Worship for twenty and thirty-somethings, for the young and spiritually homeless. It's what is on my heart. And judging from the responses to my last article ("From Maps to Signposts" Nov/Dec 1998), many of you live there as well.

We have an awesome journey ahead of us. The road beyond is not only "mapless," but in many cases, non-existent. We'll most likely need to break a lot of trail. But I'm absolutely convinced that if we bypass this particular trek, we will miss an irreplaceable lesson about what it means to worship our Maker/Redeemer-to be God's people (1 Peter 2:9) in a post-Christian world.

It's a foregone conclusion that we need each other if we're going to make any headway. No one, myself included, has all of the answers. The ivory tower handbooks got tossed into the last campfire, along with Franchised Arrogance 101. Our off-road guidelines? No Lone Rangers. Forget pat answers. Live the questions. Laugh often and loudly.

OK. Kick into first gear. Does worship ministry to under-thirty-fives have to be age exclusive? Are we talking about ruthless, micro-niched targeting to gated communities for the hip and unwrinkled? One twenty-year-old worship leader writes: "What about intergenerational worship? I think that having 'older and wiser' Christians in a church body is so valuable to the younger generations … they just have more life experience. And the other end is true, too. My generation seems to have a fire for God that calls for new ways of looking at things and ways of 'getting real'."

Is it just me, or have you also noticed that under-thirty-fives are not age-obsessed? It seems that this generation is much more interested in how a person processes and interacts with life than whether or not they were born within some time frame. I know of a woman in her late seventies who has ten times the relationships with under-thirty-fives than most baby boomers. It has everything to do with her mindset. Eleanor knows first-hand that life is full of mystery, paradox, joy, and tragedy. Translated: life, even for Christians, is riddled with "the unexplainable." And that is where most under-thirty-fives live as well.

Eleanor is not much interested in God as an abstract proposition or concept, but she is unapologetically passionate about God the Supernatural Person. And she expresses her relationship with this Risen Being when she belly laughs at "A Bug's Life" with her grandson who has a terminal bone disease. When she teaches watercolor painting at the local college. When she reels in pain after her latest hip surgery but gives thanks that she can walk. She desperately wants her children, her grandchildren, her students, and her neighbors to know the untamable, uncontainable, illogical, soul-birthing love of God. Since reaching sixty-five, her motto is "Life is short; get real."

I've met more than one Eleanor. In fact, I've met dozens of Eleanors. And Eds. Many of them are over 65, although I'm beginning to meet quite a few in their forties and fifties. The latter are most often mid-lifers who either have experienced or are currently experiencing catastrophic life transitions: divorce, relational meltdown with their kids, financial disaster, significant health problems-the list goes on. Bottom line is, life as they knew it is no longer working. The "house in the burbs/family with dog/SUV and four TVs" scenario has disintegrated. And with it, their tolerance for "everything is hunky-dory/clap till you drop" worship services.

We're talking about Gen X values. And it just so happens, there are select members of other generations who value the same things. Like enigma and mystery. Like a God Who exponentially transcends our meager ability to comprehend and codify the ultimate. Like unanswered questions, brokenness, vulnerability, and gut-level authenticity. Like passion.

To target or not to target? Maybe it's not either/or but both/and. Such as worship that is both high-tech and high touch. Such as churches that grow smaller as they get bigger. Perhaps the more our culture niches us, the more we need to let people "de-niche" themselves in church. Perhaps we plan services with twenty- and thirty-somethings in mind and then stand back and let the God of diversity surprise us.