#rising generations

[morte-darthur]

heya, can you add my writeblr @all-my-novels to your the sevenfold throne wip taglist?

you’ve been added! <3

[imagodeiinitiative]

The challenge of rising generations

I put a version of this statement before Claude: "Explain why the Episcopal Church must respond to a generation of young people with limited reading habits, shortened attention spans, little Christian literacy, weak research skills, and discomfort with silence."

This is its response:

From Claude, 4/3/2026

The Episcopal Church faces a genuinely serious pastoral and institutional challenge here — one that cuts to the heart of what Anglican Christianity has always been and how it communicates itself. Let me lay out why each of these factors matters specifically for the Episcopal tradition.

The Episcopal Church's Particular Vulnerability --

The Episcopal Church is, by its nature, a deeply literary and textual tradition. Its entire spiritual architecture rests on:

The Book of Common Prayer — dense, beautiful, archaic prose demanding sustained attention

Scripture read in long lectionary cycles

Sermons as a primary mode of formation

Silence as spiritual discipline (the Daily Office, contemplative prayer, the pregnant pauses in liturgy)

Theological reasoning as the pathway to faith, not emotional catharsis alone

This means the challenges you've named don't merely inconvenience the Episcopal Church — they strike at the foundations of how it transmits faith across generations.

Why Each Challenge Demands a Response --

A generation socialized not to read threatens the Prayer Book tradition at its root. The BCP is not a supplement to Episcopal worship — it is Episcopal worship. A person who cannot or will not read at length cannot access the primary instrument of Anglican formation. The Church cannot simply swap in a screen and call it equivalent; the contemplative, linear, cumulative nature of reading the Prayer Book shapes the mind in ways that scrolling cannot replicate.

Shortened attention spans and diminished capacity for sustained focus strike against the liturgical rhythm itself. The Episcopal service was designed for a people who could hold a thought, follow an argument, and sit with unresolved tension. If the neural architecture for sustained attention is genuinely being altered by technology — and there is strong evidence it is — then the Church faces not merely a preference problem but a formation problem. You cannot simply make liturgy shorter; you lose the spiritual logic that makes it transformative.

Little knowledge of Christianity removes what was once assumed. For most of Anglican history, the catechism was a review, not an introduction. Clergy could preach assuming a shared vocabulary — sin, grace, covenant, resurrection. That assumed vocabulary is now gone. The Church must now do what it hasn't had to do since the early centuries: evangelize from zero, explaining not just what Christians believe but what religion itself is and why it might matter.

Inability to research effectively is perhaps the most surprising challenge, because this generation has more information available than any before it. But access to information is not the same as the capacity for inquiry. The Episcopal tradition has always honored the questioning mind — it is a church that welcomes doubt as a pathway to faith. But productive doubt requires knowing how to sit with a hard question, follow a thread, weigh sources, and tolerate not knowing. Algorithmic information delivery trains people toward the opposite: quick resolution, confirmation, and the collapse of genuine inquiry.

Fear of silence may be the deepest crisis of all for Anglicanism specifically. Silence is not incidental to Episcopal worship — it is sacramental. The pauses in the liturgy, the Daily Office's quiet, the contemplative tradition running from the Desert Fathers through the Anglican mystics, the very structure of Compline — all depend on a person being able to inhabit silence without panic or flight. A generation that experiences silence as threatening has been cut off from one of the Church's primary means of encounter with God.

Why the Church Cannot Simply Adapt Its Way Out --

There is a temptation to respond to these challenges with accommodation — shorter services, more video, less silence, contemporary music, simplified language. Some of this is pastorally wise. But the Episcopal Church must be careful not to dissolve the very thing it is trying to offer.

This generation does not need the Church to become more like the digital environment that is already harming them. What they may desperately need — even if they don't know how to want it — is exactly the counter-formation the Episcopal tradition offers: the discipline of reading, the practice of sustained attention, the tolerance of silence, the slow movement through a liturgical year that refuses to be rushed.

The Church's task, then, is not simply to meet young people where they are, but to lovingly and intelligently build the bridge between where they are and what they need — and then walk across it with them.

That requires:

Patient catechesis that doesn't assume prior knowledge but doesn't condescend either

Scaffolded engagement with the Prayer Book — introducing it gradually, explaining its logic, making its beauty accessible

Intentional formation in silence — teaching people how to be still, which is itself a radical countercultural act

Honest conversation about what technology is doing to human cognition and why the Church's ancient practices are, in fact, a form of healing

Robust adult formation that builds the intellectual and spiritual muscles this generation was never given the chance to develop

The Theological Stakes --

Ultimately, this is not just a marketing or demographic problem. It is a theological emergency. The Episcopal Church believes that the fullness of Christian life involves the whole person — mind, body, spirit — formed over time through word, sacrament, community, and prayer. A generation that cannot read, cannot attend, cannot research, and cannot endure silence is a generation that has been, in a profound sense, deformed — not by moral failure, but by the environment in which they were raised.

The Church's calling is what it has always been: to be a place of re-formation. The question is whether it has the courage, the creativity, and the patience to do that hard work for this particular moment.

[freezethunder]

What’s one fic you’ve always wanted to write but haven’t yet

Ha! There’s so many answers! All of them are long! If I had to pick one it’d be a non-despair DanganRonpa/Pokemon crossover. I know the stuff I want to write for it but it’s just so long

[jl1970]

(re-posted for a better quality)

Ever heard resp. read of Ghost-of-the-Dawn (FanFiction) resp. ty-chou (deviantArt) and her Transformers fics (and she does not just write about Transformers) ? No ?! Then you really should give those stories a try. I HIGHLY recommend it. This image here, done by the amazing auro-isa (tumblr) resp. AuroIsa_yah (twitter), is from the latest chapter from “Rising-Generations”.

@sketchytychou I know, I rarely write a comment on your fanfiction/s (but I also hardly write comments to the stories of others, which is a shame, I know), but I hope you know, that I´m totally in love with your writing style and your Tf stories. And because of that, and because I can´t thank you enough for your time, your ideas, the way you write all those characters and your awesome OC (she is one of the few Transformers OCs I really find fascinating), this commissioned image from auro-isa shall be a small thank-you, a little “homage” to your great (by now very popular and well-known) Tf series.  

And sorry if I sound “pathetic”. Unfortunately, my English is still not good enough to write a better and more suitable “encomium”. : )

[imagodeiinitiative]

Ideas, Faith, and Context

I attended another "Q Commons" in NYC last night - Malcolm Gladwell and Soledad O'Brien were the main presenters. The host church was "Trinity Grace Church," an independent group with multiple locations popping up all over the City. Their growth, like so many other like-minded Christian groups in the City, is remarkable - and all younger people. Out of the 200+ participants at the NYC location, there was only one other person who may have been anywhere close to my age.

Don't let anyone tell you that younger people are not interested in issues of faith and spirituality, and most certainly don't let anyone tell you that younger people are not drawn to the Faith of Jesus Christ! Those who say such things have lost any kind of vision of what God can, will, and is doing among generations. They don’t understand the pursuit of matters spiritual within present contexts. It is a matter of understanding how to connect.

The Book of Common Prayer… I witnessed, yet again, two more examples of consistently growing churches and para-church organizations participating in this way of "doing/being the Faith" engaging and using of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) – a spiritual tradition not their own… yet, that is.

It makes me wonder why we (my own Church), who are the holders of the Book and its Tradition, seem to be clueless about why younger people are drawn to it and think nothing about distancing ourselves from the common use of it. There is a disconnect between our thinking and doing and the reality of present contexts that is harmful to our own prosperity in faith and life. What shall we do about that?

For your edification, a link to "Q Ideas."

[imagodeiinitiative]

Evolution

All things begin. All things change. Hopefully, in the midst-of-it-all there is evolution leading to a good continuance, even in the midst of challenge and tumult. Not all things end, at least within lifetimes - some things are everlasting. If there does come an end, hopefully it is a good end.

An effort such as the Imago Dei Initiative must change and evolve by necessity. If our goal is to study and understand the phenomenal changes going on within rising generations of young people and their contexts for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then all of the thinking and planning, the approaches taken, and the execution of our work will always be in flux. This reality drives some people crazy, and frankly hurts our ability to continue as an effort of thought, work, and innovation.

We want to be at the confluence of young people, faith development (formation in the Way of Christ), and technology. It is a chaotic and unsettling place to be, but man is it exciting!

So, then, here we are. The extensive planning and preparation that went into the beginning of the effort paid off, initially. For the first year and a half, all was going as planned. This wasn’t to be a dog-and-pony show full of photo-ops to prove our worth, but what had to be a slow, evolving thing. Some people cheered us on. Some people got it. Others didn’t. Regardless, we came a long way from nothing to the involvement of many people in various locations around New York City (and influence that extended far beyond the City).

After the first year and a half, however, “going as planned” abruptly ended. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why. We had to retool, rethink, and reconfigure how to go about this effort. We saw the need continuing to be real and vital.

For the next two years, we kept in place several of the things we were doing - maintaining what we had successfully started in the midst of forced change… evolution. We were forced to stop some projects in mid-stream, and that stung. We stopping planning to execute the “next step” because we just didn’t know what was going to happen with livelihoods, and all that. We initiated one new work, and it is good.

Here we are. Evolution and change continue. Our focus remains the same. We want to understand as best we can rising generations and emerging culture to anticipate how we, as the Church - those claiming fidelity with Jesus Christ - will need to change in order to pass on this enduring, living Faith to the next generation. How do we translate the life and teachings of Jesus Christ in ways that resonate with younger people in consequential ways? How do we live such a life in swiftly evolving contexts?

Much thought has resulted in a proposal for a new approach to engaging young parishioners that integrates fully all members of the parish in caring for the lives and faith of young folks. We are in the beginning stages of planning a “conversation” among those interested in envisioning the living out of the Faith in the coming decades. But, those earlier efforts that we maintained may need to come to and end, and this is very hard. It is difficult to end things for which we have such passion.

We shall see how 2014 plays out and what God may have in store. We simply need to be faithful, thoughtful, and expansive in our thinking and doing.

[blgriffith]

Hyperactivity vs. Relationality

From her book, "Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church," Kenda Creasy Dean writes and quotes Mark Yaconelli:

"Mark Yaconelli attributes youth ministry's obsession with action to a deep anxiety that pervades American churches.  He illustrates the difference between ministry rooted in anxiety and ministry rooted in love, and points out:

'We cannot undergo this transformation by the sheer strength of our own will or intellect.  It is only by yielding that we can even begin to embody the freedom of God... We have to allow God to de-program us from habitually related to kids as projects that need managing rather than persons who need God's love and trust.'" (emphasis mine)

In other words, when churches focus on keeping young people active for Jesus, we may forget to teach them how to be present with Jesus." (emphasis Dean's)

[Dean, p. 168] (Yaconelli, of Youth Specialties fame, conducted a multi-year, Lilly funded research project to redefine youth ministry form and approach to be most effective & sustainable among Millennials and younger. See his book, "Growing Souls: Experiments in Contemplative Youth Ministry".)

I see far too many "youth groups" that focus far too much on ideas that work themselves out in something like, "If you have food, they will come;" or youth leaders who simply keep their remaining young people busy, busy, busy doing stuff.  The "stuff" may be really good to do, but for the Christian, whether young or old, there is something that comes before the doing, and that is the relational experience of the person with God.

When youth leaders and youth groups - heck, when parishes - take seriously the spiritual nurturing of their young parishioners, when they have as the first priority to "love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind" as more than just a theoretical proposition, then the second priority of the working out of "love your neighbor as yourself" is authentically possible.

The focus on doing projects of good works will do little to offer any solid reasons for young people to stay in the Church. Community service is good to do, yes, but God can be completely absent and those good activities can still be done. Most all students have community service project requirements in their schools these days.  When all we have to offer are what seem to be empty rituals and stagnant tradition (or lots of pizza), then all the activity in the world will not keep young people in the Church.

Our encounters with God enable us to honestly, transparently, unselfishly, and authentically love others. For the Church, the doing of good works are a means of transformation and a means of experiencing God more deeply - even as other receive the benefits of such things. 

But, older parishioners, parents, youth leaders, priests and pastors have to have honest, transformational encounters with God themselves before they can pass on such experiential knowledge to rising generations of young parishioners.  Too often, we don't and too many of us do not know how to yield to such notions.  We are inexperienced in seeking God, deep contemplative prayer, being vulnerable, explaining our own faith, or anything close to a competent apologetic. 

Despite good intentions, we end up having youth groups where the few remaining young people leave for college or adult life and have no real reason to keep attending church.  A different way begins with adults who are intentional, consistent, persistent, and humble enough to yield themselves to God for the sake of our rising young folks.