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<\/a>I started this series in response to Addie Zierman\u2019s original post on the 5 churchy phrases that are scaring off millennials<\/a>. I agreed with her post, yet I didn\u2019t think it went far enough. I wanted to take it further, to figure out exactly why these phrases are worse than mere clich\u00e9s. They don\u2019t just make us millennials roll our eyes\u2026they repel us.<\/p>\n In writing these posts, I discovered something that surprised me: other generations don\u2019t understand why millennials feel this way, and more importantly, they don\u2019t understand why it matters.<\/strong> My husband, on the tail end of the Gen Xers, disagreed with me about a few posts. Where I saw a passive-aggressive insult, he saw a call to arms.<\/a> If I use the responses I\u2019ve gotten to make an alarmingly broad generalization, it seems that the older the person, the more they disagree, and the less they think it matters. \u201cIt\u201d being, of course, that millennials hate these phrases.<\/p>\n The world has changed a lot in a little bit of time. When I was toddler, my parents had one phone that hung on the wall. I used to reach up and play with the twisty cord that connected the base and the reciever. Two and a half decades later, they each have Droids that double as computers, televisions, planners, barometers, and, oh yeah, phones. When I was a kid, you could get news from three sources: the newspaper, the television, and the radio. They all reported pretty much the same thing. Now, the news you hear depends on the news site you favor. Chances are good you didn\u2019t even hear about the trial of Kermit Gosnell<\/a> if you like your news to lean left. Chances are good you didn\u2019t hear about the voter suppression scheme <\/a>if you like your news to lean right. When I was a kid, if my mom had a health concern she called the pediatrician and got one answer. Now, we jump on Google and get one hundred.<\/p>\n For better or for worse, we\u2019re not reassured when someone on NPR explains why there\u2019s no problem whatsoever<\/em> with the implementation of Obamacare. We\u2019re not reassured when the pediatrician says Gardisil is safe, or when the FDA says to eat a grain-based diet, or when the ADA says flouride is, like, the best thing ever<\/em>. We\u2019ve seen too much fallout from the public being reassured into a false sense of safety. We have too much readily-available information to believe what someone says because they\u2019re an authority<\/strong>. We are the product of a worldwide social and cultural experiment that still hasn\u2019t stabilized. It may be disastrous, in the end, but it can\u2019t be undone now, at least not for us. We may have been better off like previous generations, shielded by the limits of technology, communication, and distance from the horrors unfolding across the world, but we weren\u2019t. We may have been better off being able to accept phrases like \u201cGod is always in control,\u201d but we can\u2019t. If you really want to understand millennials, if you really want to reach us where we are, you have to stop lamenting that we\u2019re not more like the Boomers or the Gen X-ers. We aren\u2019t, and we never will be. These phrases may not matter to you. You may think it\u2019s no big deal and we need to chill out, but it\u2019s a big deal to us, and if you really want to reach us millennials, you\u2019ll make the effort to understand why.<\/p>\n The truth about millennials is that we don\u2019t want to be pacified.<\/strong> We live in a world transformed by technology; we\u2019ve grown up seeing disasters, tragedies, and genocides played out on the evening news almost in real time. We know what the world is like beyond our doors, and sentimental half-truths are not enough to answer our questions or assuage our doubts. Yet we don\u2019t give in to nihilism. Addie put it best:<\/p>\n I hold within me both cynicism and hope. I left the church. I came back.<\/p>\n Here is what I can tell you about millennials: We grew up on easy answers, catchphrases and clich\u00e9, and if we\u2019ve learned anything, it\u2019s that things are almost always more complicated than that.<\/p>\n When I returned to church, it wasn\u2019t because of great programs, alluring events or a really cool \u201ccaf\u00e9\u201d set up in the foyer. I went back not because of what the church was doing, but rather in spite of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n (Emphasis mine-read the rest here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The hard questions don\u2019t drive us from the church, they bring us back to it. What drives us away is asking hard questions and getting the rhetorical equivalent of a nightlight and a warm blankie in response. We don\u2019t want, or need, to be comforted so that our faith doesn\u2019t shatter. Our faith isn\u2019t shattered when people say, \u201cI don\u2019t have the answer.\u201d It\u2019s shattered when people pretend they do.<\/strong> It\u2019s shattered when people pretend there\u2019s not even a question in the first place. In the end, I don\u2019t even think we\u2019re looking for The Answers, as if life is the ultimate SAT test. We\u2019re not looking for someone to give us the scantron answer key, we\u2019re looking for someone who\u2019s willing to ask the hard questions with us. If you want to keep millennials from leaving the church or the Church, stop it with the coffee shops and pop-music concerts. You can\u2019t sell us Jesus, and we know a sales pitch when we see one. Stop trying to make us feel good and just be honest.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To read Addie Zierman\u2019s piece on the 5 churchy phrases that are scaring away millennials, go here:<\/em><\/p>\n 5 churchy phrases that are scaring off millennials<\/a><\/p>\n To read the series I wrote in response about why these phrases scare away millennials, go here:<\/em><\/p>\n Part 1: The Bible Clearly Says..<\/a>.<\/p>\n Part II: God Will Never Give You More Than You Can Handle<\/a><\/p>\n Part III: Love On<\/a><\/p>\n