Each generation brings it's own unique, defining characteristics. Here's some food for thought that will help you better connect with and reach the kids walking in your church doors this weekend.
- They are very well-connected.
- The majority of them will take a few online courses taught by a professor they will never meet.
- They have never had the chicken pox.
- They will teach their teachers quite a lot.
- Dean
Martin, Mickey Mantle, and Jerry Garcia have always been dead.
- Eminem and LL Cool J could show up at parents’ weekend.
- They are the sharing generation, having shown tendencies to share everything, including possessions, no matter how personal.
- Their TV screens keep getting smaller as their parents’ screens grow ever larger.
- PayPal has replaced a pen pal as a best friend on line.
- Spray paint has never been legally sold in Chicago.
- Thanks to Megan's Law and Amber Alerts, their parents have always had community support in keeping them safe.
- Their favorite feature films have always been largely, if not totally, computer generated.
- They have never really needed to go to their friend’s house so they could study together.
- They have always been able to plug into USB ports
- Washington, D.C., tour buses have never been able to drive in front of the White House.57.
- Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing.
- They were born into cyberspace
and measured their output in the fundamental
particles of life: bits, bytes, and bauds.
- They prefer to watch television everywhere
except on a television.
- The Biblical sources of terms such as “Forbidden Fruit,” “The
writing on the wall,” “Good Samaritan,” and “The Promised Land” are
unknown to most of them.
- Michael Jackson’s family, not the Kennedys, constitutes “American Royalty.”
- Their lives will be measured in the fundamental particles: bits, bytes, and bauds.
- Their parents have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf.
- A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss.
- They are living in an era of instant stardom and self-proclaimed celebrities, famous for being famous.
- Star Wars has always been just a film, not a defense strategy.
- Billy Graham is as familiar to them as Otto Graham was to their parents.
- Ice skating competitions have always been jumping matches.
- They know many established film stars by their voices on computer-animated blockbusters.
- Point-and-shoot cameras are soooooo last millennium.
- Two-thirds of the
independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during
their lifetimes.
