On Being a Millennial in Mission
A typical Sunday in Austria. My colleague arrives 30 minutes late with the food for brunch. There’s a scurry to arrange the tables and scramble the eggs. Small children rush around while a last minute worship practice goes on in the background. Coffee is a necessity. People wander in and take their places around the table. We pray and eat. After worshipping in Spanish I slip out to the kids’ room. Trilingual children fight over lego and then settle down to listen to the story, placated with popcorn. When they excitedly respond to the story and exclaim over the craft idea I found on Pinterest, my mood soars. When they ignore everything I say and it seems like all they want is to pick a fight and annoy each other as much as possible, I feel like a failure.
We head across the street to join the Farsi community for lunch. I attempt to connect with those sitting beside me in broken German. Sometimes a ‘Wie geht’s dir?’ (How are you?) and shared enjoyment of the food is all that is possible. Outside, groups gather to chat and smoke before the service. After countless handshakes and greetings we begin Farsi worship. My phone buzzes in my pocket. Another WhatsApp message. Who’s responsible for set-up for the German service? We need more helpers over at Donauhof. I leave after the sermon, just as they’re calling up those who have asylum interviews that week to pray for them. On the train across the city I check emails and messages, arrange a Skype with a friend over in the US, scroll through Instagram. Another message, from one of the pastors who’s preaching elsewhere this Sunday. She left supplies for hot dogs in the fridge. Can we prepare them for after the German service?
Over at Donauhof, the old Danube hotel we’re in the slow process of renovating, I help with cleaning the toilets and the cafe area. A few people are already gathering, drinking coffee and chatting. The service won’t begin for another hour or so but this is as much a part of church as the sermon. The place slowly fills up. Caught up in conversation, we lose track of time. A little after 5pm we begin worship, this time in German and English. I do my best to follow along with the sermon, looking up unfamiliar words on my phone. Thank God for the Google Translate app. After the service the conversations continue over hot dogs and beer. Plans are made for a midweek dinner. One of our Iranian friends was recently granted asylum and is inviting everyone to a party on Friday night. More food, more community, more shared life. This is Church.
My initial reaction is to resist the label ‘Millennial', to resist that kind of categorising and stereotyping of whole generations. But then I see how so many of the characteristics of Millennials map onto my experience, the way that I live and think, the way we do church in Vienna. We are a community of students, refugees, young families. Most of us fit into the ‘Millennial' category. We’re sociable, often spontaneous, easily distracted. We crave newness, flexibility, affirmation. Family and community are a high priority. The church, for us, is about shared life. There are a lot of strengths to the way that we do things. And inevitably there are pitfalls. Inevitably, the way we do ministry looks different from the generations before us. But it seems to me that what we’re trying to do is just to live out life with God in the specific circumstances we find ourselves in. And that’s all any of us can do really.
Photo by Jacek Dylag.