What Your Synagogue Could Learn from MTV

By Stephanie Hausner
Synagogue Change Specialist
Synagogue Leadership Initiative

Did you know that my generation—the Millennials (born between 1978 to ­2000)—are the largest generation of the 20^th century? Bigger than GenX and even larger than the Baby Boomers. As Millennials come of age, this means a lot for our synagogues and how we operate. I recently came across an article “Are You M-Ready?” by Nick Shore, who is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Consumer Insights and Research at MTV, which is probably the coolest job. His premise is that, based on the large size of the Millennial generation, any business will have to start thinking about this next generation of consumers. And it is clear that Millennials think differently than the generations before them. As Shore says, “Millennials are not just a more voluminous generation than Boomers, but better educated, more self-esteemed, more demanding, more technologically savvy, more empowered and wired to win at the game of life.”
 
There is so much great stuff in this article, and I strongly encourage reading the whole thing.

MTV “made a decision at its point of inception to never grow old with the audience but to reinvent periodically for each "generation next." This to me is fascinating. Could we operate in such a structure? How can we in the synagogue world adapt quickly and never grow old, even if our suburban synagogues are dealing with rising senior citizen populations? Are we adapting quick enough to embrace this new generation? NO! So how can we? What do we need to know?

Let’s learn from MTV and the Millennial traits they have identified. I’m going to focus on just a few things MTV has highlighted.

Percentage of Millennials who agree with the following statements (from MTV Millennial Edge Study, 2010):

• I'm always expressing myself in different ways–81%;
• I hate it when other people expect me to live by their rules–76%;
• If I want something, nothing is going to stop me–69%. 

The Millennials are an empowered group. While some have said Millennials are a coddled generation, I don’t believe it’s coddling, but more aptly “empowerment.” A little empowerment with some new technology and Millennials are off and running. Millennials don’t take no as an answer and don’t ever say something is because we have always done it that way. That’s just not a good reason. While other generations rebel, Millennials explore. Millennials “will demand a voice in, a stake in, even a creative point of view about, everything that your business does.” How do we as synagogues cope with that?

How do we engage Millennials, allow them to explore, and give them a voice all at the same time? What about membership? Do we only engage members? These are complex questions. Here are a few dos and don’ts that I think may guide us.

DO: Listen to your Millennial membership. If they tell you your programming is stale or only for “old people,” it is not because they want to upset you, but because to them your programming is stale. Even when you take something that could be fun like karaoke, doing karaoke with your grandparents or people your grandparents’ age is NOT FUN. The same activity could appeal to different generations, just maybe not at the same time. Maybe you schedule Karoake with an after party for the 20s, 30s, 40s. Everyone gets to sing, and the folks who want to sing GaGa are not fighting on song choice with the Barbra Streisand crowd.

DO: Engage Millennials in conversation. Bring a bunch of Millennials together and see what they want to do. Millennials are SO community service oriented—maybe they can get engaged in the social action/chesed committee. Maybe they form a new synagogue committee.

DO: Put your events and even service times on Facebook, and have an easy accessible informative website. I’m not going to call the synagogue to find out information; I want to be able to find it myself. What’s the point in having a cheesecake sale for the synagogue if only your board knows about it? By putting more information on your website, you are keeping your whole congregation informed. You might see an increase in Friday night service attendance. Why? Because people knew what time it started.

DON’T: Limit programming to just members. Millennials, more so than previous generations, feel a strong sense of community, but we believe in global community. So not all of my friends are Conservative Jews, even though I belong to a Conservative synagogue; some of my friends who grew up at Reform synagogues love our synagogue’s young professional programming and come to programs with me. Some of my friends grew up with little Jewish background, but they are connecting through my synagogue’s programming. Are they going to join? I’m not sure. Are they more likely to join my synagogue if they join any synagogue? YES!

DON’T: Start a conversation with a Millennial you meet for the first time at a Shabbat service with “Can I set you up?” Millennials are on a different timeframe than prior generations. Most of us aren’t getting married at 22 and having our first children at 25. This creates an interesting situation in synagogues, which may need to look at membership levels and think of how to accommodate singles in their 20s and 30s.

I want to conclude for now with the end of Nick Shore’s article, partly because I love hockey, but also because it leaves us with an important lesson in creating not just our synagogue’s today, but really how we move our synagogues to tomorrow. “As the old hockey adage goes, you don't skate to where the puck is, you skate to where it's headed. And in the case of the Millennials, we're looking at a hundred million pucks moving towards open ice where bold, as-yet-unimagined products and services will someday await them. So heads-up, here come the Millennials.”

SLI Explores Innovation and Change

When you see a plastic bottle, do you think of a container for your favorite soda? Or do you think of  

What about when you see your synagogue? What do you see? If you could change anything in your synagogue, what would that be?

For 60 years, synagogues were the central institution to the Jewish people and to ensuring Jewish continuity. The Synagogue Leadership Initiative (SLI), a project of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, was formed to help synagogues remain strong and vital, with leaders equipped to serve the needs of congregants in a changing environment. Programs focused on skill-building for lay and professional leaders and clergy and capacity-building programs for congregations.

In recent years, however, the idea of the synagogue as that central institution has waned. To remain/become relevant and necessary to a vast array of Jewish consumers, synagogues must change; they must adapt; they must innovate.

Under the paintbrush of this new landscape, SLI’s focus has changed to helping synagogues imagine a new vista. SLI coaches synagogues through assessment, determining trajectory, and implementing innovation and change. SLI helps synagogues imagine what’s next.

We invite you to join us on this journey. Provide us with your thoughts, your ideas, your feedback. In thinking about the future, we’re asking you to set aside pre-conceived notions of what a synagogue is and what it should be in its most traditional structure. We’re asking you to explore along with us what others are doing that is outside the proverbial box. We ask for introspection, dialogue, and innovation. We ask you to imagine Synagogue Next.