wfn.org | Generation X gathering previews

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2002-167

Generation X gathering previews
Episcopal Church's near future

by Jan Nunley
jnunley@episcopalchurch.org

(ENS) "I am Generation X. I am not content to be next. I
am the Church...WE are the Church." That's how David
Flentje explained to his parish in St. Louis why he spent
three days in Indianapolis recently learning from fellow
Episcopalians how to pray, play and grow in Christian
community. To Gen-X Episcopalians, "being the church"
doesn't look one bit like "the way we've always done it
before"--it's full of light and color and sound and, above
all, authenticity. Welcome to the postmodern Episcopal
Church in the 21st century. 

"Equipping Ourselves for Lifelong Ministry Together" was
the theme of the June 20-22 gathering of Gen-X
Episcopalians in Indianapolis, reflecting the strong sense
of community among those born between 1961 and
1981. It was the first meeting of the Gathering the neXt
Generation (GTNG) network to involve both Gen-X
clergy and laity, and the gathering was two years in the
planning. Almost evenly split between what organizers
wryly called "confessed clergy" and "confessed laity," it
drew 113 participants from 49 dioceses across the
United States. 

Most knew one another but had never actually met, in the
manner of communities whose primary meeting place is
cyberspace. GTNG regularly maintains two e-mail lists,
one for "Xers and friends" and the other restricted to
Gen-X clergy. "This was my chance to get to know better
many people with whom I have been in deep (and not so
deep) conversation and prayer for a year and a half,"
wrote Flentje in an e-mail response after the meeting.
"We joked that this was a backward meeting--we knew
and recognized each other by name tag and then looked
up to learn the face." 

Core values

GTNG traces its beginnings to a 1998 gathering of
Gen-X clergy, who realized that they represented only
3.5 percent of Episcopal clergy while their generational
cohort formed 30 percent of the American population.
It's sometimes called "the first generation raised without
religion," of whom only 15 percent identify as Christians.
At Virginia Theological Seminary that year, the Gen-X
clergy met to sympathize, and strategize, with one
another, and out of that was born the GTNG "network."
It is not a special interest group, or a membership
organization, but a loosely affiliated connection of people
who try to live by four "core values": 

* We are Christ-centered. 

* We value the leadership of Gen-X (defined as people
born between 1961-1981). 

* We value our relationships in Christ over the issues that
divide us. 

* We value restoring all people to unity with God and
each other in Christ. 

The larger network is not restricted to Gen-Xers, though
the nine-member GTNG "core team," which manages and
sustains the network, currently is. The network is
dedicated to building Christian community "across party
lines," and so as a matter of policy does not issue
endorsements of causes or legislation. In fact, it's one of
the few places in the church where people on all sides of
"hot button" issues can find common ground--typically,
over a steaming Starbucks venti latte. 

Artificial clergy shortage?

The main gathering was preceded by a Clergy Day,
which drew almost half the conference's participants for
conversation among themselves and with Presiding
Bishop Frank Griswold. Three Clergy Day workshops
dealt with developing community among Anglicans in their
twenties and thirties, cooperating in ministry with Lutheran
Gen-X clergy, and rethinking ministerial ideals in the light
of the crisis of young clergy vocations. 

In workshops held Friday and Saturday, the participants
struggled with issues peculiar to their generation, as well
as others more universal to the practice of ministry. All
but one of the presenters were Gen-X clergy and laity,
and most workshops were interactive and
participatory--the very antithesis of the teacher-student
model of previous generations. 

The issue that initiated the group's formation, the shortage
of Gen-X clergy, drew many to a computer-assisted
presentation by the Church Pension Fund's director of
analytical research, Dr. Matthew Price. There's no
comparison, he said, between the Episcopal Church's
current clergy supply, with a ratio of one priest to every
583 parishioners, and that of the Roman Catholic church,
with a ratio of one priest to every 1,654. And a quarter of
Roman Catholic clergy are over 70 years old, Price
added. 

Still, the steadily rising age of seminarians and candidates
at ordination, the relatively small number of Gen-Xers
seeking ordination, the number of priests who don't want
to (or can't afford to) work in available
parishes--combined with the predisposition of parishes to
prefer a full-time priest who's a "married male with
children at home and 10-15 years of experience," while
qualified women priests are overlooked--may create an
artificial shortage. It's possible, Price said, that "a
significant number" of parishes with full-time clergy now
won't have them in 10 years, unless they raise salaries or
reconfigure so that "the Eucharistic celebrant is not the
chief parish leader." 

But he warned about the value of predictions, pointing out
that a 1978 book predicted that at ordination rates
current at that time there would be one clergyperson for
every person in the pews by 2004. "If every diocese
ordained one more person each year, we will not have a
clergy shortage," he said. "If they ordain two more each
year, we will have a glut." 

A generation 'marinated' in debt

Several workshops dealt with issues that every generation
negotiates, but with a Gen-X twist. The Rev. Kate
Moorehead of Boiling Springs, South Carolina, shared
her experience of giving birth to two baby boys while
working as a full-time rector. The Rev. Stacy Alan,
assistant in a Kalamazoo, Michigan, congregation, led a
discussion of how Gen-X parents can be spiritual guides
to their children. (Alan's two children attended the
conference with her and her husband.) The Rev. Jonathon
Jensen, editor of a Gen-X journal, The Catalyst, was
just called to a new ministry in Kansas and shared his
thoughts on Gen-Xers' special challenges in navigating the
calling process. 

And in three separate but well-attended workshops,
presenters Janet Todd (a consultant with Church Pension
Group) and the Rev. Greg Rickel of St. James' Church in
Austin, Texas, grappled with an issue in which Gen-Xers
often feel "marinated": money and its stewardship,
especially coping with a "staggering burden" of
educational and consumer debt. The Church Pension
Group also offered one-on-one financial planning
consultations throughout the conference. 

In Rickel's workshop on "balancing your checkbook with
God in mind," participants toggled between the "safe"
area of sharing stewardship campaign methods and the
scarier place of admitting their own struggles with money
issues. Some confessed to feeling "reckless" with money,
others admitted that tithing "went out the window" when
they moved from a rectory and purchased their own
home, and still others bemoaned the trade-offs required
when time crunches made them choose convenience over
good stewardship of money or the environment. Although
they spoke passionately about the importance of tithing as
a spiritual discipline, when Rickel asked participants what
they would do if someone gave them $50,000 guaranteed
tax-free today, the instant--and telling--response was
"pay off my loans and my credit cards." 

Participants in Todd's workshop on "debt reduction
through cash management techniques" told nearly identical
stories of racking up tens of thousands in seminary
student loans, plus maxing out several credit cards to
cover groceries, car repairs, and family expenses. Several
had reached the desperation point, investigating consumer
credit counseling services for help until they learned of the
negative effect that would have on their ability to qualify
for auto or home loans. Todd's well-documented
presentation offered practical techniques for dealing with
debt without outside intervention, eliminating all but two
credit cards, and paring down the pay-back timetable by
paying more than the monthly minimums or transferring
balances on high-interest credit cards to a single,
low-interest card. 

Unity without uniformity

The most distinctive aspect of the gathering was worship,
a dazzling display of "unity without uniformity." Each day,
participants could choose from five different "flavors" of
Morning Prayer: an interactive Bible study format; a
chanted monastic office with two brothers from the
Society of St. John the Evangelist; a "highly participative"
service based on the innovative liturgies of the Church of
St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco; another monastic
office based on that of the Society of St. Francis; and the
"Digital Daily Office," an "Anglican ancient-future
experience" using Rite I, PowerPoint iconography, and
recordings of the Psalter from the 1558 Book of
Common Prayer. Between service times, one room of the
hotel was set aside as a "Meditation Chapel," quiet space
for postmodern contemplation. 

Music for services was drawn largely from the
supplemental hymnal Wonder, Love and Praise,
accompanied by guitar, piano, and conga drums. The
opening Eucharist, designed as an "agape meal,"
interspersed liturgical elements with the serving of dinner
"family style." The closing Eucharist featured a sermon
delivered in three parts, one segment of which included
the congregational singing of the Indigo Girls' poignant
1994 hit "Least Complicated," familiar to many in the
congregation. "The 'least complicated' thing, the hardest
to learn, is to love," declared the Rev. Michael Kinman,
while Dylan Breuer remembered her childhood
participation in the Marlo Thomas production "Free to
Be, You and Me," and the Rev. Raewynne Whiteley
declared that "we have a certain freedom, because we do
not have to be the gatekeepers of an institution, we are
not bound to sustain the structures. We can simply be the
Church, gathered around Christ--our center, our hope,
our life--for whose sake we are the Church." 

Cool kids being church

Breuer's comment in her sermon that the gathering took
Gen-Xers from the margins and made them "the cool
kids" resonated with Flentje. "Many of my generation
who are in this Church have spent time on the margins,
and in many cases we have brought this with us into the
Church as an expectation that we will be marginalized,
ignored, or passed over," he reported to his parish in St.
Louis. "Two of the most powerful things done by the
GTNG community are nurturing the understanding of, and
empowering action on, the reality that we are the
Church." 

The Rev. Beth Maynard, a Core Team member and one
of the group's original organizers, reflected on the growth
of GTNG since the 1998 meeting in Virginia. "At VTS,
nothing like this had ever been attempted before; many of
us arrived feeling almost afraid," she said. "In the
intervening five years, GTNG has had a significant impact
in the Episcopal Church, linking together hundreds of
Xers, working for reform in some commissions on
ministry, and fostering a number of ministries that have
begun to change the landscape for our generation. 

"This means that that crying need for connection is not the
driving force anymore; the driving force is Christ's
mission," she said. 

"I felt a bit like Simeon," joked the Very Rev. George
Werner, president of the House of Deputies, who joined
the GTNG group for workshops, worship, and
conversations over dinner. "What enthusiasm, what
discipleship, what commitment, and all from a large group
of lay and clergy who weren't born when I was ordained
40 years ago this week." 

More Gen-X ministry links: 

How to Evangelize a GenXer (NOT) 

The Church and the World in Transition

--The Rev. Jan Nunley (b. 1954) is deputy director
of Episcopal News Service. Susan Erdey (b. 1965), a
member of the GTNG Core Team, contributed to
this story.