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Define Your Time

AT 26 years old, he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and at 34 he marched on Washington to tell the world he had a dream. At 21, he was elected to Parliament while still a university student, and at 28 he launched the parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade. At 21, she wrote her Princeton thesis proposing a teaching corps of exemplary college graduates, and today Teach For America is one of the nation’s largest providers of teachers in low-income communities. At 20, he created a website connecting himself and his college peers, and in 2010 Facebook exceeded 500 million users. Since ancient times, young adults like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., William Wilberforce, Wendy Kopp, and Mark Zuckerberg have led nations, spearheaded major movements, defined their times. Maybe that’s why Paul told Timothy, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you’re young.” 

I love this phase of life, the thrill and travail, the possibility and peril. And I love the generation in it now. We are in our 20s and early 30s. We work dream jobs, pay-the-bills jobs, downright horrible jobs; that’s if we have a job — 35% of us don’t. We wrangle in relationships, placing a high value on successful marriages and good parenting, even while 75% of us remain single. We are rooted in family and friends. We value our elders more than the previous generation and plant ourselves in community. We are on track to becoming the most educated generation in history. (And with competition as it is, we think we ought to be.) We ask hard questions about generational prejudices, faith practices, and what’s really important in life. We are marked by self-expression, digital connection, and political progression. More than fame, fortune, and owning our own home, we want to make a difference with our lives.* As William Pitt told Wilberforce in the movie Amazing Grace, “We are too young to realize certain things are impossible so we are doing them anyway.” We are defining our times. 

Inside IBC, we’re privileged to witness this generation as it moves forward. We’re cheering them on as they commit to marriage, have their first child, take their CFA, CPA, or finish graduate school. We’re encouraging them as they move to the inner city or off to other countries in hopes of changing the world. I think of Scott, who you’ll see nearly every Sunday ushering at the 10:45 a.m. service, leading a table group with his wife Stephanie, or hanging with young adults at The Gathering. Happily employed at AT&T, Scott recently applied to top-tier business schools to gain training for shaping the world through the non-profit industry. With the help of a few IBC mentors, Scott has gained wisdom and exposure to the industry and will now enter it with greater clarity. 

I think of Shannon who invests her days teaching 3-5 year-old special-needs kids, while her time volunteering with the IBC Sonshine Pals reminds her of the value in what she’s doing. 

I think of Paul and Christine who moved to Austin to be gospel-carriers to the inner city, and of Crystal who moved to the Philippines to run a house for women leaving the sex industry.

They are world-changers in common clothes. They define their times. 

Young Adults are current and future employers, scientists, lawyers, civic leaders, and the soon-to-be elders of our church. It’s hard to say what our final contributions will be, but here and now we help shape the way people think and live, and we need some shaping ourselves. If you asked Bert and Lisa Elliott (who mentor young married couples at IBC), they’d say they’ve received just as much from young adults as they’ve given to them. But if you ask young adults, we’d say we’d be lost without people like Bert and Lisa. That’s what I love about the body of Christ: it’s family, different generations converging to become one — sharpening, encouraging, building each other up to show Jesus to the world. 

Who knows what the days ahead hold or what our legacy will be. But I’m glad we’ll write it together. May we be like David: may we serve God’s purpose in our generation before we fall asleep. May we be a people who define our time.  

Betsy Nichols is the pastor to Young Adults and has a hate-hate relationship with snowboards.

* Sources: Millennials, A Portrait of Generation Next, February 2010; The Mosaic Generation: The Future of Christianity? Who are they and how will they change the future?, Wayne Oppel, Leadership Advance Online, Issue VII.