Nones

A young man is standing in a church. He is looking at the people around. He doesn’t recognize anyone. He turns to the person on the left and asks, “Excuse me, do you know anyone here?” The person on the left looks at him like he just came from Mars and gestures him to be silent, “shhh.” He turns to the person on the right and asks the same question, “Excuse me, do you know anyone in the church?” Again, the person looks at him wondering why he is interrupting the service, and says, “No, of course not. I’ve seen some before. But no. What’s wrong with you…?”

In various articles and studies, like for example in Harvard School of Divinity “Millennials haven’t forgotten spirituality, they’re just looking for new venues,” we learn about “religious nones.” Who are they?

Nones – people who have no religious institutional affiliation – the term came from a check box on official forms where a person can check off “None” (of the above) for religious affiliation, vs. for example: “Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish, etc.” Thus the term “Nones.”

“We live in global information culture” – Ryan Bolger

There was a time of modern church, then post-modern church, now we live in “global information culture”:

• no more sacred spaces, any space can be sacred – profane becomes sacred
• the church has gone global
• the local church has been emptied of significance
• identity by what you consume to identity by what you create

“You have to always put the church in national and social context of people” – Donald McGavran

Nones want to be spiritual but not necessarily religious. It used to be 5% of people in 1960s, millennials is 30%.

Nones are looking for 6-7 things and any place that does that, will get their attention:

1. community
2. personal transformation
3. social transformation – see the world change
4. purpose
5. place for creativity
6. place that is accountable, real, things are happening there
7. grounds for being – meaning, significance, something deep

All of the above is birthright of christianity! 

Nones:

• no longer want to go to church, believe it’s toxic to their spirituality
• 20% of Nones are new atheists – scientism, humanism
• virtual church

Practice:

• to get better in loving people, forgiving…
• traditional church purpose: theosis – union/one with God
• millennials don’t want passive spectator experience, they want to be very involved. It’s almost like spirituality cannot exist in institutional context for them.

We will take a closer look at each of these topics in future articles. 
To be continued…

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