I’ve been reflecting lately on demographics. Just as Christmas is the time for gifts and drunken office parties in modern culture, July and August mark the season in which a good segment of the under-25 population pack up and move somewhere else. Not since the children of Israel roamed in the desert for 40 years have so many young people stayed for such a short time in one place.

I left home over six years ago to go to college. In that span of time, I’ve never lived in any one building for more than two years—I’ve never lived in any one room more than a year at a time. I can immediately think of ten good friends moving in the next month or so, myself included, and we’re all out of college. It is even worse there, as many students constantly move back and forth between home and school, school and home.

Several factors contribute to this increased mobility, which of course I am not an expert in. Yet I would guess that this is one of the many profound marks globalization has made on my generation. We move where the schools and jobs are, places that may take us thousands of miles from where we were born. The women I went to grade school with spread all over the country—from Minneapolis to San Antonio, Seattle to Washington, DC. I can go to almost any region and find someone I know.

Our mobility puts new twists on the word “community.” My community—the circle of people I call on with joys and concerns, the people who give me the love and affirmation I need to exist in this world, the people I trust—is a cell phone family. Roughly once a month I talk to Krysten, Casey, or Kendroid. My mom and sister probably get a ring three or four times a week, my grandparents and cousins every so often. I may call up college friends like Tara and Katie every few months for an update. With David moving to Boston, I’m now facing the prospect of a cell phone romance as well. There are people in Louisville to count on, of course, but several of the most significant people in my life live thousands of miles away from me.

Yet what does such a community mean in terms of how our generation relates to and engages the world? Is it any wonder that people my age are much more interested in the effects of globalization on developing nations than on the food pantry across the street? I know that my investment in the city of Louisville is minimal—I won’t even register my car here, telling myself that I’m not going to stay long enough to make it worthwhile. Part of the reason we so strongly identify as citizens of a “global village” is because planet Earth is the only place we can’t move away from.

And what does it mean for the church? Our churches are stable institutions, meant to sustain several generations of parents and children in nurturing their faith journeys. Perhaps the church’s decline has nothing to do with doctrine, nothing to do with the worship, nothing to do with relevance or irrelevance. Perhaps the church’s decline simply lies in the fact that for 2000 years it has dealt with populations that stay in one place, and this is the one shift it can’t seem to handle.

If the church wants to do outreach or ministry in modern culture, it needs to become a place where people from diverse places and diverse backgrounds can find an island of community within the isolation of the modern world. For people like me, where change truly is the only constant, the greatest opportunities for ministry exist in acknowledging and responding to the “cell phone community.”

“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” --Matthew 28:20b

Kelsey

Goodmorning Kelsey,

I enjoyed your blog this morning. I agree that the church is having trouble keeping people, especially college people, because of our mobile society. I remember many years ago visiting New York City with my husband who was getting a bit more piano tuning training from Baldwin piano company. (He now goes for training at Steinway) Any way we stayed at a hotel owned by Calvary Baptist Church which is right beside the hotel on West 57 street. Carnegie Hall is right across the street. Although Assemblies of God at the time we attended the church on Sunday morning. They have a wonderful ministry to many in the international community that perhaps many churches could mimic now that we really have become a nation of international communities. Of course not everywhere can you ride the hotel elevators with the Boston symphony orchestra members. My husband returned there just a couple of years ago. The church was still full and doing ministry with the usual internationally mobile community. The gospel of Jesus Christ was also still preached with great clarity.
I am glad you have enjoyed so many interesting places and adventures so far this summer.
blessings in the love of Christ,
Viola Larson