thing.

Today if you were to pull back the drapes and peek into the window of Christian academia, Tim Keller writes that you would notice a multitude of ongoing feuds over the authority of the Bible, justification by faith, the atonement, gender roles in the family and
the church, ways to conduct worship and methods for evangelism, as well as innumerable disputes over the nature and ministries of the church. You would find intellectuals sparring over the meaning of the kingdom of heaven and the trinity and questions surrounding epistemology.


Now step outside the front door and take a peek at what's happening on the streets. Today you'll find yourself looking at a culture of religious pluralism. Worse than general hostility or apathy towards Christianity, nowadays there is a general sense that any religion or lack thereof is perfectly acceptable. The quest for absolute truth is thrown out the window. In fact, it's not uncommon for our culture to be completely comfortable with religious contradictions. We take bits of Christianity and Islam and Hindu and even agnosticism and we put it in a bag and we shake it up and we pick out whichever parts we like the most, even if they're directly contradictory to one another.  So it's no wonder that many see Christianity as judgmental, intolerant and with a lack of understanding. So where does this leave us? How do we answer the question, who are we trying to reach and why? 

First of all, we're trying to reach a culture that no longer embraces our parents and our grandparents' traditional values.

37
00:03:22,920 --> 00:03:30,440
We're trying to reach a generation that is inclusive and diverse in its theological views. In addition to that, researchers are telling us that we're trying to reach a generation
raving human touch. They want authentic relationships with a small group of faithful friends. We're looking at a generation that is looking for a church that doesn't feel like a giant corporation.


There is so much to learn and we can include it in this five minute podcast.
So let me recommend some extra reading for you. There's an amazing book by Shana and Tim Gaines called A Seat at the Table. This book addresses the generational collision that is taking place and seeks to find ways for the church to reimagine our ways to reach a younger population.

Second book I would recommend would be one by James Emery White recently written. It's called The Rise of the Nuns. It helps the reader to understand and reach the religiously unaffiliated. White also did a masterful job at offering the book Meet Generation Z.

At the bottom of my list is a book entitled Reaching Millennials by David Stark.