What if we invested in future leaders of the church with abundance, celebration, and hospitality? What kind of experience would we offer if we wanted to encapsulate the experience of involvement with Christian faith life in one evening?
For the last five years, Pivot NW at Seattle Pacific Seminary has been offering these experiences in the form of a lavish dinner out as part of our research initiatives for young adults in their early 20s. Even now, it continues to strike me how often young adulthood is misunderstood and overlooked by the church as an important time of faith formation. Resources are rarely dedicated to thoughtfully pursue and develop young adults. Instead, the ethos many churches seems to be “wait and see” if they return to the church later in life, after the pursuits of their initial exploration phase wane.
Through listening, polling, reading, and just sitting with young adults, we came to the realization that every element in the average 20-somethings life is renegotiated: in part if not as a whole. Sometimes entire support webs are being re-knit in foreign cities. More and more often that work is being done by singles, as the trend continues of 20-somethings deferring serious relationships until later in life. And to complicate things, we are increasingly forcing ourselves at all ages into digital mediation for our daily interactions. It used to be the case that you might find a spouse at church, and network into a career, and have kids, and find a friendly realtor, etc. But now all that is done on your mobile phone on the tiny couch in your studio apartment. The paying tithes and offerings in a loving community of last century has turned into paying subscription fees to an uncaring billionaire club. While some of that shift may be celebrated by those estranged by the church, there seems to be general consensus that the shift is an overall dehumanizing one.
As young adults re-establish themselves outside of the umbrella of their parents, hometowns, and undergrad universities, their faith life becomes up for grabs. In the PNW particularly, finding one’s spiritual rootedness is a lonely task. As a historical frontier region, we value innovation and reinvention, but also lack the roots of historical institutions and communities. In the last decade, Seattle often has a thousand people moving here each week, a crowd that includes many young adults starting new lives and families in startup industries. The culture becomes competitive, as housing becomes even less affordable, and aggrieved, as established locals watch their old haunts and the city’s mythical innocence morph. Meanwhile, young adults today are in more financial distress and uncertainty — a trend that’s been increasing with each living generation. As a result, this cohort is rethinking major life milestones and pursuits, and has different standards of luxury, poverty, community, and spirituality.
Too often, churches greet these newcomers with distrust, fear, and misunderstanding. “What do you mean he doesn’t want to get married?…Wait, she can’t afford a house so she’s just resigned to forever renting?…If none of these young adults are having kids how are we going to have a kids program?…I don’t know which pronouns to use!?!?”Old patterns that worked for decades no longer apply and the church has struggled to adapt as quickly as young people needed. Values and needs have changed so much that older generations can’t predict what younger generations want while the ecclesial industrial complex hasn’t given answers that are universal or easily-replicable.
Meanwhile some young adults are moving from high-churched areas (aka bringing along some of those old patterns) and looking for religion in the PNW that has all but died out in some urban areas. That hasn’t stopped out-of-state church planters from offering old-time religion as a familiar garment for people coming from more conservative contexts — a comfortable thing to put on once a week as a retreat from a progressive city. Other churches offer a more spiritual approach and an invitation to blend and meld religious and secular influences. Beyond church, the plethora of natural excursions in the region shapes spiritual views, and intercultural experiences offer a banquet of ways to engage and contribute to a worldview. It’s small wonder that we are the capital of the “none zone” of religious disaffiliation.
In this mix of young adult desires and older adult confusion, where is the church? How does a church engage a population that experiences wealth differently and aspires to break free from (or sometimes hold onto) the metanarrative of a traditional lifestyle?
Canlis restaurant, one of the most iconic dining experiences in Seattle, can seem like a holdover from a bygone era. Like many fine dining restaurants, locals might assume they exist mostly for business travelers and the nouveau tech-rich in Seattle. It’s not uncommon to spot embassy vehicles passing the Canlis entrance, and MBA programs take their students there to train them in the art of the business meal. In talking with people about the project, I’ve been surprised to find how few people have dined here. Everyone knows about it, but most people seem to be waiting for bigger life milestones: a significant wedding anniversary, completion of cancer treatment, becoming empty-nesters, retirement celebrations.
Most people, more specifically, most churches wouldn’t even consider a place like Canlis to celebrate milestones – it feels irresponsible, and maybe frivolous, with plenty of congregations able to list plenty of places where finances might be better spent (much like Judas said about the expensive perfume in John 12). In our frontier region that bucked the norms of civilization back east, the church was necessarily frugal. Most churches planted here were missions to Klondike miners, lumberjacks, or indigenous peoples and the approach to formality and frugality mirrors what would have been good incarnational ministry 135 years ago when Washington State joined the union. We are a culture of craft beer over fine wine, business parties at breweries, and jeans at the theater. Compline at the Episcopal Cathedral with pillows and blankets, and some in attendance wouldn’t count themselves episcopal, Christian, or even religious. We’re not without spirituality; we’re without formality of institutional ties and labels. What I am proposing is elevating the experience of lavish celebration our young people are treated to – showing them that their time, their accomplishments, their work is deeply appreciated and worthy of abundance. At a place, say, like Canlis.
A space like Canlis is like entering another world; one full of suit jackets, soft light, and clinking wine glasses – one far away from the usual informality of our city.
True. It’s not cheap. But the memories and connections built in two or three hours of face to face conversation, intentional questions, and deep listening over an exquisite meal are priceless. Sure you can build connections at Dick’s burgers in the parking lot, but I can’t remember the last time I spent more than twenty minutes eating a Deluxe with fries and a milkshake. There is something uniquely beautiful about gathering together around a table to enjoy a good meal that expert hands have made, and invest real time in getting to know those who have come together – it shows people how worthy they are of being known and of being celebrated.
A lavish celebration. A new rite of passage in a Seattle church that would be a stake in the ground formalizing and celebrating a new relationship. A growing church. A curious faith. At least two co-seekers together tacitly committing to supporting one another as they grow in faith in community. A welcome and recognition of all the abundance and goodness young people have to bring to our congregations. Because young adults have so much to offer: They are the dynamic workers and managers in startup and tech industries, and the baristas and servers in the front line of the service industry – they see all the brokenness that insulated white collar and retired Boomers, Gen-Xers, and increasingly Millennials can now afford to avoid. They are often passionate, involved, organized, and community minded. We tell more stories about the church’s need for twenty-somethings in our book Defiant Hope, Active Love (and the documentary by the same name).
A lavish dinner is a way to hear those stories first hand; to carve out time to truly connect, to resist the lies from society that luxury is only for the wealthy, that meaningful conversations are only for the elite, that purposeful work is for the privileged. While it may not change our surrounding reality, the experience can alter how we perceive each other in it. And most of all it creates connections to a 2000-year-old sacred community that has outlasted series of societal crises. Connections that are capable of abundance. Connections that prioritize community, celebration, and a deeper understanding of one another.
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