The Gospel for Generation X
Dieter Zander
Busters don't want to talk; they want to respond. This is their great strength.
—Dieter Zander Perhaps no other generation has needed the church so much, yet sought it so little. In Life after God, Douglas Coupland describes this generation: "Life was charmed but without politics or religion. It was the life of the children of the pioneers—life after God. A life of earthly salvation on the edge of heaven." Coupland is writing about baby busters, those now in their teens, twenties, and early thirties. The surge in births following World War II gave us the baby boom and the huge, wellknown generation dubbed baby boomers. From about 1965 through 1980, the number of births went bust, giving a name to a new generation with a substantially different mind-set. Sometimes called Generation X, this group has been much maligned and badly stereotyped in the media. I began working with busters while coaching the Pomona (California) College soccer team. I invited the players to church. They shook their heads. "I don't want to go 'cause it's boring, irrelevant, and there's no one there like me," was a typical response. I'd say, "Well, they've got this great singles thing." But then came the reply, "I'm not into a singles thing, either." That puzzled me; when I was single, I would have been drawn to a singles group. But this generation was saying, "Look, if it's not for me, I'm not interested." I learned that busters don't want to be a boomer subset, waiting to become "legitimate." What came out of those conversations was a wild idea of starting a church, and in 1986, I helped launch New Song, a church for busters. When I left last year, to create a buster ministry at Willow Creek Community Church, the average age of New Song members was twenty-six. ...
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