Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

GenX Worship

1. Participation is in.

GenXers will try to eliminate performance worship. They think Boomers attract attention to themselves in worship, instead of God. They'll try to move worship off the "stage" to the people, and get rid of worship-you-watch.

Xers loathe ego-oriented worship leaders and ministers. While being pleasant to their face, they make fun of "big" men who "fill up a room" upon entering. They identify big "personalities" like these as televangelist-types who are probably hiding inner moral fraud. No wonder. The minister moral Humpty Dumpties of their lifetime have been mostly hype-types. (They don't know about the others.) What they intend to put forward are low key "real" people -- the kind of leaders who care more about people than their own fame. During the last decade or two, low key ministers were the bane of the church growth types. If Xers have their way, ordinary-people-who-love may have their hey day yet.

Xers aren't interested in being "up" all the time. They intend to eliminate the Boomer mandate for cheery-feel-good worship, and plan to mix in more mournful, somber, "downer" music, atmosphere and messages. They think religion should be an expression of the full range of emotions, not just the happy ones. Perhaps they've been reading the Psalms.

GenXers don't like to gobble down their food or their worship. They like eating pizza at a laid back leisurely pace. And that's how they want their worship too. They plan to replace the Boomer frenzied minute-by-minute schedules with a more contemplative pace. Almost all of them speak of "silence" as a missing part of worship. [Gasp!] Ironic, isn't it? About the time the Quakers abandon silence, the Xers want to reintroduce it!

We Boomers massacred our parent's worship routines, but merely turned around and installed our own routines. Face it, Boomer-led worship is now just as predictable as our parent's worship was. Xers intend to change all that. They want varied music, switched orders of service, a few high church elements one week, then low the next. They see no reason at all that the preaching should be in the second half of the service. They plan to mix things up each week. (Of course, they do not yet know that Boomers intend to defend our own politically correct innovations-now-traditions to the death... the death of the Xer, that is.)

Xers think illustrations should be given VIA big screen TV or Video. They think sermons should be interspersed with video and interviews and not be an "endless 30 minute talking head." How will they do this without being performance oriented? Ask them.

Xers hate fake. They despise fake people, fake plants on the platform, fake soloists who raise their hands only when they are up front, or fake "friendship moments" when the audience is commanded to be friendly with the people around them. If it is not authentic it is out. And, the worse fakery of all, is attempting to look authentic. Xers have the best Malarkey Meters of any generation yet. Of course, they've had plenty of Malarkey to test their meters on.

Everything is optional to Xers in worship -- except being accepting. That is mandatory. Xers plan to be wide open to all kinds of dress (and undress), styles -- old and new, both hymns and choruses, overheads and hymnals, testimonies and dance, old people and children-who-cry, believers and unbelievers, women and men, black and white, Moslem and Christian. The only thing that is compulsory is "acceptance." Where'd they get this idea?

Xers plan to redesign worship around a relational model. They hope to produce a more privatized relationship with God, yet a deeper horizontal F*R*I*E*N*D*S type association with others. They snicker at the Boomer handshake ritual, not because of its goal, but because of its shallowness. They think going to church with your friends is what the church should be. Even to the extent of planting churches for narrow slices of people -- volleyball churches, GreenPeace churches, Backpacking churches -- where the church's hobby interests are fully integrated with their religion into a seamless friendship-relationship. Boomers have approached church planting in a broadcast mode, Xers seem inclined toward narrowcasting.

GenX wants their worship to lead somewhere. Not just to God, but to the world. A worship service is more than meeting God's needs, or the audience's needs -- it is also about meeting the world's needs. Outreach that isn't called outreach. Not the old door-to-door "outreach," but worship which results in things like putting on a new roof for a poor woman, taking food to a homeless shelter, or signing up to actually go to Haiti this Summer, not just praying or giving. They want to do something about their religion, not just get something.

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Of course all this is just generalization. And GenX folk hate it when Boomers make generalizations about them. In fact, they'll change their preferences just to proove the Boomer predictions untrue. Xers won't like this column -- it gives away their secrets to the older folk -- the Boomers. But we can predict the Boomer response too. Now that Boomers have installed our own worship preferences as the norm, Boomers will say, "It's time to quit adapting worship to the people, let's focus on God -- and leave things the way they are."

Perhaps that would be good. Why? Because Xers will then be forced to plant churches. And, this new generation of dreamers might never do that without being forced to.

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu