By Rachael Oke and Glorious Afolayan
The Zonal Superintendent of CAC Nehemiah Generation Zone, United Kingdom, Pastor Simeon Oladokun has warned millennials of Christ Apostolic Church Youth Fellowship not to move ancient boundaries.
He stressed this during his lecture on "Maintaining the Ancient Landmarks in this Dynamic World" at the CACYOF Akinyele Region's Leadership Training Programme 2020 held at Gymnasium hall, National Stadium on Saturday March 14, 2020.
Establishing the connection between the generation of the founding fathers of the Church and this generation, Pastor Oladokun provided the distinctive features of each generation classifying them into builders, boomers, gen-Xers, and millennials.
According to him, the 'builders' generation consists of those born between 1929-1945, who had great fun for life, sees work as a duty, have a view only of close family, knew only slide rule as high tech tool and have the "save it now" attitude towards money; a category which was not in attendance during the lecture.
He identified the boomers as those born between 1946-1964, the "I will conquer it" generation who live to work who believe in dispersed family, had calculators as high tech tools and have the "buy it now" attitude towards money; the generation were few in attendance at the conference.
The Gen-Xers generation were identified by Pastor Oladokun to be the "I will endure it" generation born between 1965-1981, according to him, they work to live, have the "latchkey kids" family feature, had and have computers as high tech tools and have the "want it now" attitude to money; the attendance of the gen-Xers at the conference were though few, but more than the boomers generation.
Addressing one of the major points of his lecture, he explained the millennials as the "I will change the world generation" born between 1982-2000, who will work to make a difference, possess the "loose definition" view of family, have smartphones as high tech tools and always want to get money as quick as possible.
Distinguishing the older generation from this generation, he said "boomers delay projects till later while millennials do it now", this generation had the highest attendance at the conference.
In addition to the descriptions he gave on the each generation, he also highlighted the two sides (strengths and weaknesses) of millennials stating that the nature of millennials has and will have implications on their mode of leadership.
He added that the millennial generation is a generation of trial and error.
"The ability to commit yourself to doing things in leadership takes time and patience, to weigh this side and the other before you make up your mind, but for the millennials, it is let's do it and let's do it now and even though it doesn't work, we will redo it." He said.
While pointing out what it means to follow Jesus, Pastor Oladokun stated that sometimes, millennials refer to boomers as hypocrites.
"What it means to follow Jesus means to be authentic about your struggles, brokenness and doubts; sometimes you millennials look at us boomers as hypocrites because when our marriages are going through storms, we won't tell anyone, we say it is part of our cross; when we speak out of anger and you wonder why we are so angry, it's because many of us are depressed." He said.
Speaking on the boomer's perspective on millennials' questions on whether or not they need to be part of the Church to follow Jesus, Pastor Oladokun said: "Church is not like any other organization, the Church was birthed by God, Jesus being the head and there is a purpose for the birth of the Church which is to take gospel to the world and there are four things God wants the Church to do - gather regularly, appoint qualified leaders, to observe ordinances and to maintain discipline that matures and protects church, teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and as a result, you can't ignore the Church. If you say you love Jesus, you cannot love Jesus and ignore His wife."
Concluding his lecture and citing from Tim Elmore's quote, he said that the boomers cannot ignore the millennials.
"Regardless of what we think about the intelligence, emotional maturity or even the leadership skills of millennials, they will impact the world for the mere reason of their numbers. The boomers cannot ignore this issue; we cannot pretend they won't affect our future, if we are serious about transforming the world, we have to be serious about investing in this generation. What we do today as adults (builders or boomers) will no doubt determine who they will become as adults". He said.
Coming back to the main recipients of the lecture in his conclusions, Pastor Oladokun again, warned the millennial (youth leaders) not to move ancient landmarks.
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