Volume 19, Number 4.
Pastor Luke Thompson looks into two seemingly conflicting aspects of the Millennial generation: the appeal of rebellion and the draw to a cause. The Gospel is a life-changing and world-altering message that can, perhaps surprisingly, both of those bases.
Rebel Without a Cause
If we take a quick scan through the 2013 TEDx Youth San Diego program, we notice some similarities between the guest speakers. Matthew Emerzian, among other things, is author of Every Monday Matters – 52 Ways to Make a Difference. Shaka Senghor recently published Live in Peace: A Youth Guide to Turning Hurt into Hope. Brittany Wenger is a biology and computer science freshman at Duke who won several awards for Breast Cancer awareness and fundraising projects. Martina Gray offers yoga instruction to bring peace and alignment into the lives of her students. David Joseph, a UCLA junior, co-founded Northern Uganda Medical Mission. And so what do we get when we bridge TED talks (the world’s most popular platform for brilliant people sharing ideas on technology, entertainment, and design) with Millennials?1 We get a full slate of brilliant people interested in causes, interested in being parts of little revolutions for social and global change. It’s not enough to simply be brilliant. You need to be both brilliant and changing the world, both a renaissance man and a rebel.