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Alan Fadling: Steve, I’m glad to enjoy a conversation with you on the theme of millennials and spiritual formation. I’d like to begin by asking you to talk about what you do day-to-day and how that involves millennials these days.

Stephen Macchia: Well, a strategic role I fulfill as part of my Leadership Transformations ministry role each week is to direct a program called the Pierce Center for Disciple-Building at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. Those students are all millennials, and I’ve had the privilege of sitting with them one on one and in small groups over the past twelve years. I colead four spiritual formation groups of eight students each semester. We meet together for ten sessions during the academic year. I’m also with these students on formation retreats, meet with them one on one, and lead them in daylong silence and solitude retreats we call Soul Sabbaths. Also, like you, my children are part of this generation (our daughter and son are twenty-five and thirty). They’re probably at the older end of that generation but very much in the thick of it. How old are your kids?

 

AF:     Our three sons are all very much in the middle of millennial bunch. Our youngest just turned seventeen, while our other two are nineteen and twenty-two today. So it sounds like we have both a very personal interest in this generation as well as a vocational interest.

SM:     Yes. I really love working with this generation. I know they’re sometimes negatively stereotyped as lazy, disrespectful, entitled, or narcissistic, but I see a lot of gifts and strengths in them. I love working with them and find these relationships life-giving for my soul.

 

AF:     I’d love to hear a more about that because I agree with you. I’m well aware of the negative stereotypes, but like you I am deeply grateful for the ways God expresses grace through this generation. Tell me more about how you have benefited from your millennial brothers and sisters. How has God graced your life through these relationships?

SM:     God has given me many gifts by having these young friends in my life. For one, I find them a very honest and transparent generation. I love that there’s very little pretense in their speech, their manner and their lifestyle. I have also enjoyed a lot of laughter in our conversations. They have a great sense of humor and are able to laugh at themselves. I’m much more free to laugh at myself thanks to their transparency.

This generation also just loves being together. They value real community. Just yesterday afternoon, I joined a recent grad for coffee. He was in town and just wanted to spend time together. Then in the evening my wife and I were with a young family. Their third child was born the day before, and they invited us right into the hospital room to be with them and their other two children (who are now ages two and three). We felt invited into their lives, like part of their family. Millennials have enjoyed being in our home. They want to see where we live, and they want us to see where they live. They don’t need anything more fancy than just being together. They are hungry for authentic relationship.

 

AF:     That sounds like my experience. For example, just yesterday my oldest son was a groomsman in a wedding for two of his good friends. Much of what happened that afternoon illustrates what you’re saying. They had planned an outdoor ceremony at a local park. It was very simple. I could imagine they spent much less on their wedding yesterday than we did thirty years ago.

Now, as you probably know, we’re in the middle of a long drought here in California, but God was kind enough to give us rain. Yesterday afternoon. It just happened to downpour right when their wedding was about to start. Instead of ruining the event, I had a profound sense that this was just something to enjoy together. There was freedom and laughter. The bride stepped in a deep puddle as she walked in. I loved the simple joy of the celebration in the midst of what I would have been tempted to see as a disaster.

Another way I admire in my oldest son and his friends is how easily they express their affection for one another. I don’t find that sort of brotherly affection quite as natural yet.

SM:     They certainly are a full-embrace generation. I love that.

 

AF:     Me, too. Let me turn to the next book you’ve written, which I think echoes many of these gifts you’ve enjoyed with your millennial friends. It’s titled Broken and Whole, and scheduled to come out a few months after this edition of Conversations. Can you share some of the intersections you see between your book and what you’ve been sharing here about this millennial generation?

SM:     Well, I wrote the book to foster honesty and transparency and, I hope, greater emotional intelligence in a leader and a leader’s relationships. I want us as leaders to discover strength in our weaknesses. When we’re willing to embrace our brokenness and weakness, and invite God to redeem our weaknesses, he seems to delight in transforming each area of our brokenness for his glory. We’re less afraid to show our brokenness to others.

When I talk about brokenness in the book, I see it in four categories—some internal and some external. First, I see brokenness in our suffering—anything inflicted on us without our consent. This could be a physical disability, an emotional illness, a societal misfortune, or catastrophic event. Suffering comes to us outside our power. We have nothing to do with its cause.

Second, I see brokenness in our heartache. These come through physical or emotional abuse, disappointments in others or in our circumstances, mistakes, struggles, mishaps, shame, guilt, relational discord, whatever is inflicted on us by others or even that to which we’ve contributed.

Third, brokenness comes in our sinfulness; through the various prideful choices we make that cause internal or external pain for ourselves or for others. This is the brokenness of outright disobedience to God.

Finally, I see brokenness in our imperfections. Those are areas of our lives that follow us day to day—our idiosyncratic behaviors, our nagging habits that plague us, or the mind games that trip us up. We don’t like them, but they are there.

I’m writing to help leaders recognize and embrace the reality of brokenness in their lives because leaders are so often unwilling to talk about their brokenness. We often prefer to talk about our strengths, our gifts, or our accomplishments. We don’t like talking about the broken parts of our lives, which, I believe, is exactly what God would love to redeem.

 

AF:     Thanks for that preview. As I hear you unpack brokenness in those ways, it seems that our generation, the boomers, have too often hidden our brokenness, pretended we were more whole than we were. This is quite different from what I witness in my sons’ generation. I often find refreshing honesty, openness, and unpretentiousness when we interact.

SM:     I see that too, Alan. Often our generation has invested a lot of energy in hiding weakness and protecting our image. We put a spin on any personal darkness or negative reality in our lives. We want to portray ourselves in as positive a light as possible (even if it isn’t very real). In reality, there is a lot of self-deception in this approach to life. Our generation has often become workaholics. We thought we could work our way out of anything bad and into everything strong and successful. From this vantage point, we’ve then branded millennials as lazy (because they don’t struggle nearly as much with workaholic tendencies).

Millennials are more interested in promoting honesty, depth of relationship, authentic community, and what I might call “cultures of grace.” Sometimes millennials take this to what I think is an illogical conclusion. They don’t want to call anything wrong, so anything goes and everything’s acceptable. That’s a dangerous place to be because there is no sense of thoughtfulness about right and wrong. This generation feels that calling anything wrong means you’re just being a self-appointed judge of others. Many millennials have room to grow in critical thinking. Boomers, on the other hand, often find it too easy to judge others. We need to learn from each other a holy middle where we can learn from each other’s weaknesses and maximize each other’s strengths.

 

AF:     It makes me think of the phrase that describes Jesus in John 1 where he’s said “to be full of grace and truth.” I wonder if our generation at times saw truth as the premier virtue with both a healthy and an unhealthy version of that perspective. Perhaps this generation sees grace as the premier virtue, again with both a healthy and unhealthy perspective on grace.

SM:     I think you’re right. As evangelicals especially, boomers were taught to defend the truth. We are taught to stand up for the evangelical way. The modern evangelical generation is fifty to sixty years old, and the generation that preceded us held fast to certain truths. We then followed in their footsteps and created organizations focused on this mission. Now this millennial generation is saying, “But we live in this world that desperately needs to be loved, but you guys aren’t very loving.” And they’re often right, especially when our generation is known more for what we’re against rather than what we’re for. The pendulum has swung for sure.

What I’d love to see, Alan, are boomer leaders like us hanging out with this next generation, even handing them the keys and saying, “You drive. I’m going to be in the passenger seat and you lead.” If we could have the millennials right by our side like that going forward, well, they would gain and we would gain. Anyone who is fifty or older needs a millennial that they’re sharing their lives with—both pouring into and receiving from. Boomers might be surprised at what would happen if we’d being willing to confess our mess—our brokenness—to these younger generations. Often, our experiences of mentoring from older generations felt like a one-way street. But mentoring with millennials works best as a two-way relationship.

 

AF:     I’ve had this experience most recently with my oldest son. I find that he is a source of insight and encouragement to me when we have meaningful conversation with one another. It’s not a one-way street. And in terms of that grace/truth continuum, I’ve gained a lot from this generation’s definition of truth as also encompassing relational and emotional reality. Truth is personal and living to them, and not only conceptual or pragmatic.

SM:     Yes, I agree. My simple definition of spiritual formation revolves around an ever-deepening understanding of my true self in relationship with our true God. The more we acknowledge our authentic selves and the more we know about the true God, the deeper we can go into this life with God. But if we’re not owning our true self and, instead, living in pretense, we aren’t seeing ourselves as we actually are. We need to see both the bright and colorful realities of who we are alongside the darker realities. Only then can we more fully appreciate the true God as lover, giver, redeemer, and servant. This true God has his eyes peeled for us from the porch of heaven, rather than being a God who looks down his nose as the strong disciplinarian watching for any sign of our stumbling. We’re spiritually formed into wholeness when we receive from God’s Spirit the image of Christlikeness he desires us to reflect as his dearly beloved children.

 

AF:     In light of what you’ve shared about how formation works, I’d love to hear you think out loud about how this intersects with what we see in Jesus and his own first followers. How do you see some of these dynamics in the way Jesus extends invitation to them or in how the disciples learn from him?

SM:     I love that topic, Alan. When I look at the Gospels, I see five main categories of people. First, I see those who are intrigued by him. The crowds gather along the shore, or on the mountainside, or in large homes where they’re mostly on the perimeter. They are curious about Jesus and his message. Second, I see those who are intimidated by Jesus. These are the scribes and Pharisees who wanted to trip him up and make a fool of him (always unsuccessfully, we might add). Third, there are those who are impacted by Jesus. These are like the woman who pushed her way through a crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment to be healed, or like the men who lowered their friend down through a ceiling to get him in front of Jesus. These are the ones who are healed and taught by Jesus. Fourth, there are those who are invited to follow. These are the disciples who respond to his “Come follow me” invitation. Jesus has a pretty good track record with these (even though there’s a Judas in the midst).

But it’s the fifth group that most intrigues me, and it’s those who are most intimate with Jesus. In this group, I see the woman at the feet of Jesus, who came to the dinner party without the customary casserole, but instead brought her most expensive perfume, poured it out on Jesus’ feet, and used her tears and her hair to worship and adore Jesus. These were all socially inappropriate actions. But intimacy doesn’t care about things like that. The woman is honestly broken before Jesus. Her intimacy with Jesus emerges from her willingness to be fully broken before him.

Or there is the prodigal who, when he finds himself sleeping with the pigs, awakens to the reality of his situation and returns home. All of his calculated apologies fade as he sees the father is running his direction. Or there is John the beloved disciple or Mary the mother of Jesus, those who are most deeply known, deeply loved, deeply forgiven, fully there, fully honest. So formation goes deeper not because of accumulated spiritual practices, insights, or accomplishments, but more likely because of our willingness to let go, relinquish, surrender, even die to a false vision of ourselves. If we’d like to be part of Jesus’ intimate community, we’re going to have to learn to let go. We’ll learn to be more honest about our true state and about our true and desperate need for God. That’s the sort of honesty into which my new book will invite the reader.

 

AF:     Isn’t it strange when we imagine that what God wants is for us to put on a good face? As though we could have an intimate relationship with him wearing a mask? It doesn’t make much sense for me to pray through a mask to a distorted image of God, does it?

SM:     Yes. This calls to mind that wonderful word from Augustine: “In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.” Incredible! It has been in my own deepest places of woundedness that I have begun to really see God’s bright, almost blinding glory. I really don’t want to lapse back into a life of pretense. It’s far more exhausting than a life of freedom that comes from truth telling and heartfelt authenticity.

 

AF:     To circle back, this is perhaps where the millennials can best lead the whole church community in this sort of honest relationship with God and one another. What these younger brothers and sisters help us see is that there is nothing in our lives that is not perfectly safe to bring into the presence of a gracious, forgiving, healing, and loving God. And whatever I bring that isn’t what it ought to be is somehow transformed. Any final comments you’d like to make as we bring this conversation to a close?

SM:     Yes. Let me say something about a topic you and I both care about, and that is what kind of leader a millennial most readily follows, and what kind of leader is a millennial at their best? The millennials I’ve encountered love being part of a meaningful, incarnational kind of ministry where love and acceptance is the first foot forward. They see the world as more flat and egalitarian than hierarchical. They don’t care much for the top-down thing. Millennials enjoy working in teams. They want anyone and everyone to feel like they have a meaningful role to play. They can lead the way in seeing technology as friend rather than distraction at best and enemy at worst. On the other hand, I’m concerned for my millennial friends that they may resist practices like solitude and silence in their tendency toward being constantly connected. They’ll much less likely be the workaholics our generation has often tended to be. They’d like to enjoy playing with us as well as working with us.

In fact, in this new season of ministry that I’m in, when I take my team on retreat together, there is no work. Period. It’s relationships, worship, laughter, preparing and enjoying meals together, and taking walks together. I haven’t had a “staff retreat” that’s included work in twelve years. It’s amazing. And I have the millennials and Gen Xers on our team to thank for that more life-giving approach.

 

AF:     That sounds amazing. Thank you for taking a little time to join me in this conversation. I’ve really enjoyed it!