A couple of meetings and conversations I had today while working at ALERT reinforced my perception that there is a major divide between my generation and my parent’s generation. Those men and women from my parent’s generation are the ones leading ministry organizations, making key strategic decisions for the Kingdom, and holding the vast amount of influence in the Church today. They are in vital roles and have immense responsibility for stewarding the resources of God’s work and guiding the workers—my generation. My peers and I are the ones doing the work right now, but in ten to twenty years, we will be in leadership positions. My generation is of vital importance because it defines what the Church will be in the future.

A Failure to Relate

However, each generation fails to understand the other. This difference in perspective is killing us. There are many reasons for this; both generations are at fault, but typically, an individual is unwilling to own that there is a flaw in his reasoning.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3)

My generation fails to respect the experience and wisdom of the older generation. In our rush to use the latest and greatest, we end up despising the truths my parent’s generation knows through experience. Furthermore, because they don’t “get us”, we don’t give them the honor they rightly deserve. Finally, in our myopic youthfulness, we make impetuous and ill-advised decisions because we don’t reach out to older men and women—who probably wouldn’t really listen to us anyways.

Shortcomings of More Experienced People

I can’t speak for my parent’s generation apart from subjective observation. However, two things bother me. First, the older generation fails to recognize or appreciate the significant differences in how my generation lives out its life. We don’t write letters or even make phone calls as often (to our detriment, I believe). However, we aren’t anti-social. Most of my peers are actually far more social than my parent’s generation but the means they use are foreign to the older generation—more on that later. The second shortcoming I see is a large-scale failure to reach out to my generation. Partly, that may be due to a lack of skill or technological shortcomings in interacting with us in our primary channels of communication. However, it seems to me that my parent’s generation, for the most part, is wrapped up in themselves, selfish to a large degree, and unwilling to disrupt their comfortable lifestyles to engage the younger generation. This self-centered indolence is a grievous sin, with severe implications for the Church in the decades to come.

Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

I can’t recall the exact place I saw it used, but I mentioned this metaphor in June when talking about social networking technologies. My generation has grown up around electronic devices, internet communications, and the whole digital world. We are natives here. My parent’s generation, on the other hand, grew up in a different world. I don’t really understand it. They are immigrants to my digital world. They have varying levels of understanding and appreciation for the unique languages, cultures, and modes of interacting my peers and I take for granted. This was highlighted today in discussions revolving websites. While my peers and I take the value of websites for granted, my parent’s generation doesn’t appreciate their importance. My peers and I communicate regularly using email, internet-based chat, text messaging, and Facebook. These actually generate more and deeper relationships than my parent’s generation recognizes. If they want to interact substantively with my peers and I, they need to learn how to use these mediums.

Solution to the Problem

There are tremendous benefits to both generations reaching out and taking the time and effort to remove the log from their own eye and connect with the other generation. Both sides need to take proactive steps. My peers and I need to:

• Respect the older generation’s experience and wisdom.
• Reach out and make connections with older men and women.
• Recognize that the older generation is likely to not understand us and not hold a grudge as a result.

The older generation needs to:

• Reach out and engage the younger generation on their ground.
• Seek to learn and appreciate the differing technologies and changes my generation considers important.
• Be open to younger generation’s having a better idea about how to do something using newer technology.

A Bright Future

The older generation holds the future in their hands. If they are willing to obey God, humble themselves, and reach out to younger people, they can significantly impact the Kingdom of God in the future. Their life experience, wisdom, and collective insight can equip young people to go further faster and eliminate the need for costly “learning experiences” (mistakes). However, if the older generation fails in this respect, not only are my peers & I doomed to repeat their mistakes and make new ones of our own, many of my peers will undoubtedly fall away from the Church and lose their way. For my generation, a similar situation is ours. We can keep persisting in our blindness and make many mistakes, or we can reach out to an older generation to learn from their wisdom and life experience. In the here and now, we can reach out and help the older generation learn how to better understand and utilize the radically changing landscape of digital technologies they face today. For all of us, it will take a humbling of our pride and a willingness to reach out across a divide that is deep, but not impossible to cross.