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The class of '00 has entered the halls of high school. Says one member of this freshman class: "We will be the turn-of-the-millennium generation. That rocks."

This generation does, indeed, "rock." Therein lies the challenge to the church. The "2000 kids" will be the torchbearers of the next millennium*, which gives them a certain "mystical significance," says Dean Borgman, who holds the Culpepper Chair of Youth Ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. They are participants in what he calls "the second great watershed" for youth culture. And the repercussions are causing us to rethink how churches do youth ministry.

The first watershed, Borgman says, took place in the forties, when the concept of "youth culture" was born. Following the Depression and World War II, and in conjunction with the advancement of the industrial age, a harvest of young people crashed onto the scene with free time, extra money, and energy to burn. Football teams, cheerleaders, bobby socks, and jukeboxes all came together to create a new "youth culture." Television had not yet arrived, so these young people—as a former Youth for Christ worker put it—"didn't know what to do on a Saturday night." The churches were not addressing "youth ministry," so to fill the "entertain ment void" and reach young people with the gospel, "God raised up organizations like Young Life and Youth for Christ and people like Jack Wyrtzen," says Borgman.

And so the youth rally was born. Serving up Saturday evening entertainment (in a neutral setting), the trumpet trios or big bands were followed by an evangelistic message. This model introduced what has become a long-standing model for youth ministry—still much in force today.

But a second watershed occurred in the early 1980s. In or about 1980 the effects of the decline of the family dovetailed with the rise of the electronic revolution. "Their Walkmans, VCRs, cable TV," says Borgman, "have given these kids an artificial and superficial home in the absence of parents." Author Sydney Lewis calls them "the most plugged-in generation ever." And their electronic world has become their community, their tribe, their family. Mark Lamport, codirector of the Link Institute for Faithful and Effective Youth Ministry, says, "It is entirely possible that adolescents in our world have more in common with each other than with the adults of their own cultures" due to the "powerful and pervasive influence of media."

This makes them a different breed from their postwar forebears who invented youth culture; and from the boomers, who rewrote the book on accepted social behavior; and even from Generation X (once called the "most aborted generation in American history"), who came of age as society writhed in the throes of the boomers' dismantling of conventional mores. These are the "Millennials" (coined by author and generation cycles—watcher William Strauss). Born around 1980, they are stepping into a world where the boomers' revolution has been fought and won (and lost). They are only now "coming of age," so their demographics remain largely uncharted. But this is a summary of what some "experts," both in youth work and sociology, have observed about this next generation:

—This generation's pulse runs fast. Bombarded by frequent images, they are in need of continual "hits."
—The remote control symbolizes their reality: change is constant; focus is fragmented.
—They've eaten from the tree of knowledge.
—They live for now.
—They are jaded, having a "Been there/Done that" attitude, nothing shocks them.
—They take consumerism for granted.
—They are a cyber-suckled community.
—They process information in narrative images (like Nike commercials).
—Their "B.S.—detectors" are always on.
—They've had everything handed to them.
—They don't trust adults.

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February 3 1997, Vol. 41, No. 2