Sacramental Yearnings; Young Christians Are Desiring Historical Liturgy, Not Contemporary Worship
The following article was found on Gene Edward Veith's blog "Cranach."
Congregations that want to attract the millennial generation are now being told to ditch their contemporary worship services and to bring back the historic liturgy. Also, it turns out that young adults today have a “sacramental yearning.” Church growth enthusiasts, take note.
From Gracy Olmstead, Why Millennials Long for Liturgy | The American Conservative. (She was one of my students, as was Bart Gingrich, whom she quotes.)
[Lee] Nelson believes a sacramental hunger lies at the heart of what many millennials feel. “We are highly wired to be experiential,” he says. In the midst of our consumer culture, young people “ache for sacramentality.” “If you ask me why kids are going high church, I’d say it’s because the single greatest threat to our generation and to young people nowadays is the deprivation of meaning in our lives,” Cone says. “In the liturgical space, everything becomes meaningful. In the offering up of the bread and wine, we see the offering up of the wheat and grain and fruits of the earth, and God gives them back in a sanctified form. … We’re so thirsty for meaning that goes deeper, that can speak to our entire lives, hearts, and wallets, that we’re really thirsty to be attached to the earth and to each other and to God. The liturgy is a historical way in which that happens.” The millennial generation is seeking a holistic, honest, yet mysterious truth that their current churches cannot provide. Where they search will have large implications for the future of Christianity. Protestant churches that want to preserve their youth membership may have to develop a greater openness toward the treasures of the past. One thing seems certain: this “sacramental yearning” will not go away.
To learn more on this subject, may I suggest:
The Evangelical Exodus to Confessional Faith
Liturgy, Neither Alone Nor Neutral
Becoming a Liturgical Lutheran
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