One of my classmates made an interesting comment a few days ago. In discussing the millennial generation, he said something to the effect of how there is such a longing for community and yet most Millennials don’t know the first thing about it, let alone how to find it, form it, or keep community healthy. I think my peer makes a great observation. In fact, I would say that every human longs for community, but millennials especially long for it. I also think the college experience greatly intensifies this longing for community, but I will discuss this more in the next post. The unsettling thing is that as a result of this intense longing, the vast majority of Millennials will find community or form it regardless of whether it is healthy- all the while most churches stand by, neglecting the opportunity to open their arms and intentionally invite them in to theirs.

Two TV shows that I have been watching recently are Community (NBC) and Glee (FOX). Viewed through the lens of college ministry, these shows are uber insightful of our culture and especially of the Millennials to which they are aimed. Now both series have a clearly established community of which the main characters are associated with (for Community it is the study group for Spanish class and for Glee it is the glee club). Both series highlight these communities and explore various aspects of them including the members’ need to protect their community, protect each other, and learn lessons on loving each other, etc. Both shows are VERY popular and each have their own unique elements that make them successful. They each warrant discussion and contain vast insight into our culture, but for now, I just wanted to highlight their central theme of community. There are other shows that do this as well, but these two are particularly poignant especially to us college ministers. In fact, both shows have school as their setting (Community is set on a community college campus, and Glee is set on a high school campus) which make them particularly relevant to us.

I think the popularity of these shows are a good indication of the Millennials’ longing for community. I think the popularity of social networking is directly related to this longing as well. And have you ever thought about the popularity of games like Halo and World of Warcraft? There is a vast community found in these games online!

Perhaps your personal experience with students will indicate this longing. For example, upon the development of new “apartment style” student housing, I remember one of the common critiques amongst students was that it did not foster much social interaction as a dorm would. Now regardless of whether this is true or not, the fact is that these students were longing for more community. I think there are some other forces at play here (which we will discuss in the next post), but the very fact that Millennial students are even conscious of this says a lot.

So have you seen this longing for community amongst Millennials in your experience? Could you incorporate this characteristic of Millennials into your ministry in some way? How about in reaching them? In teaching to them? In ministering to them?
What are your thoughts?