Francis Chan, Mark Driscoll and a disconnected but related commentary...

What's Next for Francis Chan? A Conversation with Mark Driscoll and Joshua Harris from Ben Peays on Vimeo.


I'm 31, almost 32. I'm a cynic (if you haven't noticed by reading previous posts), a realist and out of energy. After a decade of attempting and selling out to whatever seemed to be the best way of thinking, the best spiritual practices, the best group to identify with, the most effective approach to prayer, following the best leaders, working towards the best career and basically trying to discover the secret to life, I'm tired.

I used to think that I knew more than other people about stuff after just discovering it and have lived like that for a decade. Now that I'm in my 30s, I encounter younger adults emerging out of their teens into their twenties all the time with this same posture - "I just found out about this cool idea and I want to tell you about it!" When they do that, those who have lived longer ususally wait until they've finished, or not, and then slip in a "Yeah, I know about...but that's cool that you're learning about that," or they provide/cop an attitude projecting a similar conclusion.

Youthful energy is an amazing force in any society. For all us cynics, it looks naive, foolish and at times wasted. But secretly, we know that youthful zeal is inspirational, powerful and we're jealous (though relieved to be done with it). Many emerging adults are idealistic, impressionable and still experiencing trace elements of adolescence.

I guess I'll get to the point. I believe that there are people out there who see this youthful zeal and try to turn it into a commodity or a resource to fuel their own agenda, ego, fears, etc...

Emerging adults are intelligent but they are also looking ferociously for a place to belong. That belonging isn't the same kind of belonging that we longed for in adolescence but has more to do with our identity as adults. There is more independence but there is also less credibility in this new world of adult-land. It seems that many young emerging adults will apply their youthful zeal to a strong personality, a winning organization, a way of life or a discipline that seems to provide both a sense of belonging as well as the self-affirming independence they so desperately need. What is so wrong is that older people who have their agendas (whether they know it or not) lead these young adults into their worldview and offer "answers" to questions that actually need more time to work out.

A young emerging adult will follow someone who provides them with what seems to be strong and solid answers because this era in their life is one of the most volatile and insecure that they will ever experience. That kind of context drives them to sources of external security and they bring their zeal with them.

Some of us over 30 are all to ready to receive them with open arms with our big answers to life in return for their allegiance and a strong deposit of their zeal. When we see them receive our frame of mind, convictions, activism, ideas and worldview and then run with it farther and faster than we could, it should scare us, not warm our hearts. We are not free of error and to offer our foundational answers to those who might build edifices with them without providing them with a grain of salt or an honest disclaimer is immoral and self-aggrandising.

They may not be as convinced of our way of thinking as they are of the need to belong, to belong to someone or something that provides them with a sense of certainty, meaning and instant credibility. What we think they are receiving may have more to do with their need to belong rather than their ability to share our convictions. That does not mean that they are not intelligent and can't figure things out but all of us over 30 know that we have been on a journey. That journey has required us to shift our convictions, opinions and ideas from time to time, sometimes acutely and at other times very drastically. Most of those shifts take place somewhere between 18 and 30 years of age, though they do continue to happen afterwards, thereby requiring us to hold our ideas and convictions loosely enough to see them change or transform if necessary.

What I am frustrated with is when people in the 30+ years range do not deconstruct themselves, their own confidence or their unwavering assertions. We so easily forget that the era of emerging adulthood actually required some shifts in our thinking because to be the same person at 25 that we were at age 20 would be horrible. So when those of us who are older try to help them nail down what they believe or think so that they won't feel to much uncertainty or insecurity, we are only prolonging their growth and inhibiting their maturation process. It is not wrong for them to sit on certain forms of uncertainty or live with some tension. If we are honest, having an emerging adult look to us for guidance is a bit flattering and affirming - but lest we be uncareful, it can also become a way for us to hide from our own insecurities. Their desire for belonging coupled with their mounds of zeal can provide us with a sense of security for ourselves if we know that they belong to our way of thinking and are willing to throw their lot in with us.

Instead of seeing youthful zeal as precarious we can too easily see it is a commodity, something to be harvested without qualification for our own cause. I am not suggesting we don't do anything with youthful zeal, but I am more than suggesting that people or organizations who use it for their own good without considering what it will do to that youth in the long run are exhibiting a form of selfishness that is parallel with imperialism and a kind of "generational colonialism." "Post-colonialism of the person" isn't pretty and much of the backlash that the church is feeling from its young people is directly related to their imperialistic cloistering and negligent harvesting of the youthful desire for belonging and insurmountable zeal they have to offer.


The combination of a ferocious need to belong, a desire for meaningful input and recognition and an endless supply of youthful zeal makes the "young adult" generation an incredible temptation for those who are looking for a people to embody - to dwell among, something only God is allowed to do. To embody your own ethics and convictions irreverently into the life of another is tempting for all because the need to continually dignify and respect someone who might worship the ground you walk on is so easy to ignore. To take from them what they have to offer while promising them the world through belonging and the resolution of their tension is so easy for some to actually do, yet we are all tempted with the idea, even if we don't follow through. It is something I am tempted with - but it is an evil dynamic, set up to view the "other" as an object - a resource rather than a subject bearing the image of God himself. If we are to help them mature, as we should, this dynamic has to be recognized and villianized rather than ignored or normalized. If we care for the young emerging adult, we will still make these mistakes, but at least we can know we are and call it what it really is.

Then we can help them find out who they really are instead of allowing them to help us become more of who we want to be. This journey of discovery isn't easy and if they have help along the way from guides who won't steal their glory but encourage it's stewardship, something some leaders only feign their way through, they will encounter God in the process.


Calvin teaches that we all need to know ourselves, because it helps us to know God and vice versa.  Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of his Institutes.

     "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of our ourselves.  But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.  In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he 'lives and moves' [Acts 17:28].  For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God.  Then, be these benefits like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as rivulets to the spring itself...The miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward....Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek good, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.
     Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself....As long as we do not look beyond the earth, being quite content with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue, we flatter ourselves most sweetly,...Suppose we but once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and to ponder his nature,...What wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will stink in its very foolishness....what in us seems perfection itself corresponds ill to the purity of God."*


I'm 31, almost 32. I'm a cynic and a realist and though I'm out of energy, I am not out of hope (thanks to guys like Francis Chan and many more like him).



*John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, in The Library of Christian Classics vol. 20, edited by John T. McNeill, translated and indexed by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960) 1:35-39