Quaker Life Navigation: ---- Select a Subtopic ---- Quaker Life Home Advertising Information Subscriptions Invitation to Writers E-mail quakerlife@fum.org Meeting Directory

Beyond 'One-Size-Fits-All'

In church circles, it seems as if we keep doing the same sort of curriculum, the same sort of programming, the same sort of emphasis Sunday mornings, because we tend to believe that we're basically all the same underneath. Some recent work by sociologists William Howe and Neil Strauss (The Fourth Turning, Broadway Books, 1998) suggests that the way we respond to the crises and questions of each age are determined by a "generational personality."

Four generational personalities, lasting about 20 years each, exist and function cyclically. The kind of societal input, family structure, and developmental age we are when national crises happen, all combine to create specific personalities, which in turn influence the character of those being reared by them. The four personality types are: 1) The Civic Generation: group minded with tendencies toward cooperation and sacrifice for the greater good. Ronald Reagan is representative of this group. 2) The Adaptive Generation: administratively-minded folk who live in the shadow of the Civics and help the machine to run. Colin Powell is a member of this generational personality. 3) The Idealist Generation: crusaders and moralists who came of age in a highly protected environment. Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich represent this personality. 4) The Reactive Personality: under-protected in childhood and therefore cynical survivalists who are making the best of a disintegrating social system. Michael Jordan is part of this generation of "Xers."

Rather than each generation duplicating the emotions and responses of the one previous to it as they grow older, this theory suggests that we each carry our own generational personality and preference with us through each stage of life.

O.K., so now that we're done with the sociology lesson, what's it mean for the body of Christ? As mentioned earlier, in ministry, we tend to simply do the same things over again, assuming that "if it worked for me when I was that age, it will work for those coming after me." Yet the implications of this generational personality theory would suggest several things:

1. To "not forsake the gathering of the saints" will look different for each personality. Can we continue with a one-size-fits-all format of gathered worship when generationally we might perceive the experience of worship differently?

2. If we can't fit everyone into the same sort of worship experience, neither can we simply "throw out the old" and come up with something new. As long as we are multi-generational, we will require multiple expressions of Christ's gathered Body. Throwing out the current models will abandon those that connect with that style.

3. How do we measure "involved" and "committed" when each generation will have a different definition of how they live out those words? To serve ten years on a board or three months on a taskforce may carry equal significance in expressing similar depths of commitment. The length of commitment is not nearly so important as the intention and the definition, what is going on behind the scenes within the individual's mind. (It's possible that someone serving ten years on a board has a poorer sense of commitment than the three-monther.)

4. We must learn to be missionaries between the generational personalities, helping the Truth of the Gospel to be appropriately contextualized according to the hearer. The Truth doesn't change, but perhaps the way it is expressed and lived-out does.

5. We must learn to release one another from the guilt that comes from it not being done "my way." If someone worships with different regularity or in different settings, their heart's expression may be just as valid as mine.

6. All of these "shoulds" listed above underscore the need for improved communication. We need to take more time and more words to communicate with one another and really hear what the Spirit is doing and saying within the lives of people who are older or younger than us, and therefore may have a different generational personality. Listening will be as important as speaking carefully.

I'm not advocating that we scale down any definition of commitment or Truth to try and meet people where they are. Instead, I'm suggesting that how we express ourselves and encounter Truth will be different according to our generational personalities. The same mandates for spiritual growth and accountability and expression to our society apply to all of us. How those mandates are articulated may be radically different, however. Quakerism provides a beautiful foundation for this. At its root, our belief system is about authentic encounters with the Present Christ, rather than any lists of do's and don'ts and shoulds. Perhaps we can draw on that foundation to minister in fresh ways to the post-Christian, post-modern culture that is flourishing around us

Return to May 2000, Table of Contents