Are Churches Giving Tacit Approval to be Exclusive?
THE SHOCK ABSORBER
There's a Russian proverb Stu loves: clowns go ahead of the circus to drum up interest before it arrives in the village.
In the 1980s, the church wasn't despised—it was irrelevant. The pub rock scene was where everyone wanted to be. Rock and roll was an addiction. Music challenged the gospel in ways the church couldn't compete with. Church was seen as a clown show.
When Stu started teaching scripture in schools, he felt like a clown. An older person once told him, "Stu, unchurched people won't come to this church." He felt like a clown at church too.
So on his way into school one day, using Kurt Cobain as inspiration, Stu said to himself: "I'm just going to be a Christian."
Not cool Christianity. Not bait-and-switch Christianity. Not youth group with games and pizza to hide the gospel. Just... Christian.
Fast forward 30-plus years, and Stu is finishing a PhD exploring why that instinct—to take off the clown suit and just be confident in Jesus—actually works. And why most churches are accidentally approving exclusivity by refusing to do it.
The PhD Journey
Stu originally started a PhD in 1992 to write about the history of youth ministry and why young people were leaving the church. It was deeply personal, because many young people were leaving his church, and he wanted to understand why.
But life got in the way. The busyness running Soul Revival youth ministry. His supervisor pushed him to write from a neo-Marxist perspective and then said, "You need to either write about Mother Teresa or be Mother Teresa."
Stu always knew he'd come back to it. And now years later, he is writing it from a Christian perspective with the aim of it being a legacy project that helps people at Soul Revival and beyond.
The writing process has been meditative, Stu says. Like walking in nature without technology. Writing a PhD is similar—you're processing, thinking deeply, working on the ministry instead of just in it.
But there's imposter syndrome too. Stu loves storytelling but doesn't feel he has the academic rigour or the discipline required to do it full time. He's had to relearn not to have fun in writing but to be critical and clinical. But it's exhilarating, doing something a bit crazy and beyond your current capabilities. He likens it to surfing, pushing yourself to do something you think you might not achieve.
As Christians, Stu argues, we tend to be on the conservative side. We don't take risks sometimes.
The Motivation
Why finish the PhD now?
Firstly, the topic is still relevant. Young people continue to leave the church. With 20 years of experience as a youth minister and 13 years of planting Soul Revival gatherings he sees the PhD as a chance to create something helpful, something that leaves a mark.
Secondly, Stu was concerned about burying his talents out of fear. He didn't want to fail, but he also didn't want to never try.
Third, there's the explorer impulse. The pioneer instinct. Stu finds it fascinating and appealing, that desire to go into a new place and start something new. He feels like we've lost some of that in the church. Some Christians shut that kind of thinking down, and he finds that can turn into sad, sedentary existence.
Bake a Whole New Pie
As Stu explained his PhD, Joel brought up Blue Ocean Strategy, a business concept that focuses on creating new market rather than competing in existing markets. Instead of fighting for a slice of the existing pie, you bake a whole new one.
When Stu heard about Blue Ocean Strategy it was validation for what Soul Revival was trying to do. In the nineties, youth ministries around the Sutherland Shire were all competing for the same group of young people, who would move like a herd of wildebeest to whichever youth group was considered the coolest at the time. This, coupled with the "youth ministry wars" over how to do youth ministry, moved Stu to search for something different from the same old youth ministry caper.
The thing is, Blue Ocean thinking is costly. Not many people want to be out there. That's why Stu sees Soul Revival as a pioneer church, not a settler church. It was how the town of Tombstone was set up and became the Las Vegas of its time. Pioneers went first. Settlers followed. Both are needed.
Stu's passion for the church is: Where are our pioneers in the church who will look for the Blue Ocean?
Confident Christians
Tim has been helping out by conducting ethnographic interviews for the PhD by chatting to to those who've been part of Soul Revival's community over the years. What's emerged is fascinating. People have spoken about the level of commitment required and the fond memories of being entangled in others' lives. Some felt worn out. But a few interviewees said something striking:
Soul Revival made being a Christian seem cool.
It was not that they were trying to be cool. But there was such confidence that Christ was the defining factor in their lives that there was no room for cringe. They weren't looking externally to the culture to get coolness and use it as a veneer over Christianity. The confidence came from their identity. Confidence in who they are and being unapologetic for being Christians.
It was the power of a movement bring driven by something precious - the gospel.
The Clown Suit Problem
Stu wanted to change the way non-Christians saw the church. This is why Stu fell back on just wanting to be friends because of Jesus. So much of what’s been put around Christianity has caused issues further down the line rather than just focusing on the message. That's why Christians are seen as the clown show. The problem is: when you take the clown suit off, the people in your own village (the church) still think you're the clown.
Telling people about Jesus is about clarity. It's about the message.
Generative Intergenerational Ministry: The Fifth Way
Recently, Stu and Tim had been describing their approach to intergenerational ministry as "moderate intergenerational." But it wasn't quite capturing what they were doing.
Years back, Stu was interested in Malan Nel's Inclusive Congregational model (from Four Views of Youth Ministry by Mark Senter III). It advocated returning to the pre-Industrial Revolution model—removing youth ministry entirely, where everyone does everything together.
But it didn't account for the newer demographic of teenagers.
The opposite was the Homogeneous Unit Principle, which split up church according to life stage. It was efficient but exclusive, and removed the many God-given benefits of belonging to a community of many different ages.
Stu wanted to maintain the church family but also engage with new ideas with his friends.
After years of Berea and working on the PhD, they've settled on the idea that Soul Revival's approach is a fifth way, outside of what's described in the Four Views of Youth Ministry, called Generative Intergenerational Ministry
What Makes The Shock Absorber "Generative"?
Generative intergenerational ministry brings the experimentation of youth together with the Biblical wisdom, strength and experience of adults. Deuteronomy says to pass on the faith to the next generation. Top-down transference of biblical values. This mainly adult-inspired and led.
But young people have something to contribute too: flexibility in cultural change.
Stu's research into culture shock theory revealed that teenagers tend to understand cultural change through school, where they make friends different from themselves. They then don't experience culture shock because they understand it through their friendships. They have what is called ‘active adaptation’, they take their identity and reorganise it, being a Christian but also being in that culture. Thus they generate new ideas as they actively adapt.
The Gap in the Literature
Kenra Creasy Dean says youth ministry is like a laboratory where kids experiment with new ways of being Christian, and then they bring that into the church as they get older. But the problem, as Mark Senter notes, is they aren't listened to in the church until they're 40. There is a latency of adaptation, new ideas are no longer relevant by the time they're implemented, because it’s too late and not adapting to culture.
As a result, the church is barely ever relevant because it takes too long to adapt to changes in culture.
In the Shock Absorber model, it combines the two: the flexibility of youth + the wisdom, experience, and strength of adults.
This is a generative relationship. It's not sedentary.
Kendra Creasy Dean has half the Shock Absorber. Erik Erikson (identity development theory) has the other half. That's the gap in the literature Stu found.
The Shock Absorber model has both segregated youth spaces AND accessible intergenerational spaces. That's the new, fifth way, of doing ministry.
Why "Generative" Instead of "Moderate"?
"Moderate intergenerational" was boring. Explorers aren't boring. The new name captures how alive the Shock Absorber is.
People are rightly protective of theology. The Shock Absorber allows adults to guard theology while also allowing new practice to come up from the bottom. It often surprises people how conservative Soul Revival's theology is. But Stu is adamant that the church can't do new unless it has a strong theology.
You can't explore unless you have a strong horse. You can't explore the Blue Ocean unless you have a good boat. The best thing for unexpected conditions (cultural changes) is the gospel, which never changes.
The Relo Bash Story: An 80-Year-Old Widow and a Heartbroken 16-Year-Old
This was the inspiration behind the "Relo Bash" at Gymea Anglican Church—a relational gathering where different generations could connect.
One time, an 80-year-old woman sat down with a 16-year-old who said her life was over because she'd just broken up with her boyfriend.
The 80-year-old said, "I know what that's like. I lost my husband in World War II. The day after we got married, he left for Papua New Guinea and never came back."
A young lady trying to work out how to live. An older lady with 50+ years of lived experience. The young woman asked, "How did you do that?"
The 80-year-old said, "Jesus is good and he's been good to me."
Those two became friends. They spent time together over cups of tea. When the older lady died, the young woman was at her funeral.
The Gravitational Pull Toward Exclusivity
It's the natural gravity of the Homogeneous Unit Principle that our churches are adverse to embracing difference. Relational interactions like the one at the Relo Bash don't happen as often because of it.
As a result, our churches are giving tacit approval of being exclusive.
The generative intergenerational model is fresh and alive and refreshing to our spirits. Not just successful and efficient, it seeks to create and live out a Christian community in a way in which God designed it.
Tim's Takeaway: Humility from Both Sides
Tim reflected at the end of the episode: as we engage in intergenerational friendships, it requires humility from both sides of the generations.
Older people must be willing to see what younger people are up to. Younger people must be willing to listen. Both require humility.
Such humility is only possible because we're co-adopted by the same Saviour - Jesus. We belong to each other because we belong to Jesus first.
Listen to the full Shock Absorber episode where Stu, Tim, and Joel unpack generative intergenerational ministry, the clown suit metaphor, Blue Ocean Strategy, and why most churches are stuck in cultural lag.
Soul Revival Church is a pioneer church in the Sutherland Shire and Ryde.