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Creative Strategies for Urban Youth Ministry Using the Age Cohort Perspective
Jacob Isaac |
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| Introduction |
| The world around us is fast changing under the impact of globalisation. While the message of the gospel remains the same the methodology of presenting it needs to change and relate to an ever-changing context. But the uppermost question in urban contexts is the issue of a post-modern mission perspective. To have a proper understanding of how this context affects how we are to approach youth evangelism we need to first take a look at the age cohort perspective and then how this calls for creative thinking and action on issues that will take forward the church and mission of Jesus Christ. |
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The Age Cohort Perspective |
What is an age cohort? Virginia Valentine, Semiotic Solutions, UK defines it like this. “An age cohort, comprises a group of people born roughly at the same time in the same place or country. As a consequence, they experience the same major social, economic and political upheavals at about the same age. Their lives are punctuated by the same crises; they share the same nation memories, music, and clothes and enter each new decade (or event) at roughly the same stages in their lives. The shared lifetime experience of an age cohort shapes their world view.”
“Analysing youth … from the age cohort perspective can provide deeper insights as it enables a fundamental understanding of what is shaping their world view which in turn drives their values, attitudes and behaviour”.
This perspective can be further conceptualised as a continuous progression of age cohorts – the Residual (
The generation on the wane) being replaced by the
Dominant (the ruling generation), in turn making way for the E
mergent (the new generation that will soon be the dominant one). |
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| Youth in India – the Children of Liberalisation |
1985 marked the beginning of a new kind of India. ‘Liberal India’, conceived in 1985, gathered momentum in the 1990’s. This brought an ideological paradigm shift away from the preceding ‘Socialist India’, the most marked element of the shift being the change in attitude to consumption. The large ‘under-20’ market is the first age cohort of Liberal India. The children and pre-teen market of today were born after 1985, and the teenagers have had their consciousness shaped by Liberal India. What does this mean in terms of what makes them tick, and what are the differences we need to take note of between this youth ‘market’ and the earlier ‘markets’ we have known?
The Indian consumer base today has these distinctive age cohorts co-existing in large numbers. The residual pre-independence age cohort, the dominant “midnight’s children” who could equally aptly be called the ‘Rajiv Gandhi’ age cohort and the emergent cohort of ‘liberalization children’. Soon there will be a new emergent cohort, ‘millennium children’ who, God and politicians willing, could be a generation markedly different because they are shaped by an India of growth and plenty, well integrated with and respected by the world. |
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| The Pain of the Children of Liberalisation |
Each age cohort in India has it’s own kind of pain. If the pre-independence age cohort shouldered the pain of freedom fighting, midnight’s children have borne the pain of nation building. Midnight’s children have been the hardest hit by the ideological discontinuity of liberalization (everything you were told was right, you now are told is wrong), but the brunt of the actual pain of liberalization is being borne by Liberalization children.
This cohort is truly the ‘instability era’ generation. It is shaped by an age where there is no clear national leadership, where today’s crucial decisions may be overturned tomorrow, and where many conflicting voices and views are elbowing each other or worse accommodating each other in the quest for decision-making power. But by far the greatest cross that it has to bear is the insecurity of the cutting off of the old, with the new direction and destination yet to be defined. It’s values, attitudes and behaviour are being shaped by an India which is moving directionally forward, but in a two steps forward, one backwards, three sideways’ fashion. Their orientation is best described as ‘Hakuna Matata’. |
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| A Changing World-View |
The residual age cohort of the pre-independence generation was brought up in an atmosphere of Gandhian self-discipline, poor self worth vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and a rather hazy romanticism of national freedom, swadeshi and democracy. To consume was clearly sinful – this was the generation exhorted to embrace simple living and high thinking.
The dominant age cohort of midnight's children found its beacon in Rajiv Gandhi, with his clarion call to take India into the 21st century (a welcome change in strategy from ‘garibi hatao’). This cohort has been raised with a pathetic mixture of desire to consume, but an almost pathological guilt about doing so. It was removed from the Gandhian discourse of genteel poverty thanks to Nehru’s vision of self-reliant India, where consumption was not a morally reprehensible thing!
However the government determined what place consumption should have in your life. Year after year on budget day, midnight's children were punished with higher taxes for earning more and slapped with a steady stream of duties on what the government decided were luxuries. They were constantly told that if you have the temerity to want to consume what your poorer brethren couldn’t, be ready to pay a price for it.
This same age cohort burdened with high tax rates, and faced with schemes that condone black money, is also being exhorted to consume to avoid the horror of recession! What makes this age cohort especially relevant in any study of the youth market is that these are the parents who control the purse strings. And they are responding to their own dissonance in consumption values by vicariously consuming through their children.
Liberalisation children are the first generation of independent India brought up with a wholly positive discourse about consumption. Unhindered by concepts of Swadeshi, national identity to them is neither a cross nor a badge. It just is. This is the generation that is being shaped by the new national discourse – not contentment and stability (and the “Hindu rate of growth”) anymore, but “learn to earn more”, “keep up with the Joneses” “Look at China, why not us”… not protection of the weak anymore but survival of the fittest. Not ideology (and soft options) anymore but pragmatism (and bite the bullet). Is it any wonder that the youth in India is aggressively pursuing an agenda of self-improvement and that for them voting in elections is a bit of a waste of time? |
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| The Hallmarks of the Children of Liberalisation |
| Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand the mindset and goals of those who make up the youth market: |
| Pragmatism is the new mantra for these worldly-wise value-seekers, free from ideological constraints. |
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| “Hakuna Matata” or live for today. This is not surprising from a generation nurtured by instability, with no clear vision of the destination, except that it will be consumer goods paradise as shown on TV. |
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| Self improvement is the main agenda, with material goodies as the end game |
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| The routes to “Nirvana” are seen to be many. This is no longer shaped by the casteism of their parents – whereby material success as a doctor or engineer is far better than the same degree of material success as a garage owner or film- maker. |
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| The “This as Well as That” Generation |
“I want my MTV but in Hindi please”. “ I want my independence but not the freedom that comes of cutting the umbilical chord”. “I am disillusioned by the system and society, but rather than rebel, reject, change things, let me stay in the system partially disengaged”. “I want the comfort of a caring, supportive family, but I think of me first”. “ I want my parents to find me a girl but I also want to find her myself. So I won’t have an arranged marriage, but an engineered one”.
The more you look at them the more they seem to be a bundle of contradictions. What is happening out there? Liberalisation children are truly the ‘dissonance generation’. They are caught between two sets of very different discourses – at home, with their midnight’s children parents, and outside with the TV, friends, and workplace. They are in a situation where outer-directed change is revolutionary but inner change is evolutionary. They are also caught between a high aspiration to consume, (delivered through TV, advertisements and shops), but only moderate opportunity to do so (delivered by an economy growing moderately and fierce competition for everything from college admissions to jobs). This dissonance is far more severe in the lower income groups.
How do they resolve this dissonance? They follow the age-old Indian manner of not making a choice between ‘this or that’, but by selectively choosing, “this as well as that”. This is what makes them such a confusing mixture of attitudes, values and lifestyles.
The values we develop in our youth are the foundation for what we believe as adults. Understanding this concept is the most important tool in identifying why people of different generations value things differently. We need to use this knowledge of differences to lessen some generational tensions with those you live and work among.
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| What happened when they were teens? |
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| Pre-Independence age cohort – pain of independence |
| Builders (1901-1945) |
Radio, Great Depression, Second World War |
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| Industrialisation |
| Baby Boomers (1946-1964) |
Television, Cold War, Civil Rights |
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| Midnights children (Rajiv Gandhi Era) pain of nation building |
| Generation X (1965-1976) |
Watergate, “Me Generation”, AIDS, MTV, PCs |
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| Liberalisation Children (The New economy) |
Pragmatism, “Hakuna Matata”, Self-improvement, Routes to nirvana are many,
Net Generation (1977-1997) Internet, Domestic Terrorism, Booming Economy |
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| Millennium children (1997-2003 and beyond) |
| Software development, BPO’s, global village, travel, media revolution, online education, new age gurus, infrastructure development. |
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| The Clash of Value Systems |
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BUILDERS |
BOOMERS |
XERS |
NET-GEN |
| Marriage |
Married once |
Divorced |
Single parent |
N/A |
| Music |
Big Band/Swing |
Rock‘n’ Roll |
Alternative/Rap |
Ska/Swing |
| Money |
Save it now |
Buy it now |
Want it now |
Get it now |
| Purchasing |
Buy with cash |
Buy with credit |
Struggling to buy |
Buy online |
| Morals |
Judeo-Christian ethic |
Sensual |
Cautious |
Tolerant |
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he Concept of Creative Thinking as Foundational for Effective Evangelistic Action in Relation to a Particular Age Cohort
Creative thinking is the art of converting visions into practical ideas. It is a positive, controllable, and marvellous mental process. The mind can be directed and energized to perform this miraculous function, which every human being should be able to exercise.
Creative thinking is a form of exploration. Through imagination we send our minds into the uttermost parts of earth to search for knowledge and truth in crevices, dark caves, and places which may seem forbidding. The mind may come up with very precious discoveries, but at times it dredges up only broken pieces and incomplete fragments of information that do not provide solutions to the many problems that face man. However, even these can act as motivators to do deeper and more careful digging |
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| Ideas |
| Ideas are visions. Proverbs 29:18 states, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Churches and missionary societies would do well to heed this word. |
| Ideas are thoughts with great potential. One trouble is that we usually banter good ideas around, but do nothing practical with them. |
| Ideas are basically suppositions that sometimes can, if developed further, become the basis for theories that in turn lead to practical inventions and activities. |
| Many ideas have the potential of becoming principles. This may require much additional research and experimentation. Many ideas, like evolution, are not facts. They have not been and cannot be tested in actual situations. |
| Ideas are the seeds of Invention, but they need a fertile mind and proper cultivation. |
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| Creativity and perception |
The mind half perceives and half creates, although we may not be conscious of this. For example, our five senses receive information through hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling and smelling. This information is fed to the brain through the nervous system. The brain "sees" its surroundings by taking this sensory information and "creating" out of it an images that it can understand and use. Perceiving through the body's senses is a very delicate process. Correlating and combining all the information that comes through all the body's senses is a complex operation. It has to go through the process of "perception," or how we see things, before the new images can be created. This process can be influenced and distorted by our attitudes, by what other people say, and by the contradictions that might exist between the different physical senses.
For example: I might be interviewing a person for an important position in a Christian organization. He may turn out to be a very good-looking man. His speech may be flawless, and he may appear to have all the qualifications necessary for the job. As I interview, I build an images of him in my mind based on physical senses of hearing and seeing. On the basis of this information, I perceive him to be a fine man, but as we chat back and forth I smell an odour of alcohol and tobacco on his breath. Since I am prejudiced against these, this additional "smell" sense now completely recreates my images of this man. I now perceive him to be an entirely different person, and could easily come to the conclusion that he is not suitable for the position.
Perception is the harmonizing of sense impressions with attitudes to create a mental images of what is really there. The above sketch illustrates how the real images of a person may be completely changed as it goes through our process of perception. You will notice that our attitude acts as a filter in one instance, screening out information that is in the original object; at other times it adds things that are not there or are not detected by the five senses. We cannot survive without our minds. We inherit the products of other people’s minds, but no one can give another the capacity to think. Thinking is an individual effort; and the capacity to think creatively can be improved by proper procedures and practice. |
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| How ideas are created |
Ideas are a product of the brain. They have their origin in some form of prompting but develop by deliberate effort and operation of the brain in the form of imagination and thinking. The functions of the lungs, stomach and other body organs are automatic, but not all the functions of the brain are. The connections for logical thought are not made by instinct. Man must obtain knowledge and choose his action by the process of thinking.
Very few ideas are from one brain only, but are the product of many brains working separately and collectively over a long period of time. Additions and correlations produce new concepts. There are the originators of new ideas, and then there are the "borrowers" of other people's ideas. |
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| Biblically ideas may be sparked or triggered by Mankind, God or Satan |
By Mankind: Jeremiah 49:30; Genesis 8:21; Luke 1:51; Psalm 2:1; Romans 1:21.
The seed is sown in our brain by someone's word or action. We then develop it by correlating our ideas and opinions, thus cultivating and fertilizing it until it matures. |
| By God. Nehemiah 2:12; Acts 13:2; 2 Corinthians 10:5 |
| By Satan. Acts 5:3,4. |
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| Routine Thinking. |
| Routine is the force that stabilises societies, but carried to extremes it leads to stagnation and produces routine people. It allows little deviation from the traditional way of life and requires little creative thinking. Creative thinking, on the other hand, brings about change in our habitual ways. It makes people more sensitive and responsive to needs and reality, and less content with what is already in hand, regardless of how good it may be. |
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| Myths About Creativity |
| Creative strategies are costly - the church cannot afford it. |
| Creativity is not spiritual – it involves the selfish nature of man |
| Creativity distracts us from the real purpose – it is not the real thing. The intention of creativity is to keep the eyes of the people focused on the non-important things |
| Creative strategies are not part of God’s plan communicating gospel – they are man-made |
| Creativity is only good for running businesses |
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Creative Approaches to Youth Evangelism in a Changing Context
Post-Modern Evangelism |
| For a post-modern urban youth context there is a typical corresponding post-modern approach to evangelism: |
| Post-modern preachers don’t populate the church they connect people to the living Christ. |
| Post-modern evangelism doesn’t say to the world, “come to church”, rather it says to the church, “go to the world”. |
| Post-modern evangelism is recognizing that God is already at working people’s lives before we arrived on the scene, and that our role is helping to see how God is present and active in their lives, calling them home. |
| Post-modern evangelism is not “I have Jesus and you don’t. How can I get you here so that I can give you my Jesus?” but “You already know Jesus, even if you don’t think you know Jesus.” |
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| Develop John the Baptist Ministries |
| John the Baptist had a ministry that came before Christ, not after Christ. John the Baptist met people where they were, as Jesus did after Him. The advertising world has discovered the power of lifestyle marketing wherein companies go beyond selling products to selling lifestyle – what to wear, drink, play, drive and eat. More John the Baptist ministries means more body evangelism and lifestyle evangelism that emphasizes the quality of living in Christ. For post-moderns participation and conversation come before conversion. |
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| Some Suggestions and Creative Ideas |
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| Coffee house and café’s – as hangouts for young people. |
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| Libraries of books, periodicals and VCD, DVD, etc. |
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| Training workshops in colleges - Emotional intelligence, awareness programmes on drugs, sex, AIDS, peer pressure, value education classes, |
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| Publish books, periodicals, magazines that will carry positive messages into the hands of the students. |
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| Live music bands – not just to play at Christian events but professional in nature competing and rubbing shoulders with bands in the secular music circuit. |
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| Tuition centres, computer institutes, skill learning institutes – art, painting, dramatics, music, vocal training, terracotta, batik, pottery, baking, beauty tips, etc. |
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| Open homes – as places of refuge for students to chill out |
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| Dorms and living quarters for students like hostels, Post-Graduate accommodation, working women hostels. |
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| Eateries, dining halls, student mess arrangements, Cyber parlours, telephone booths |
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| Gymnasiums, fitness centres and health spas for the health conscious. Many health and fitness related issues could be related to self-esteem issues |
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| Counselling centres across the cities with attractive exteriors and interiors in strategic locations across the city. This could attract the youth into these places to seek guidance and counsel. |
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| Urbanisation draws people to cities, but unintentionally tends to alienate people from their cultural roots. Most young people growing up in urban centres find themselves distant from their language, people and culture. Therefore we need to create cultural centres in cities, for example a Punjabi Association could be formed or cultural events organized from periodically by a group of believers from the same community. |
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| Close on the heels of the coffee house – discotheques that do not serve alcoholic beverages - could be started to promote qualitative and clean fun. |
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| Musicals and stage performances attracting the best talent and providing ample opportunities to rub shoulders and interact with other like minded youth e.g. “The Emily diary” “The River Tribe”. |
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| Colleges are not just institutions but hangouts for the young to meet and disperse to various destinations of interest. Therefore inter-collegiate competitions in drama and music can attract young people to be involved. |
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| Conclusion |
| This paper is not exhaustive, but an attempt to get us thinking about effective evangelistic responses primarily to urban and educated young people in South Asia who fall into a typical age cohort and who have been much influenced by the processes of globalisation. The success of our evangelism is not in just adapting new methods but in changing our attitudes. This is the first step in seeing the transformation of our youth. |
