Blank Slate: Write Your Own Rules for a 22nd Century Church Movement - Softcover

McIntosh, Lia; Smothers, Jasmine; Smothers, Rev Rodney Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501876260 ISBN 13: 9781501876264

Publisher: Abingdon Press, 2019

Synopsis

Blank Slate is a leadership resource with millennials, generation Z, and generation Alpha at the center. This book helps leaders envision and create ministries and faith communities with and for these current and upcoming generations.

Old rules of engagement are contrasted with the new rules of engagement. Unless the church addresses the context of younger generations and gets "unstuck" from it's current context, it will not be relevant to younger people and it will die with the older generations.

As an example - a letter to Baby Boomers:

Dear Baby Boomers,
Thank you for all you've done, but I don't want your church. I want you, our relationship, our engagement, but not your church structure and outdated assumptions.
The Younger Generations

 

About this title

About the Author

Lia McIntosh serves as the Associate Director of Congregational Excellence for the Missouri Annual Conference. In this role, McIntosh collaborates with and coaches pastors and laity to launch new congregations and revitalize existing ones. She specializes in urban ministry and leading congregations to deeply connect with their communities. Previously, McIntosh served as a community organizer and pastor of four United Methodist congregations. She has contributed to The Upper Room Devotional, The Abingdon Preaching Annual, and Circuit Rider magazine. She is the author of She Who Rises: Unleashing The Warrior Chick Within (Purpose Publishing, 2017). She is a graduate of the University of Missouri and Saint Paul School of Theology with Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Business and a Masters of Divinity.

Jasmine Smothers currently serves as the Lead Pastor of the historic Atlanta First United Methodist Church. Previously, she served as Associate Director for Congregational Vitality through the Office of Connectional Ministries in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Rev. Dr. Rodney Thomas Smothers serves as The Director of Leadership and Congregational Development for the Baltimore-Washington Conference. During the past thirty-seven years he has founded new congregations, served as the lead pastor of multicultural, urban and suburban congregations and served as an adjunct seminary professor in the areas of church administration, evangelism, worship and United Methodist History. He formally served as the Director of Evangelism at the General Board of Discipleship, and as a Path 1 New Church Development Coach. As a congregational consultant, workshop leader and coach; he resources laity and pastors, local churches and denominational leaders in the areas of congregational vitality, leadership effectiveness, strategic ministries and the development of skilled servant workers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Blank Slate

Write Your Own Rules for a 22nd-Century Church Movement

By Lia McIntosh, Jasmine Rose Smothers, Rodney Thomas Smothers

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2019 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-7626-4

Contents

Introduction: An Open Letter to the Church, 
SECTION 1: THE OLD RULES, 
Chapter 1: Old Rules of the Traditionalists (born 1945 or before), 
Chapter 2: Old Rules of the Boomers (born 1946–1964), 
Chapter 3: Old Rules of Generation Xers (born 1965–1980), 
SECTION 2: THE NEW RULES, 
Chapter 4: New Rules of Millennials (born 1981–1995), 
Chapter 5: New Rules of Generation Z (born 1996–2010), 
SECTION 3: LESSONS FROM INNOVATIVE ORGANIZATIONS, 
Chapter 6: Facebook: Building Community and Bringing the World Closer Together, 
Chapter 7: Starbucks: Onward to Memorable Experiences, 
Chapter 8: Uber: The Vision Is Bigger Than We Thought, 
Chapter 9: Netflix: Disrupt, Customize, Diversify, 
Chapter 10: A Disney Experience, 
SECTION 4: CREATING NEW MODELS OF MINISTRY WITH MILLENNIALS AND GENERATION Z AT THE CENTER USING A HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN GAME TIME!, 
Chapter 11: Seven Mindsets and Actions to Create Your Own Blank Slate for Congregational and Community Transformation, 
SECTION 5: TOPICS FOR FURTHER THINKING, 
Chapter 12: Interfaith and Intergenerational Dialogue: Reaching in Love and Liberation, 
Chapter 13: Ubuntu: A Divine Assignment for Multicultural and Intergenerational Mission, 
Chapter 14: Intergenerational and Multicultural Atonement, Reconciliation, and Peace, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

OLD RULES OF THE TRADITIONALISTS (BORN 1945 OR BEFORE)

Rule 1: Follow the Rules

Rule 2: Respect the Past

Rule 3: Maintain Loyalty

Rule 4: Work Hard

Historical Context

If Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were still alive he'd be ninety years old in 2019. We imagine he would be a patriarch of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where he grew up. He'd be a lifetime member of the NAACP, and still be a drum major for justice. Though his deep voice would be dulled by age, his spirit would be strong as ever. Dr. King, like many of his generation, followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather who were pastors. He followed this vocational path out of respect and loyalty, but also out of a calling. King wrote, "Of course I was religious. I grew up in the church. My father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, my only brother is a preacher, my daddy's brother is a preacher. So I didn't have much choice."

Like Dr. King, the Traditionalist generation (born in 1945 or before) grew up during the 1940s, '50s and '60s and are now in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. They lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Vietnam War. And, it was this generation of courageous people who birthed the American civil rights movement as young adults.

Dr. King wrote in his journal: "I was born in the late twenties on the verge of the Great Depression, which was to spread its disastrous arms into every corner of this nation for over a decade. I was much too young to remember the beginning of this depression, but I do recall, when I was about five years of age, how I questioned my parents about the numerous people standing in breadlines. I can see the effects of this early childhood experience on my present anti-capitalistic feelings." Like King, the people of this generation knew firsthand what it meant to be without food and to work hard for their very survival.

The United States entered World War II in 1941 and actively fought with allies until the war ended in 1945. Many who served in or lived through World War II have been forever impacted by fear, pride, and a sense of duty that comes from sacrificing for the common good. The values of loyalty, sacrifice, and pride of country are forever etched within the minds and hearts of many of this generation. Notably, Americans of all races made a significant contribution to the World War II despite the fact that the armed forces were segregated based on race. As documented in the National World War II Museum, "In 1941, fewer than 4,000 African Americans were serving in the military and only twelve African Americans had become officers. By 1945, more than 1.2 million African Americans would be serving in uniform on the Home Front, in Europe, and the Pacific (including thousands ofAfrican American women in the Women's auxiliaries)." African Americans who enlisted in the armed forces, often saw their service in the military as a road out of poverty and a path toward improved skills and greater opportunity after the war.

President Truman's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services was established by Executive Order 9981, on July 26, 1948, to recommend revisions in military regulations in order to implement the government's policy of desegregation of the armed services. This meant that there was to be equality of treatment and opportunity for all members of the armed forces, regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin.

While women of the Traditionalist generation often stayed home to care for children or aging parents, this trend shifted significantly during World War II when many women went to work. Some historians argue that World War II was the beginning of the modern women's rights movement. Before the war, 12 million women worked outside the home. During the war, 18 million women, or half of the women in the United States, worked outside the home. This number doesn't account for women working longer hours on farms or women of color whose number are likely unaccounted for.

The baby boom of the late 1940s and '50s represented a prosperous time in postwar America. Yet, not all Americans benefited from the booming economy, housing market, and educational opportunities. In particular, after World War II ended, many African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans were either jobless or only able to work in low-skill positions without room for advancement, such as janitors, dishwashers, or domestics often making only a fraction of what their white counterparts would make, despite their skill level.

The immediate hopes for peace, prosperity, and equality for women and people of color were often unrealized in post-war segregated America. One woman from York, Nebraska, recalled this story of a black veteran after the war. "The war broke up a lot of prejudice," she says. "You were there to do a job. And if you can do it, you're going to do it no matter what color you are. You work next to the next guy. Your life depended on him regardless of what color they are." Yet, after the war the segregation between races and classes persisted.

In 1960, King was thirty-one years old and he, like many young Americans, decided that the world in America needed to change. Racial equality was a right of every person and justice must be demanded. King along with young Americans, black and white, committed their lives to eliminate the racial injustices and culture of war that stubbornly persisted.

Half a million American soldiers served in the Vietnam War beginning in 1960, and after several years of war many began to speak out against the war. Young people in particular began to advocate for a society free of war and filled with more love. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, and Aretha Franklin were among the artists that created the sound track for an era of experimentation and freedom.

For the Traditionalist generation, the 1940s, '50s and '60s were decades where the entire culture of America shifted. They were decades of social upheaval, war, rebellion, and fear by some. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson led the nation forward.

The Religious Context

So what about the church of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s?

Many denominational churches, including The United Methodist church, grew through the 1940s and '50s, yet they began to change dramatically in the 1960s. The Methodist Church had a membership of 10,331,574 in 1965, an increase of about 27,000 since 1964. Then it lost 21,000 reported members in 1966, a trend that never reversed and continued after the 1968 merger with the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Methodism had been America's largest Protestant denomination until surpassed by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1967, whose membership was more than 11 million.

During the 1940s, '50s, and '60s churches collaborated to found institutions including hospitals, social service organizations, and civic organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and the YMCA. Churches intentionally marketed their facilities for community usage led by its lay members. Importantly, lay leadership positions served as an important source of social capital in individual neighborhoods and beyond. Lay leaders used their skills and social network to gain influence within other civic organizations and in local and national politics. Despite the important positive impact of the church during these decades, critics fault the church for its "accommodation to and participation in the institution of slavery up until the Civil War ... and in some quarters even staunch defense of — segregation in the American South." However, they were guided by the rules of the time.

Beyond any single denomination, Christian America's story during these decades was in part symbolized by three iconic structures: the United Methodist Building in Washington, DC; the Interchurch Center on New York City's Upper West Side; and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. As author Robert P. Jones describes, "These buildings, edifices of the white Protestant Christian hope and power that rose and receded over the course of the twentieth century, represent — respectively — the high-water mark of the first wave of white mainline Protestant denominational optimism in the Roaring Twenties, the second wave of white mainline Protestant ecumenism at midcentury ..." Each building's massiveness and grandeur were designed to speak without words of the importance of the Protestant faith. Yet, today each of these buildings have a different purpose from their founders' ambitions. As culture has shifted each building usage has been adapted — or even been transformed in its uses. Indeed, through the declining prominence of these buildings, we can see the decline of white Protestant dominance amid the steady shift of the American religious landscape.

The church of the Traditionalists was guided by the Old Rules of the Traditionalists (born in 1945 or before). When it came to faithfulness in religion and society, the rules can be summed up as:

• Follow the Rules

• Respect the Past

• Maintain Loyalty

• Work Hard

The iconic edifices, the social landscape, the religious landscape, and the church leadership positions as a source of social capital in community — while manifested in vastly different ways across race and social location — can all be attributed to the Old Rules of Traditionalists. For a time, it worked. But then, the rules changed.

Questions for Reflection

1. How have the history and traditions of your church been shaped by the Traditionalist generation? What lessons can we glean from their experience for the church today?

2. Where have you experienced the expectations to Follow the Rules, Respect the Past, Maintain Loyalty, and Work Hard?

3. In what ways are life and church different today in your community than during the 1940s and '50s?

CHAPTER 2

OLD RULES OF THE BOOMERS (BORN 1946–1964)

Rule 1: Break the Rules

Rule 2: Education

Rule 3: Do Justice

Historical Context

The year 2019 marks an important landmark in American culture as the youngest Boomers turn fifty-five and the oldest turn seventy-three. This generation born between 1946 and 1964 makes up nearly 20 percent of the US population and has significantly shifted US culture. Baby Boomers, as a generation, grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. They are called Boomers because of the boom of babies born after World War II. Some of the most famous items found in the home of Boomers as they grew up in America were likely the dial-up phone, Tang juice drink, and diverse music from the Beetles to Jimmy Hendrix to Diana Ross and the Supremes. And, many believe the August 2018 death of Aretha Franklin marks the end of an era for Boomers.

Some of most defining moments of the 1960s in the United States include the Vietnam War, the assassination of PresidentKennedy, the Civil Rights Movement and assassination of leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X. After World War II the American economy grew and supported larger families and advances in technology such as instant cameras, television remote controls, and audio tape recorders. But the Boomers' era was also marked by great unrest. Americans born during this period were shaped by a nation divided by the Vietnam War and the fight for justice and equity for women and people of color in the United States.

The civil rights movement was instrumental to the 1960s because it enabled legislative change for racial and gender equity that would impact future generations. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 eliminated segregation and enabled integration in public restaurants, theaters, hotels, retail stores, employment, schools, hospitals, swimming pools, libraries, and other public spaces. "This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. This document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction."

A vivid piece of the history of this generation is also found in the 1973 celebration of International Women's Day, in speeches by Equal Rights Amendment supporters and in a 1970s rally by women fighting to gain child care support. This is the era where the personal became overtly political through activism. Gay and lesbian activists demanded equal rights and celebrated their identities. 1969 was especially significant, as the Stonewall uprising in New York City propelled activists around the United States into action leading to annual pride parades celebrating freedom of gender and sexuality.

One of the most recognizable Boomers of today is Oprah Winfrey. She was born on an isolated farm in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on January 29, 1954. Her name was supposed to be Orpah, from the Bible, but because of the difficulty of spelling and pronunciation, she was known as Oprah almost from birth. Baby Boomers like Oprah obtained a higher level of education than any generation before them. About 88 percent of Boomers completed high school, and 28 percent obtained a bachelor's degree or higher. Oprah's college career was fueled by a full scholarship to Tennessee State University after winning a public speaking contest. Over the course of her career as a reporter, producer, host, global media leader, and philanthropist, Oprah Winfrey has created an unparalleled connection with people around the world; she has entertained, enlightened, and uplifted millions of viewers for thirty years. She is one of the most influential and admired public figures in the world today, and some regard her Super Soul Sunday program as their "church." She promotes living spiritually, mindfully, and consciously. Oprah, like many people, loves gospel music, food, conversations, and "aha" moments.

Religious Context

When Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council (also known as Vatican II) on October 11, 1962, in Rome at the Vatican it was a historic moment for the world. There hadn't been an assembly of Roman Catholic religious leaders to address church doctrine in nearly 100 years. Over two thousand Roman Catholic bishops from around the world and thousands of observers, auditors, media, sisters, laymen, and laywomen attended the council between 1962 and 1965. The purpose of this assembly was to give new direction for the life of the Catholic Church after World War II. Sixteen documents in total came out of the Council, laying a foundation for the Catholic Church and ecumenical relationships as we know it today. The Vatican II documents allowed clergy relationships to be more collegial, freedom of worship across languages to encourage greater participation by laity, and cultural adaptations. Importantly, lay ministries of the Catholic Church were established including participation in worship and affirming that every Christian by virtue of baptism has gifts and talents to share through ministries of service. Vatican II also endorsed good relationships across Christian denominations including allowing Catholics to participate in Protestant weddings and prayer across religions. This also includes respect and love for the Jews and a renouncement of anti-Semitism. Additionally, the Council affirmed that every person has human dignity and is created in the image of God. As a result, it encouraged governments to support the freedom of religious liberty and separation of church and state. Finally, Vatican II supported an openness to non-Christian religions. While this one document was neither flawless nor unanimous in its church teaching or practice, this was a significant reform, updating and changing the Catholic Church and impacting the global Protestant church as well.

Overall, the Boomer generation will experience a substantial decline in numbers in the coming decades, and the pace of decline is expected to accelerate as Boomers grow older. "When the first baby boomers turned 65 in 2011, there were just under 77 million Baby Boomers in the population. By 2030, when the baby boomers will be between 66 and 84 years old, that number is projected to drop to 60 million and decrease further by 2060 to only 2.4 million." This decline, coupled with increases in immigration and births to minority populations, is projected to produce an increasingly diverse US population in the years to come.

Today, more than 50 percent of all United Methodist pastors (and many mainline denominations) are Boomers. One of the key questions today and even more into the future is, how will Boomers leave a legacy for future ministry of the church and community as ten thousand boomers retire everyday between now and 2029? Everyone brings their own rules to the table ... and expects others to play by their rulebook. Yet, the Boomers bring a different set of rules than those of the Traditionalists. The Old Rules of the Boomers (born 1946–1964) can be summed up as:

• Break the Rules

• Education

• Do Justice

The Boomers, who have radically changed the landscape of American society and religion, are now turning their attention to the church and life legacy. However, yet again, the rules have changed.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Blank Slate by Lia McIntosh, Jasmine Rose Smothers, Rodney Thomas Smothers. Copyright © 2019 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501876260
• ISBN 13: 9781501876264
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 188