My Last Blog Post Here (Maybe)

The following is the very first blog post for the new website for the Brink (launching tomorrow). The site has a space for my blog. Turns out, the following is also my last blog post for afrayedknot. I thought I would give you faithful readers a sneak peek into what will be available to the rest of the world tomorrow.

About a year and half ago I was given the task of creating something to help reach twentysomethings. I was 22, fresh out of college, engaged to be married, and had been working as an editorial intern for only a few short months.

Randall House, the company that owns The Brink, didn’t really know what they wanted to do, just that something needed to be done to help retain or link the vacated twentysomethings back to church and God.

They sort of dumped the task into my lap. I love challenges, so I ran with it. Hard.

The cool thing is that although I didn’t point out the need for something like this to happen, I sort of adopted it after it was assigned to me, and the more and more I thought and prayed about it, the more I had a burden for it. I sort of feel like Isaiah did when God called him (Isaiah 6). God pointed out a need and Isaiah said, “I’ll do it!” After that he poured himself into that opportunity, and prophesied about the coming of Christ, the One who would redeem all who will come to Him. Before God called Isaiah, the future prophet didn’t know what the need was. He just listened to God and responded.

I spent the next 4 or 5 months doing research, dreaming, praying, doing more research, talking to people, observing, trying to soak everything I could about young adults. I wanted to know what made our generation tick. What were we involved in? Why were we involved in it? What do we care about? What was it about church that was so repulsive to us? Is there anyone actually reaching young adults?

What I learned was vital in developing The Brink. I’ll try to break it down to the four main “characteristics” I learned about our generation (gen Y, twentysomethings, young adults):

1. We are looking for something real, authentic, or genuine. This theme is all over the place. Take reality TV as one obvious example. You and I don’t really care about a show being polished and professional. We just want to see the juicy, gorry details about the personal lives of people. We want to see them screw up, get embarassed, get promoted, whatever. Another example you might take is Chris Martin and the band Coldplay. I love Coldplay (as do millions more). Why? I don’t really think it’s because he has an amazing voice per say. I think it’s because there is a genuineness to his voice. He just sounds like some above average singer who writes cool music that talks about stuff that I actually think. So I connect with that.
2. We want to stay connected to a community of friends. The Internet is our baby (thanks Al Gore!). It was our generation that adopted it and because of that we live and breath in it. This enables us to constantly stay connected to our friends. Friends are very, very important to us. It makes sense too because friends are the only constant our generation had throughout adolescence. Our parents divorced (generally speaking) because dad worked too much or had an affair with his secretary. Or grandma raised us and try as she might, just couldn’t connect. So we sort of grew up with friends, learning life as we went along with them and Zack Morris. As a result, we want to be connected with each other, spending time together, doing life together.
3. We are very, very skeptical. And in my opinion, we have every reason to be. Think about it. We’ve been marketed to our entire lives. I can remember commercials from when I was 6 or so. Not that commercials are intrinsically evil or anything, it’s just that we’ve figured out that people (companies) lie in order to sell their product. Hamburgers aren’t really as big or as perfectly put together as they are on billboards. Leaders of other companies like Enron will lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. Megachurch pastors have affairs. So yes, we are very skeptical, and rightfully so.
4. We want to make a difference. In a culture where there isn’t much with substance, we want our lives to count. We will gladly give incredible amounts of our time and money to a cause we believe in. Whether it’s Darfur, Tom’s Shoes, or volunteering for something, we put our time and money where out mouth is.

This is who The Brink is for.

For those of you who might be older and are reading this because you are wanting to reach twentysomethings, there will probably be some things printed in the magazine that make you a bit uncomfortable. And there might be a conversation or two on this site that would probably be better left un-read by some. And you know what, that’s ok. If you want to reach twentysomethings, you have to meet them where they are without expecting them to act like something they’re not.

If you’re a twentysomething who is still in church, welcome to the conversation. Join me in welcoming our friends back as they come.

If you’re a twentysomething who has left the church for whatever reason, I want to personally welcome you to the conversation.