There is excitement in being sure and unsure at the same time. To enjoy ritual and tradition while dipping a toe into waters creative and fresh. And to be in seeming contradiction on purpose, with intention, that is most exciting at all. That’s what it is to see one as living the life mosaic.
Around a year ago I read some material for a course on young adults and the church. Sociologists studying trends in and outside the church sought to answer to a big question: “What is young people’s relationship with the church?” Some churches congregations see many young adults but overall, many young adults simply don’t “do church.” That’s a subject for another time. Today I want to focus on some language these writers used to describe young adults.
- In You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church… and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman of the Barna Group, he describes how his firm defines what is often referred to as Millennials or Gen Y as “Mosaics” because “it reflects their eclectic relationships, thinking styles, and learning formats,” and so on. Kinnaman further explains mosaics, amongst other details, also