Funny thing, the coolness meter doesn't register what you'd think. It's not about skinny jeans or tight plaid shirts or funky hair. The coolness scale isn't about hip Urban Dictionary dialects or text hieroglyphics. That meter on the right can't gauge sun-glasses, designer socks, or shoulder bags. No, cool is much deeper than that.
Of course, my list are false positives. They're a figment of my imagination, the product of my own very uncool milieu. You see, fat old guys often wrongly think cool is something physical. Which is blatantly wrong.
Our daughter Liz whacked me with that stuff ten years ago when Harriet and I moved to North Charleston. Our new context at Northwood Baptist Church was younger, the campus surrounded by eleven apartment complexes, and two sub-divisions aimed at first time home buyers. So, Liz said, "Please dad, don't try to be cool"! Ouch, like a 54 year old can't talk the language of the culture. But, it was a spot on comment, a warning that addresses a real flaw in many of our observation skills.
So, how do you connect with a young, millennial demographic? Many of us preacher types go simple here, maybe shallow is the term. We tend to think cool connects, and that cool is a look, a language, a lifestyle, labels, leanness, liberated, loose, and a whole Thesaurus of descriptives. As a result, the landscape is suddenly cluttered with pot-bellied grey heads packed into slim cut jeans, talking the talk and trying to walk the walk of coolness. And, since it takes one to know one, let me add that this pretense is totally uncool.
It's the school of hard knocks, a few lessons about nerdiness and coolness learned while trying to engage a young world. Mark it down. [1] Coolness does connect with the younger generational cohort. [2] Contrary to first impressions, coolness isn't about any of the physical or material stuff. [3] What is really cool to this group is authenticity. You know, being real. [4] Truth resonates loudly among the younger set. [5] Millennials can detect uncool on the spot.
Maybe everybody else already knows this. But, with twenty SBC churhces closing every week there's a rush to find new ways to connect. This is especially true of the Millennial cohort because of the six generations, they're the least engaged by the church. For this reason many of our wisest and most seasoned ministers have fallen for the trick that snares so many of our colleagues: preaching and teaching for the approval or applause of men rather than God. It's the holy grail thing, or the search for the fountain of youth. The scramble for coolness has many of us becoming the fakes we preach about every Sunday. Uh, that would be hypocrites, biblically.
No, many of America's great contemporary preachers aren't cool by the pop culture standard. They are cool, and extremely effective, because they speak truth straight down the line, pull no punches, and tell everyone about Jesus, the one who radically changes things. You know it's true, Jesus himself never tried to be cool or get people to like Him. He spoke the language of the Kingdom, truth that could set them free.
Jesus said the world wouldn't like us anyway. He promised blessings if we suffer as a result of following Him. So, let's hitch up the full cut jeans and be authentically His. Anything else is uncool.
Uncool.
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