This book deals with a strategy for reaching postmodern generations. Its author is not a young man; he has been involved in Intervarsity ministry for many years in the USA. He has much maturity and the book is written out of first hand experience of the changes taking place both in culture and in young people through these last thirty to forty years. Some will have heard the term ‘postmodern’ and will know it refers to the fact that profound changes have been taking place over these last decades. The age of modernity is giving way to the age known by many as the postmodern age. This book attempts to outline these changes and the way they impact the generations. Mention is made of the Baby Boomer generation which goes through from about 1946 through to the mid 1960s; then the changes developed which led the children born between about 1968 through to the early 1990’s to be known as ‘Generation X”, partly because there was a profound sense of loss of identity regarded as typical of many of them. From the year 1990 onwards the children born are known as Millennials and display further changes of attitude, thought, indeed in almost every way. These things are documented in the book most helpfully. The implication is that the church can no longer minister in the ways which pertained up to the years of 1968 or thereabouts. It needs deep adjustment and understanding, alteration of approach based on serious appreciation of these significant changes in society. This book handles these matters in a mature manner unlike some of the other offerings written on this subject. It traces the connections between the development of postmodernism and these emerging younger people. The book is clear and thoughtful and offers concrete help to those desiring to be able to minister the things of God in a meaningful way to the men and women both of the Generation X and the Millennials. Anyone with their eyes open, particularly in the western world will be aware that there is a new generation arising, in so many ways unlike those born earlier in the twentieth century, this is unstoppable bearing in mind the great changes in our world. Jimmy Long describes the way these people think, their longings and aspirations and their hopelessness as well. His descriptions of what it will take for the church to embrace these young people are perceptive and practical and many or them will resonate with thoughtful people in the churches. You must remember when reading this book that it is not full of allusions to scripture, it is not one of exposition, there is scarcely a mention of these things in it but this is a book describing a phenomenon-taking place in our world that we must more and more take note of and understand. We must learn to serve the Lord and men and women in the context of it all the while remembering that God is able to tune His church to the needs of the day and His gospel and basic ways have not altered with the passing of time.
