For a study guide see page 23.


Most young


adults, like anyone, don’t want to be talked to about money.


types can’t all be true, can they? I can prove it: my parents don’t even have a basement! I not only go to church, I help lead worship. Certainly times are changing,


and young adults change with the times—as we all must do—but it seems unreasonable to paint with such a broad generational brush. Many in our congregations


would be off ended, and rightly so, if we started a sentence with: “Old people these days .…” Similarly, we in the church can do better than describe all young adults as believ- ing, thinking or acting the same. T ere are more than 70 million


people in the so-called millennial generation—more than 70 million people God fearfully and wonder- fully made. Sometimes it’s helpful to con- sider similarities among particular groups, or what sociologists call “cohorts” of young adults. But soci- ologist Andrew Lindner, assistant professor at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., explained to me: “Generational theories tend to confl ate cohort eff ects with age and time period. In many cases, tradi- tional dividing lines like social class, race and gender explain a lot more about social patterns than genera- tional diff erences do.” When Lindner warned about


speaking about “young adults” too generally, I considered the diverse fi nancial situations of my friends and peers. I know an unmarried millennial who makes $200,000 a year, has a trust fund and drives a BMW. I know a married millen- nial who, with her husband, makes $35,000 a year and owns no car. I know others who show enormous


generosity, giving away at least 10 percent of their income each year, and others who give away less than 1 percent. I know millennials who rent $500-a-month apartments and own $500,000 homes. I know those with graduate degrees who have no student loans, and ones with more than $250,000 in student debt. Instead of generalizing about all


young people, I’ve opted to general- ize about the church itself. I’ve done my best to limit generalizations about all young adults today. Heck, even if those headlines about all 70 million millennials were true, the much smaller cohort who are actually members of our Lutheran congregations surely have their own characteristics. With these realities in mind, here


are fi ve myths about young adults and giving, and suggested ways to engage in ministry with them.


Myth No. 1


Young adults don’t want


to talk about money.


When the leaders of Jacob’s Well, an ELCA congregation in Minneapolis popular with young adults, survey members about themes for sermons, money is always among the top three requested topics. Greg Meyer, pastor, explained why: “Money is a


huge hurt in people’s lives. At best, it’s unused potential, but at worst it’s a deep place of pain.” Sure, most young adults, like


anyone, don’t want to be talked to about money. We don’t want people (some who make thousands more than we do and who grew up in diff erent economic periods than we did) to lecture us about why we should give more and spend less. But this doesn’t mean we don’t want to talk about money. As the surveys at Jacob’s Well suggest, many young adults long to talk about money because it marks both pain and potential in our lives.


Correcting myth No. 1


Talk about money in real, honest


and holistic ways.


Grace Duddy Pomroy, fi nancial education specialist at Portico Ben- efi t Services and a millennial herself, said many congregations aren’t doing enough to talk about steward- ship and debt with young people. “Many young adults long for an


integrated approach to money,” she said. “T ey don’t want to compart- mentalize their lives between church and everything else. T ey want a place that connects the dots between


November 2015 17


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