Emerging College Generation and Missions: Issues, Attitudes, Postures and Passions

How do today’s students view missions and cross-cultural service? What do they value? How can we prepare them for global service? Each new generation of mission-minded college students brings new assumptions and attitudes to the global mission enterprise. My work with these students as an educator in intercultural studies has provided the opportunity to ask, “How do today’s students view missions and cross-cultural service? What do they value? How can we best prepare them for global service?” The following thoughts are based upon reading, interview and observation, as I have worked with traditional undergraduate college students (ages eighteen to twenty-one) who are part of the larger group commonly called “The Millennial Generation.” These are broad-brush characterizations of this generation. There are exceptions to all the points below. I offer these observations as a digital snapshot to help others who work in missions training, mobilization and supervision