Does all this generational talk matter?

How many conversations have you heard recently about generational age brackets. Are you a Millennial? A Gen Zer (or what I like to call Zoomers)? Your parents are Generation X and maybe Baby Boomers? OK Boomer?

You have heard all this discussion, so what does it mean? At the end of the Baby Boom in the early 1960s scientists started talking about generational transitions and what they called the Generation Gap. To clarify, they started trying to put parents and kids into categories that made sense. The categories described cultural norms and even tendencies of each age bracket, mainly in an attempt to prevent the tragedies of World War 2 from happening again and eventually to be used as marketing data. For our discussion we will focus on the most visible generations to us, Boomers, GenX, Millennials, and Zoomers.

As we discuss things, you will need to keep a few things in mind: No one person exemplifies all the traits of a generation, nor does one generation encapsulate all the people in it, which is why we speak in generalities. In each generation there are overlaps, people who don’t fit neatly into one generation, no matter when they were born. Some people tend to live at the late end of one generation and the beginning of another, and can have the tendencies of both generations depending on the situation. Then there are others who just don't fit because they are "Outliers" so speaking about all people in an age bracket embodying all the characteristics of anyone generation is not helpful.

The last thing you should keep in mind is that for our discussion we will be leaning on the work by William Strauss and Neil Howe called The Fourth Turning. In The Fourth Turning Strauss and Howe theorize that history in the U.S. is broken into 4 generations over an 80-90 year cycle. We have been living in that cycle since the Puritans landed. Each generation they call “Turnings” and the turning create a cycle. The Turnings are High, Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis and last 20-25 years. Each of our modern generations correspond with these turnings.

Boomers are the children born mainly after we entered World War II. Once everyone was back from the war a huge baby boom occurred. They were the largest generation in American history up to that point.These are the grandparents of the Zoomers and parents of GenX. Boomers are known as hippies, they came of age with the assignation of JFK, RFK, and MLK (their theme song might be “I Can’t Get No, Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, but let’s be honest any Beatles or Bob Dylan song would do as well).

This was what Strauss and Howe might call the “High Turning.” According to Strauss and Howe, the First Turning is a High, which occurs after a Crisis (WWII). During The High, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, though those outside the majority center often feel stifled by conformity.

GenX are the middle kids of history. One speaker called them the Punk Rock generation, bold, loud, irreverent, mocked, forgotten, and rebellious. That pretty much sums them up. Because they followed the Boomers and preceded the Millennials they are easily forgotten. This is the first generation when abortion was legal, reducing their numbers considerably. GenX is known as the 80’s kids and came of age in the era of punk rock and grunge (their theme song is “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana).

According to the “Turnings” theory, the Second Turning is an Awakening, Gen. X is the Awakening generation. This era is an era when institutions are attacked in the name of personal and spiritual autonomy (punk rock). Just when society is reaching its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of social discipline and want to recapture a sense of "self-awareness", "spirituality" and "personal authenticity". Young activists look back at the previous High as an era of cultural and spiritual poverty. All of this describes the angst of Generation X.

Millennials are the largest generation in U.S. history. One cultural icon called them the “Snowflake” generation. They were the Baby-on-board generation. The kids of Boomers late to the parent game and GenXers that stood in between the generations. They were overprotected and told they were important. They revolutionized the use of the internet. All but one of the great internet companies of the early 21st century was conceived of, built, and adapted by a Millennial. They are known as the Hipsters and gave us coffee shops, wine bars, craft beer, and a whole slew of things resurrected from he 1890’s (their theme song might be “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, but let’s be honest geriatric Millennials listen to much different kinds of music than their young Millennial siblings).

According to Strauss and Howe, the Third Turning, occupied by the Millennials in the our modern era, is an Unraveling. The mood of this era they say is in many ways the opposite of a High: Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. The authors say Highs come after Crises when society wants to coalesce and build and avoid the death and destruction of the previous crisis, while the Unraveling happens before a crisis when new forms of social development (tech, social structures, and institutions) are being built (in this case think about the internet).

Generation Z (The Zoomers). These are the kids of both the Millennials and Generation X. They are the first all digital generation, they don’t remember analog or even 9/11 because most of them were born after 9/11 or are so young they can’t remember it. This generation is just coming of age as I write this and are taking the spotlight away from their Millennial siblings and parents, who aren’t sure they like that too much. They by far are more accepting of people who are different, even more than their Millennial siblings, and light years beyond the Boomers and Xers. Tech is ubiquitous to them, they were given phones and digital devices when they were in elementary school and it shows, in both good an bad ways. They know tech and are leading the tech revolution everywhere. However their generation is dealing with mental health issues at an alarming rate. Many psychologist and sociologists believe that the devices in the hands of this generation at such an early age has caused a spike in mental health issues. They have yet to be given a cultural group name (eg. hippies, punks, hipsters), but they are rapidly changing the popular vernacular to such a degree that even they can’t always follow the short hand language of their peers. They have given us SnapChat, TikTok, and the influencers (their song might be “As It Was” by Harry Styles, but its too early to determine, the next TikTok song crazy may change all that).

According to the Strauss and How, the Fourth Turning is a Crisis, if you are keeping score, that generation will be Gen. Z. This is an era of destruction, often involving war or revolution, in which institutional life is destroyed and rebuilt in response to a perceived threat to the nation's survival. After the crisis, civic authority revives, cultural expression redirects toward community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group.

Now the question remains, is all of this necessary? Lumping people into a category, trying to discern their pop culture’s meaning like tea leaves? The Boomers like this or that, thus they are these sorts of people. GenX is a bunch of whiney cry baby’s that got overlooked because of this or that. Millennials always to this or that thus it means. Are we shooting in the dark hoping to predict the right thing? Does this help us be better ministers of the good news of Jesus?

If all we are trying to do is make sense of a generation in hopes of “selling” them Jesus wrapped in their modern culture, then its a mistake. A look at the rise and fall of both Bill Hybles and Mark Driscoll will show you as much (that’s another blog post for another time). If we are paying attention to the times to see how we can bring The Good News of Jesus to the world, then maybe its helpful.

Consider this idea: If the last Crisis generation was the generation that dealt with the depression and WWII then the generation that preceded them was the Unraveling generation in the early part of the 1900’s. That generation is known for restructuring and reinventing the world around them. They did just that, Edison was in that generation as was Tesla (the scientist not the car) and they gave us electricity in our homes and businesses. The Wright Brothers were in that generation and they gave us the Airplane. Bell gave us the telephone, Ford gave us the moving assembly line and made cars accessible for the masses. That’s not to mention the laws and agencies given to us because of the great depression and WWII or the great novels written, or even the great artwork that was revolutionized at the turn of the 20th century.

All of those advances were built and utilized to overcome a world wide crisis, known as World War II.

If that was the case in the early 20th century what is the early 21st century going to be like? What will the world wide crisis be for the Zoomers? The 20th century began with a pandemic that led us to the great crisis, will our world be the same? American history seems to trend in a pattern that Strauss and Howe have identified for the last 400+ years. The safe bet would be that there is a world wide crisis on the horizon that GenZ is going to have to deal with using the tech and changes instituted by the Millennials.

As youth pastors, teachers, and leaders have we been preparing our students for the future or have we been trying to fill our rooms full of kids to keep everyone happy and entertained? This is the reason we talk about the generational phenomenon: We are preparing the next generation to be the light of the world. If we are not doing that then GenZ will not handle the next crisis well and if you are a student of history, imaging an ill-prepared generation of kids facing the Nazi’s.

I don’t want to be fatalistic. I want to motivate us to consider our role as leaders of students, so let’s consider a passage from the gospels. The Gospel writer Mark introduced us to Jairus and his daughter as Jesus came into town. Jairus came to Jesus to heal his daughter, by the time they got to her they were informed that she had died. Jesus said, “No she’s only asleep…” Then he proceeds into their house, finds the girl, and says this, “‘Talitha koum!’ (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.” My question to you is this: Are you ready to wake up some sleeping kids? Are you ready to prepare the students to take on the world they are inheriting? If you will wake them up, as my friend Ben says, “You will be awakening a sleeping giant.” My prayer for you is that you wake them up to the love and compassion of Jesus. To the Grace and the Truth of how he would live their lives. Help them be like Jesus for the sake of the world, they are sorely needed.