If you want to extend influence in the next generation, don’t
go “old school.” Go waaaaay old school.
Look around. How many kids and young
adults are in church? American averages are around 20% of the twenty-something
population. Currently, while about 80% of teens are involved in church in some
way, about 40% (research figures vary widely) will not return after adulthood,
even when they have children of their own, and only 20% will return as regular,
involved church-going Christians.
Youth are generally smarter and more
knowledge savvy (this doesn’t mean wise or mature) than their parents and
church leaders. Teens are reading more than ever, albeit it on digital screens.
They are more culturally aware than most of their parents. Toddlers can use
laptops while their grandparents can’t use a T.V. remote. Teens access vast
arrays of information today that would not have been available even to the
President of the USA in the 1980s, and they check up on the validity of
parental or pastoral advice. Our youth are too smart to accept pat answers, and
in fact, have trouble believing there are any right or wrong answers outside of
mathematics (and some would argue the latter).
“Old school” church will not likely
connect with many of our young Christ followers, and almost certainly not with
their unchurched friends. Sing a few
songs, sit and listen to a three or four point propositional statement of facts
about the Bible, after reading a series of propositional statements about life
in which every answer to every questions is either Jesus, the Bible or God,
followed by a midweek experience of more of the same with a game of tag and
some cookies thrown in, maybe a trip to an amusement park, and an assumption
that mom and dad are going to teach them all they need to know. Old school. Okay
– not the best of old school or any “school” in any era – but pretty common.
It’s not working.
“Waaay old school” – Jesus stuff, I
think might be better. Jesus told stories (“hey, have you heard the one about a
lost pearl”) and referenced real life situations (“hey, check out that widow with
a mite”). There isn’t a propositional sermon on file for the Master
Communicator. He was “in your face” and fairly blunt about hard topics while
for the most part sharing good news about God’s healing and forgiveness with
invitations to follow.
The carpenter’s son invited people to
live with him, walk with him, watch him, share his story with him and help
people along side of him – pretty much right away (Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus,
etc.). Jesus saw needs and met them first (the blind, the leper, the hungry,
the bleeding, the brokenhearted, etc.), allowing this to lead to conversation
and then to the increasingly faithful obedience of a transformed life.
Start with good news, meet kid’s needs
(and those of their parents, and young parents with kids). As often as
possible, communicate with images, stories and metaphors. Focus on the truly
hard, but only effective means of disciple-making – develop a few deep
relationships that fully engage life which leads to a thirst for searching out
the answers to questions this kind of approach naturally will raise. Then teach
how others can develop these life-giving relationships. And be open to hearing
some of the answers to leading and shaping the future of the church these
really smart, Spirit-filled emerging leaders will come up with.
If we want to have influence beyond
the generation of current church leaders among our children and youth, don’t go
old school. Go waaay old school. Go Jesus style.
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