Some of these points are well taken, but a couple make me profoundly uneasy. Not uneasy like "Maybe God is challenging you," but uneasy like "This is just wrong."

From the article itself: "Don't be tempted to offer variety. Young adults value freedom and freedom of choice, so beware of their calls for a range of worship styles and gatherings and opportunities. They are trying to trick you into consumerism."

Tapscott may joke about it, but there's really very little trickery involved. A lot of the calls to make the Church more attractive to _________ (fill in the gap with whatever the demographic you're aiming at) is undisguised, naked consumerism. I think there has to be a balance between meeting the needs of the times and "the customer is always right." It doesn't seem to be a balance that most reformers appreciate.

Again, from the article: "Take your time. The church has been here for 2000 years and isn't disappearing tomorrow. Don't be rushed into making decisions. Make sure you have complex command and control structures that only you understand. They will have to get used to it, even if young adults value speed as normative."

As I wrote on a comment at TA, it's not at all clear to me that the answer to the increased and increasing pace of contemporary life is a wholehearted embrace of it, even if young adults do value it as "normative." Rather than have the Church speed up more and more, I'm all in favor of slowing it and society at large down. I think the Slow Food and the Slow Tourism are onto something and have important implications for American culture.

A lot of what passes for radical and hip rethinkings of Christianity (and other entities) are really just a capitulation to current cultural trends. Extending the embrace of consumerism and speed don't really seem like the countercultural work that the Church ought to be about, frankly.

Fuddy-duddily,

Bill Dilworth

"Young people" don't have all the answers, geez. Neither do all "young people" have the same answers. Also, in my experience, people start really going to church regularly when they're just past the "young people" stage, before that most of them are too "busy" and too (easily?) distracted. Some freshening up is definitely in order, that's for sure, but good Lord. Consumerism, when applied to religion, is just a way to trick people into thinking they're getting something other than what they are getting, nothing but a glorified bait and switch. It looks like the content of your faith, and the experience of your faith, aren't deep, interesting and True enough to stand on the merits alone.

The missional musings article was a nice read, thanks for sharing. We need to do church differently. Now. It’s ok for the workings and trappings and language of the church and music and even organization of the church to change to be relevant to people today.

So to the previous commenters, one an admitted fuddy-duddy, please get on with doing church differently, and quit defending the need not to! Changing the way we do church is not caving in to consumerism. "But what the church can do, is take the hopes and desires of young adults seriously."

Well, Susan, if you go back and read my comment, you'll see that it wasn't quite the unqualified defense of unchanging tradition you seem to have read it as. The Church has changed, and will continue to change. I'm just not convinced that either change for the sake of change or the specific changes proposed are healthy.

A couple of observations:

"We need to do church differently. Now."

Like what? And why?

If we have to change everything RFN, then we're really in trouble, because there doesn't really seem to be a consensus within the Church about what needs changing, or how to change it.

I'm as suspicious of demands that the Church change right away as I am of the political demands that the country embrace economic austerity right away. In my experience, demands for change without discussion - much less consensus - tend to be manipulative.

"It’s ok for the workings and trappings and language of the church and music and even organization of the church to change to be relevant to people today."

You seem to be conflating the categories "people today" and "young adults." They aren't synonymous - "young adults" are not the only demographic, nor the only important demographic. For my money, this seems to reflect yet another aspect of Western culture that the Church doesn't necessarily have to swallow whole - the idolization of youth.

"Changing the way we do church is not caving in to consumerism."

Really? Under all conditions? Consumerism never creeps into church life? Somehow I doubt that's true. The American religious landscape is rife with bodies that reflect consumerist approaches to religion. Some of them are very successful in attracting the much-coveted young adult demographic; none of the examples I'm thinking of are anything I think ECUSA should touch, even with a ten-foot crozier.

The church today *has* completely sold out to contemporary culture - of the 17th century. Well, maybe the 18th.

The official hymnal has a handful of songs from the 20th century (none from the latter half.)

Half of the prayer book is still written in language closer to Cranmer than oh, Neil Armstrong.

By 2030 we may have a new combo that brings us right up to 1980.

So I think you'll have to forgive the majority of "young adults" for wondering when the church will join the 21st century, given most of the content of its official documents predate their grandparents' birth.

Dave, no songs from the second half of the 20th century? Whether you mean the words or the hymn tune, that turns out not to be the case. Of course, neither is it the case that only half of the BCP is written in contemporary language.

But even if what you wrote were true, I'm not sure that I see your point. Neither the BCP nor the Hymnal 1982 have a monopoly on the liturgy of the Episcopal Church, after all. There are supplemental liturgical texts like Enriching Our Worship and various supplemental musical resources (Lift Every Voice, Field of Voices, Wonder Love and Praise, the various on-line offerings at cpg.org, etc) - not to mention original and unofficial liturgies found in various parts of the Church, either in accordance with or defiance of the canons. It's hardly the case that either the BCP or the Hymnal have such a stranglehold on the Church that it has stifled liturgical innovation and experimentation.

Your assumption that "most 'young adults'" share your attitude towards the Hymnal, at least, isn't backed up by the survey of Episcopalians analyzed in the study on hymnal revision presented to GC 2012 ( _The Hymnal Revision Feasibility Study: A Report to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music _ ). That study did find that "young adults" differed from other demographics in their interest in hymnal revision, however:

"Respondents in their twenties and younger are statistically different than the rest of the respondents, reporting the least interest in desiring worship music to reflect their personal musical tastes. This proves counter to the “common knowledge” theory that younger congregants are looking for a more modern or popular-music experience at church." [emphasis mine]

I agree with the author of the original article where he names, "Say one thing in church, do another out of church" as a barrier to youth in the church. In fact, I'd expand that; "Say the same things repeatedly in church, then live by a different set of principles out of church."

Youth is never fooled by insincerity (were you?) and it sets up another problem. It leaves youth rudderless and resourceless in the face of a harsh world. I tried, as a grade 6-12 Sunday School teacher to give them something more than a form of religion. The BCP and Hymnal are fine for worship but are they useful when a boy wants you to go farther than you wish? I wish I had said more about how Christians engage the world and our reason for being Christians when the worldly is so tempting.

Being fairly insulated myself from the world's harsh realities, I was hardly the teacher those youth needed. Yet I had the position precisely because I was squeaky-clean and made no waves. I had a lot to learn...(sigh)
Cheryl A. Mack

In response to Bill & Susan, I have myself learned the value of not changing things quickly in the heat of a new idea; then again I see examples of Jesus doing just that, and have seen stifling of change result in people leaving the church. I know a kid who was kindly but thoroughly stifled when trying, clumsily, to challenge the local church and make a contribution. He left and is now devoted to a 'vangie congregation that teaches a gospel of prosperity & privilege. Not only is the kid lost to TEC, he has lost touch with Christian justice. It makes me just cringe.

The need to somehow include youth in congregational life is dire.

I think we can have it both ways. I think there is space in most congregations or dioceses for trad worship AND an emergent worship/discussion group, both of them alive with the Gospel. What would be the reasoning against that?

Cheryl A. Mack

Cheryl, given the availability of different liturgical material currently available, what's keeping what you describe from happening now?

It would be helpful, at least to me, if those who say that further change is needed ("Now.")would point to an example of what they have in mind. Surely there are congregations out there (even if not Episcopal ones) that embody the sort of change desired, I would think.

Bill: I think you pose a very good question. "What do we have in mind?"

I also look forward to some concrete examples. I've also searched for a few and believe I've found them...or, at least, some suggestions.

Two come to mind. A UCC church run by the author Robin Meyer, and another intentional community established by Shane Claiborne.

For my part, I'd encourage some satelite cells attached to a parish, cells that would operate separate from the parish but connected via the staff/congregation. Worship and prayer would be more informal, personal, as well as Eucharist. Cells might have different charisms, like hospitality, or media outreach, or new monasticism, or Third Chapter people.

Kevin McGrane

And, so far as I can see, we REALLY don't need a lot of money or "permission" to do alot of this stuff. We just do it.

People are standing around, waiting for someone, anyone, to make the first move.

Kevin McGrane

Kevin, do you have in mind something like the Basic (or Base) Ecclesial Communities, pioneered by the RCC in Latin America and Asia?

There is something ironic about referring to Neil Armstrong, given that his most famous line is surely a lot closer to Cranmer than anything he said on a day-to-day basis. Armstrong was, I would think, sensitive to the notion that ceremonial moments call for ceremonial language.

Also, Dave, I must tell you that your recollection of the contents of the hymnal are incorrect. There are a number of post-1950 texts, and lots of post-1900 music. One should recall that pretty much all of RVW's output is dated after 1900 (English Hymnal and all that). Even the 1940 hymnal has a lot of 20th century material. It should also be kept in mind that the thirty-odd years between 1950 and 1980 are a small slice of the seventeen hundred or so years of Christian hymnody. There's no particular reason to privilege the last half-century simply because it is the last half-century.

The larger context of all of this is that it is, once again, a bunch of late-middle-aged people trying to figure out what's best for young people and then tell them what they like. As Bill says, the recent hymnal survey by the SCLM showed that the people who want something different from traditional church music tend to be middle-aged and tend to be clergy. Young people, and especially young clergy, tended to prefer traditional church music sung congregationally out of a hymnal with an organ. Now of course that means people who are already churchgoing, but the history of all this revisionism is the unwarranted assumption that people who are already members can be taken for granted.