Original article here: https://www.adcrucem.news/p/alienated-lutheran-young-adults-what
I have care of my father who has something like Alzheimers/demenita/needs counseling and won't go. I have a house to keep running with a husband who works a very needy job. So I am late to every game.
I am a life-long LCMSer, and I am Gen X. Jon said what I said when I was in high school and college (1989-1998). I remember being told by my parents' generation that I was incapable of understanding the liturgy after I had an entire religion class on it when I was 7 -- the real liturgy, the historic, goes back milennia liturgy. We were supposed to fall all over the Pass it On song book, which we all hated. When I was in high school I had to work (my mom was a single mother and I had to help pay bills). When I went to college, I commuted because I couldn't afford to go away to college. I had two responses to working Sundays: I was supposed to find a real job where I didn't have to work Sundays; and well, you're supposed to be gone because you're in college, so we don't treat you like we do "real" college students because it's your choice to work. In college I found a retail job that paid better than the nursing home kitchen, and yes, there were a lot of church crowds who went out to eat every Sunday. I know because I served them. I knew when each church in town let out.
When I went to the Voter's Meetings because they wanted young people there, I was given complicated instructions that I had to go to multiple meetings to actually be able to be accepted as a voter. It was in violation of the church constitution, I learned later. When people (my parents' generation) in the meetings talked about the youth, I would speak up and I was told I wasn't normal youth and had nothing constructive to say. (Ask my pastor, who I went to grade school with, he will tell you the same story as will other of my classmates).
Then came the day I went from being "too young" to know anything, to "you're too old and out of touch with the youth." I had one kid and was in my 20s. So I turned to online Lutheran fora to find Lutheran friends (I don't dare write forums to this day), and I found out quickly that whether it was my home church (where I spent 32 years of my life) or the internet, these truths still held:
~I was out of touch with the youth
~It was my choice to break the 3rd commandment with work.
~No matter what I thought I knew about Lutheranism, I was wrong and not a real Lutheran
~Online, I was supposed to know every pastor who never used titles and I was being disrespectful when I had no way of knowing who was a pastor and who wasn't.
So I went away from online and kept a low profile in my church, until the days came when it became personal. When my husband was warned by his boss that there had been a call from someone in the church threatening his job if I didn't stop going to voter's meetings. Our kids were in the school. At the same time, my mom was threatened by one of the church members with IRS audits for the rest of her life if she didn't quit asking why the balance sheets didn't add up. (He worked for the IRS.) Then they retired the senior pastor and brought in an interim who exibited multiple signs of demonic possession.
We left and went to my grandparents' church the next town over. There things were better, until it was always the older generation running things. But I will say this about the church I'm still at. We had a rough go for a while, but younger families are finally coming and the older generation is letting them in.
But if you're Gen X, don't think that generational name is unintentional. It was designed to destroy an entire Generation, whether in the political world or religious world. We don't exist and never did, and that's when this destruction began.
