I was checking out the bulletin when I went to church today, and in it something grabbed my attention. I saw that the Walla Walla Adventist Forum was going to be in session in the afternoon. That sounded pretty appealing to me. The topic was The End of American Adventism? I showed up on time, and grabbed the last available seat; the place was packed. From the title, I was not sure what really would be going down.
In the end I was very glad I attended. The average age at this meeting of two-hundred or so was about 65-70. This turned out to be the very issue that was being addressed. Out of all the people there, only three of us were university students. I was very glad in the end that I had decided to attend. The topic of the whole forum was that of the declining population of the Adventist Church here in America. It turns out that not only are the Adventist Church’s memberships in decline, but also the median age of its members is growing. This is not only a problem with the Adventist Church, the American churches in general are having a similar trend, though worse. First the pastor of the Walla Walla University Church, Pastor Bryan (formerly a Southern Adventist University Church pastor), presented a foundation for the forum to follow. The problems were presented in very clear manner, and then he moderated the conversations to follow.
It was interesting to see the solutions and ideas the group of people had on this issue, especially from my point of view being one of the younger generation. Out of all the ideas given, really only one I thought really addressed the problem of a strong, multi-generational, healthy church. This idea really was one of discipleship and social interaction. I was thinking that out of such a large group of older people on average in the audience how much knowledge was being wasted. I would love to learn about life and religion from many of the Old Timers; their perspective and experience in life is such valuable information!
This is a big deal in the church today—the declining population of youth in the churches. One of the two other university students spoke up saying that we are tired of having car show-type services where cookies and loud music are given so that we will keep coming back. I would have to agree with her. There are many who seem to think that the way to keep us youth in the church is to keep us in with material stuff, when all we (at least me) need is for social interaction among the generations. There is much we could learn and benefit with each other I think.
It is not just the older people at fault in this whole situation. We as youth don’t try and reach out to the older generations either it seems. Here we are addicted to entertainment, and can’t pull ourselves away to have a real and meaningful relationship with God. We have much we could learn from those who are older in the church. I hope I can get my act together and start some of this mingling myself.
Anyway, this whole thing has gotten me thinking. I don’t know if what I’ve just said is logical and cohesive, though I think I got the message across. I’m glad to see there is dialog about this issue happening and I hope to see this intermingling start to happen amongst our multi-generation church. I will leave it at that…
