Worship for Millennials

What factors should be taken into account when designing worship with Digital Native, Millennials in mind? It’s often said that Millennials have short attention spans and are non-committal, but I think this is a miss-representation. Instead, I believe that they crave novelty. No time in history has a generation had so many choices for HOW and WHEN to spend their time, many of them right at their finger-tips, on their smart phones.

Here’s a good summary of Dr. Christie Price’s new “R’s” for engaging Millennial learners. I heard about this research last year and it seemed to ring true with my experiences working with Millennials. They are:

1. Millenials Crave Novelty

2. Millenials Need a Why

3. Millenials Crave Immediate Gratification

In short “NEW, WHY, and NOW.”

It would be easy to say that the NEW and NOW parts, and even the WHY part to some extent, paint the generation as being shallow; but I say it’s more of a product of the culture they’ve grown up in. I believe that not only are these factors here to stay, they will be heightened over time.

So how do these factors apply to worship?

I read this article today about how a church is using a 21 page printed bulletin to drawl Millennials into worship. I read it and instantly thought that they drew the wrong conclusions. It wasn’t the bulletin itself (which is a horrible waste of paper), but the context it provided. Having a super detailed description of the service answers NEW, WHY, and NOW. The novelty is that they are able to learn about the parts of the service as they are happening. The why is the explanations themselves, and the now is that they don’t have to wait until later to figure these things out.

Before I mention some ways you can build NEW, WHY, and NOW into your worship, there is an important point to make: Millenials can speak for themselves in these matters! That doesn’t we should ask them what type of worship they want, but rather, ask them what connects them to God. Chances are they will have a better understanding of the latter. Here’s the tips:

  • When you invite people to pull out their Bible’s be sure to add “or Smartphones” since that will in fact be most Millenials Bible’s. By naming it, you make it an acceptable practice in worship.
  • Provide a “two-screen” experience. Meaning work twitter, texting, or chat – questions and comments – into worship.
  • Have a “digital” 21 page bulletin. What I mean by this is link to websites that explain more about what’s happening in the service. QR codes will allow people to scan the links instead of typing them in.
  • Have worship someplace new.
  • Do something new each week, but make sure you explain it’s importance.
  • Take time out to explain new details about why you are doing a practice during worship, or put the details on the projector.
  • Post your sermons online in video and/or audio so that they can be consumed on demand.
  • Seek input online during the week about elements that can be worked into the service. For example, get appropriate stories for sermon illustrations.

Be sure to leave any ideas you may have in the comments section.

 

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