Leading the Next Generation

Not long ago I was invited to an event to share my story with some guys who are discerning the priesthood. A friend of mine asked me to share why I decided to get married and also how I saw working in a parish as my vocation. I enjoyed giving the presentation and hope it benefitted the college students who heard it.

After I shared my story, a young vocations director who happened to be in town was asked to share a few thoughts. He didn’t speak long but he did say, “Your generation is so selfish. Don’t be like them. Be generous with your lives and commit to Christ.” Then one of the young men said, “Got it. Stand against our generation.” I was a bit horrified. It was a moment where you want to correct something and jump up and shout, “No, don’t listen to him!” And then you are trying to think of how to steer the conversation in another direction. But it wasn’t my meeting to run and I couldn’t think of what exactly to say and it was the end of the night, so I said nothing. So that’s why I decided to write this post.

Why was I horrified?

Obviously it wasn’t the part about being generous and committing our lives to Christ.

I was horrified for two reasons:

First, this director had (I’m sure unintentionally) pitted these students against their peers and their generation. Those kinds of words form Pharisees – people who turn to faith and religion to separate from their peers and their generation rather than to serve them. He planted a seed of self-righteousness in their minds. “My generation, my peers, are selfish but I’m generous because I am giving my life to God.” We don’t need that seed of pride planted. It’s in human nature to criticize and judge our peers. I remember in high school and college criticizing my own fellow students and their efforts – sometimes out of an air of superiority, sometimes out of frustration, and often out of jealousy and envy and my own insecurity. I see the same pattern repeated in my teenage kids at times.

Rather than telling these young men to live opposite their peers, he could have told them to serve their peers. That would have been a more helpful message. He could have shared that they had been given a gift of faith that many in their generation don’t have yet. But they have the privilege of sharing that gift with their generation. They can be like David about whom it was said in Acts 13:36 that he “served God in his generation” and one of the key ways we serve God is by bringing people disconnected from him into a relationship with him.

Second, I was horrified because there is a tendency for us as adults to be harder on the next generation and abdicate our role in forming them. Every generation could say of the generation behind them, “They are so selfish.” We are all born selfish. We have to learn generosity - and every other virtue. And whose responsibility it is to teach and form the people behind us in generosity? It’s the generation of people who are ahead of them.

As I turned 50 this past year, I have realized that I have about 20 years left to work and make an impact. It’s become clearer and clearer to me that one of the greatest ways God has called me to make an impact is to invest in the next generation, especially the next generation of young leaders. So many adults who were in their 40’s and 50’s invested in me as a young leader. They had patience with me. They recognized both the good I already possessed and the potential for greater good. They helped me work on my weaknesses and flaws.

The next generation of leaders has much to learn but they will not learn it by us criticizing them, but recognizing their gifts, affirming their potential, believing in them for great things and calling them to serve God in their generation. The song “Hosanna” by Hillsong says, “I see a generation rising up to take their place with selfless faith.” Let’s believe the next generation will step up with selfless faith and help them grow in that direction.

Rooting for you,
Tom