It used to be true that all you had to do to get people to come to your church was just to build it. Today, people don’t come because of inertia and friction. David described a book which is helpful in analyzing and managing this situation.
Strauss and Howe wrote a classic book, “Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. Click here to go to Amazon.com to buy the book. The work of these authors is described in a Wikipedia article, - click here. Their research showed that there are four generations that appear in cycles which repeat themselves (see Wikipedia for a description). Four generations are Civic (born 1904-1924), Adaptive (1925-1942), Idealists (1940-1960), and Reactive (1960-1981). The cycle is repeating with Internet-Civic (1982-today). David elaborated on the four generations with interesting examples.
Members of the latest generation are using their computers or smartphones all the time. They are immersed in busy activities and are happy to just have a quiet time in church. Members of the Reactive generation disagree with the values of the earlier generations.
In a church, it is important to have a clear vision of what is needed and it must be aligned with the different generations. In closing, David pointed that the present generation is coming around to support the values of civic-minded groups like Kiwanis. They just get their information through different channels – social media of various kinds online. They want to focus on one or two important causes - “causes to die for”. They look for high quality information and activities supporting those causes.
The members of the audience enthusiastically applauded the informative and entertaining presentation.
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