I think Rex Miller does a wonderful job painting a picture of current reality and hints towards future possibilities here in The iGen Manifesto. I like the tone of the article which is open ended with a open source flavor. It’s not a blank page but a place to start if we are serious about facing the tremendous changes day by day. I’m always tickled with Luther emerges in articles like this …well, here are 11 items to get the ball rolling:
“Every revolution needs a manifesto. Here are opening salvos for the iGen Manifesto. But Web 2.0 is collaborative, so I expect to see many additions to the Manifesto. Check out these first 11 items, and see if you can add to them:
- We expect content on demand! Access to plentiful, accessible content—when, where and how we want it.
- We expect Open Source resources! Content needs to be readily available to rip, mix and burn for novel use.
- Amateurs are cool, professionals are old school. The root word for amateur is “to love.” Amateurs play because of their passion, not because of their position. Content is easy—passion is rare.
- We expect a Participation Context in every phase of church life. We, the congregation, want to co-create our experience. “Let everyone come with a psalm and hymn and a spiritual song.”
- We want a Platform for involvement not a viewer’s forum. We want church transformed from a place of attraction and content transfer to a platform of resources to connect, create and grow.
- We do not need more content—we need more Mentors! We want leaders to shift from being prime movers and “franchise” attractions to mentors and catalysts—this was once called “servant-leadership.”
- We want contexts for social networking and a radical shift away from the current activity machine. We want church to be more like an extended family and open bazaar of exchange and service to one-another.
- We want to redefine the local church as the local church! We want to see ourselves as one congregation interconnected and interdependent with the other congregations in our community.
- We want to talk and act globally not as though there were three separate worlds (the good people, the communists and those poor developing countries).
- We want to see artificial boundaries dissolve and a convergence of church, charity, community and commerce.
- We are the Long Tail. We want to be taken off the shelf and to make a difference. We want to move away from a mass-market approach.”