{"id":643,"date":"2021-04-26T18:46:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T18:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/?p=643"},"modified":"2021-04-27T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T01:28:08","slug":"it-all-started-in-a-living-room-how-intergenerational-communication-led-to-a-millennial-returning-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/26\/it-all-started-in-a-living-room-how-intergenerational-communication-led-to-a-millennial-returning-to-church\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt all started in a living room\u201d: How intergenerational communication led to a Millennial returning to church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Kaleb and his stepfather Tim. (Photo courtesy of Kaleb Eisele)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Megan Yoshioka<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaleb Eisele is the founder of the storytelling platform Humans of Adventism. Although he grew up Adventist and is a member of the Adventist church today, at one point in his life, he left the church. As a young person and a member of the Millennial generation, he felt unheard and like his opinion did not matter within the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I left the church, I didn\u2019t feel like my voice mattered,\u201d Eisele said. \u201cI felt like my job was to be quiet and to do what I was told \u2014 kind of to just accept the offering plate job. Or, accept the choir singing job, which I didn\u2019t want to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHonestly, as someone who is working full-time, in college, married \u2026 I really felt like, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t want to be a junior deacon. I\u2019m sorry I don\u2019t want to join the choir. I have plenty of things to offer the church, but not those things.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Eisele, his stepfather, Tim Baumgarten, played a significant role in his decision to return to the church. Baumgarten is a member of the Baby Boomer generation and, as a corporate trainer, works often with the topic of intergenerational communication. He applies his skills at work, in church and even within his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the great things Tim has always done in our relationship is just ask my opinion,\u201d Eisele said. \u201cAnd I think that was something really important to me as a young person in Adventism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with our journalism class, Eisele said his decision to come back to the church all started in a living room. On Saturday afternoons, Eisele said he and his family of three different generations would sit down and talk about difficult topics, including religion. In those discussions, Eisele said he felt that his family genuinely desired to get to know him and understand his perspective, even if they disagreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really early into those discussions that I felt something different, something that I had been lacking in my other church experiences,\u201d Eisele said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through those conversations, Baumgarten said he started recognizing generational differences between himself and Eisele. He also noticed the generational gap within their church and saw a need for better understanding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more I dove into this, the more I started understanding how much none of us knew about each other \u2014 and it went in two directions,\u201d Baumgarten said. \u201cWe kind of took the living room talks and introduced them to the church. And it really began this journey. It really began to open up our folks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eisele started feeling more heard within his church. He recalled one day when he was invited to speak at the church board meeting about a social media strategy and creating a church Facebook page. Regardless of the board\u2019s decision to accept or reject his idea, Eisele said he just appreciated the fact that they created a space for him to speak and share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board actually ended up asking Eisele to present his idea to the rest of the church body. Eisele said he went before the church, introduced the idea and explained the importance of the internet in today\u2019s society. After his speech, two older men approached him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfterward, I had two older men, probably in their 70s or 80s, come forward and say, \u2018If you\u2019ll do this for us, we\u2019ll pay for it,\u2019\u201d Eisele said. \u201c\u2018Whatever equipment the church needs, we\u2019ll buy it. We don\u2019t even have to micromanage it, we believe in you.\u2019 And that really changed things for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intergenerational communication led Eisele back into the church and opened opportunities for him. It set the foundation for trust between him and older church members. And, according to Eisele, \u201cIt all started in a living room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs somebody who was raised Seventh day-Adventist\u2026 [and] decided to leave the church for several years, intergenerational communication is something that was very important in bringing me back into the church experience, back into connection with my Adventist family,\u201d Eisele said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Yoshioka Kaleb Eisele is the founder of the storytelling platform Humans of Adventism. Although he grew up Adventist and is a member of the Adventist church today, at one point in his life, he left the church. As a young person and a member of the Millennial generation, he felt unheard and like … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “\u201cIt all started in a living room\u201d: How intergenerational communication led to a Millennial returning to church”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generational-divide.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}