Pub Trivia

Without doing an internet search, which of the following industries are Millennials accused of killing and which one are they saving?
A. tuna
B. cash
C. local bike shops
D. public libraries

What about in this list?
A. gyms
B. the baby industry
C. American cheese
D. the divorce industry

These are some of the questions we posed in our Pub Trivia night, which the Fuller Theological Seminary’s Northwest Regional Campus instigated (and footed most of the bill for; thanks, Fuller!). It was an interesting exercise taking a narrative that makes Millennials out to be the harbingers of doom and turning it into a light-hearted, nominally-educational event.

As everyone debriefed the event over their food and drinks, it became apparent that with every wrong answer (no one got them all right) each table had to re-evaluate how well they knew the plight of young adults. Even if they were themselves young adults, they had to go through the process of empathizing with the experience of the average contemporary rather than just mine their own individual experience.

Granted, many of these people were pastors, or training to be pastors, so one would hope they would have the skill of putting themselves into someone else’s shoes.

Eventually, we got into some of the questions based in our particular research, such as:
Among these off-ramps that young adults cite as reasons to leave the church, which is the top one?
A. hypocritical behavior
B. resistance to change
C. avoidance of real or controversial issues
D. holding political views that disagree with faith values
(Taken from https://pivotnw.org/research/)

The answer is “resistance to change.” How does that answer strike you? Keep in mind that all of those are off-ramps that young adults have reported. If you are a young adult who has been turned off by church, does this match your experience? And if you aren’t a young adult, are you interested in pushing back against the prevalence of these phenomena?