Sin of cynicism may keep young adults
from participating in life of our churches

One of the four initiatives that the Southwest Texas Annual Conference session adopted in June
concerns the recruitment of younger clergy members.
Soon after we voted to accept this initiative for our future efforts as a conference, I attended Bishops Week at Mount Sequoyah in Arkansas. The focus there was on developing ministries with young adults.
Since I am neither a young clergy member nor a young adult, I invited one of each to attend with me and to listen and process what was presented.
The Rev. Greg Jones, dean of the Duke University Divinity School, led a workshop for district superintendents and also lectured to the entire Bishops Week group. He was joined by Bishop Will Willimon, who left his post at Duke three years ago to become bishop of Alabama. Each has dedicated a large portion of his life’s work to involvement with young adults. It was a blessing to me to receive the insights, passion, humor and frustration shared by
these two leaders in The United Methodist Church.
However, during the event, I kept feeling an overwhelming desire to confess my own sin and the sin of the church. Maybe it was the young company I was keeping and my desire to understand from their perspective,
but my thoughts focused on the sin of cynicism.
As a young seminary student, I adopted some cynicism about whether or not my professors understood the real world of local church ministry I would enter. During the probationary period leading to ordination, I was exposed to a great deal of cynicism from experienced pastors complaining about the laity in their churches, colleagues, authority figures in ministry and the institution of The United Methodist Church.
I joined that particular club of complainers after I was ordained.
At Bishops Week, I realized how deeply cynicism has worked its way into my soul, and I felt convicted. Listening to me complain, why would any young person want to be ordained or even participate in a church?
Beyond the state of my own soul, I realized that this sin is not only individual but corporate. The soul of the body of Christ is stained by the sin of cynicism. I participate all the time in conversations with others who express cynicism about pastors, laypeople, local churches, the district or the conference.
The sin of cynicism seems to cut across all the distinctions we would make, such as clergy and laity, male and female, city dwellers or country folks, liberal or conservative, and to cut through all ages, classes, races and ethnic groups.
Listening to us complain, why would any young person want to be ordained or even participate in a church? No wonder young clergy members and young adults are missing.
Cynicism this deep and prevalent is a spiritual problem. Cynics stop believing that God is at work in us and in others. Cynics stop trusting that God is creating a new thing and that we will be part of it. Cynics stop working toward the vision of God’s kingdom come upon the earth.
Of course, cynicism is not a new spiritual problem. Didn’t those who wandered in the wilderness become cynical that God was truly leading them out of danger and in a new direction? Didn’t second generation Christians become cynical about Christ’s coming again when the first generation died out? And those Anglican leaders who first heard John Wesley preach in the open air, didn’t they think it could never amount to anything significant?
How I started down this path of reflection and confession was in response to one comment by Jones.
In a list of elements of Christianity that are attractive to young adults, Jones mentioned that young adults desire what is life-giving. Then he asked: How many congregations are mirrors of the brokenness in the world rather than windows into imagination and the power of the gospel?
Life-giving is the phrase that convicted me. At the center of our proclamation of Jesus Christ is the claim that we follow in the path of discipleship because it leads to abundant life.
By listening to our conversations or watching us function in our congregations, would others
know that discipleship in Jesus Christ is life-giving?
Forgive us, Lord, for we do not know what we do when we commit the sin of cynicism.