Some of you who follow my blog know and realize, I am really happy to have a Kindle and use it extensively, and as a side effect or consequence, I’m unable to buy all the books I want to read due to the pace I read them at. As a result, I have taken advantage of opportunities I find online to find deals on books or free public domain ones, and that’s how I came across The Millennials. I got it for free one week, but then quickly found the next week it was back up to $11.99 on Amazon.
I’m glad I got it though because once I started it, I couldn’t put it down.
From the back cover:
At more than 78 million strong, the Millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—have surpassed the Boomers as the larger and more influential generation in America. Now, as its members begin to reach adulthood, where the traits of a generation really take shape, best-selling research author Thom Rainer (Simple Church) and his son Jess (a Millennial born in 1985) present the first major investigative work on Millennials from a Christian worldview perspective.
As a Millennial (is that what the old people are calling us these days?) myself, I was fascinated and said “hmmm!” to myself very often as I read things in this book, and started to understand myself a little better in the regard that I’m learning I’m not just weird, but that plenty of my generation is just like me in regard to my passion for authenticity, but yet tired of church as usual and business as usual, when it comes to things surveyed in the book. Among their findings:
Here is our dilemma. If most religions, particularly Christianity, are identified by their service to others, and if most Millennials desire to serve others, why is not the vast majority of this generation serving actively in a local church? Less than one-fourth of all the respondents indicated that they are in a religious service each week. Indeed the great numbers of Millennials have some spiritual identity, but they are avoiding organized religions like local churches in great numbers as well. From our earlier research, we found that this generation is likely the most “unchurched” generation…
The authors, a father and son team of Thom & Jess Rainer, interviewed 1200 people and this book is the result of their findings. My only problem is, and it’s not even a big problem, but they seem to have focused on ONLY the positives. For example, I’m pretty certain that of the 78 million of us there are, not all come from an upper-class family with university degrees who are going to change the world. I know I don’t fit that description. But other stuff like how we use communication and so forth, I totally get. If anything, I recommend the older generations to read this book, however, most of them probably aren’t even on this page.
So here is a challenge they present, on the subject most of interest to me as a Christian believer in this day and age:
Some churches in America will likely continue to decline and weaken because their leaders and members refuse to get out of their comfort zones. These churches will continue to have mediocre Bible study groups and anemic preaching. Not only will these churches fail to attract the non-Christian Millennials; they will forfeit the opportunity to reach Millennial Christians. Christians who are members of America’s largest generation will not embrace churches where the Bible is not taught and preached with depth and convictions.
So, if you are into a free audio book, ChristianAudio.com is offering it this month (July 2011) as the free download of the month. Otherwise, currently, Amazon has the Kindle version, which I read it on, but obtained for free.
I’m happy, because quite frankly I would not have bought this book for as much as it’s currently going for on Kindle. It was insightful, but not necessarily earth-shattering for me. In fact, it was an easy read and I only read it because I found it free, but that’s me. I recommend subscribing to sites that keep track of price drops and waiting for it to become available for a lower price or borrow it from someone who has read it and is done with their copy.
