Recently I received a letter sent way back in 1997. The letter was written by me . . . to me. It was titled “A Letter to Myself (Open in 2011)” and published in the Adventist Review, where I was working as a 26-year-old assistant editor. When I wrote the letter, I never imagined I’d actually be reading it someday. But sure enough, last year I sat down and read it:
Dear Andy:
Happy fortieth. Hope all’s well with Cindy and your two teenagers.
Speaking of stress, remember back in 1997 when you were worried about the 38 to 50 percent attrition rate among your Adventist peers and frustrated that so many programs and ministries targeting youth and young adults were being planned exclusively by people twice, even three times, their age? Remember that?
Well, I’ve got news. Now you’re them. That’s right, pal—Generation X got old. And because it did, I have a little message for you . . .
If, by any chance, you currently happen to be sitting on a committee that’s planning anything for young people, and if young people aren’t well represented on that committee, then recuse yourself. That’s right—get out of your leather chair, flip on your shirt-button telephone, and invite a young person to take your seat.
Do this, Andy, not because young people in the year 2011 are necessarily more talented, creative, or even progressive than you are. (Some will be; some won’t be.) Instead, do it for the same reason the execs at MTV used to let your generation, the Gen Xers, generate MTV. Because 1997 young people best knew the minds of 1997 young people.
This doesn’t mean, Andy, that the youth and young adults of 2011, the millennials, don’t need you. They do need you—desperately. They need you to mentor them, to teach them, to pass on what you’ve learned about Jesus Christ. But when it comes to planning their programs, step back. Give them ownership. Let them do their thing.
Because in the struggle to be relevant—to communicating Jesus in their language—you can have the best intentions, but you can’t change your birth certificate. Don’t forget that.
Reading this after all these years leaves me with several impressions:
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Andy Nash is a college professor, pastor, and author of Paper God, a spiritual memoir. This article was published January 19, 2012.
