Not Unto Us » 2002

Monthly ArchiveDecember 2002

spiritual 13 Dec 2002 07:17 am

Boxed In By Good Intentions

I’m hearing a lot about discipleship, teaching, and training. Most of the adults in the area seem to understand the importance of training up young men and women in the things of God. It’s interesting that while they have devoted their life to this one thing, it seems that they’re not quite sure what to do with this new generation of young adults that they’ve successfully brought up in the ways of God.

What is the purpose of bringing up a child to know Christ? Once that child becomes an adult, what do you do with them? It would seem to me that while the previous generation has done an exemplary job of laying the foundation of righteousness in our lives, there’s a block at what to do next. The pastor knows that discipleship is key, though, and so continues to hold the weekly Bible study, teaching apologetics, doctrine, personal application, excouragement, etc. This is wonderful stuff, but it begs the question - when does the next generation get to try things?

I am currently looking at a group of maybe 25 men & women between the ages of 21 & 30. They are all single, and they are all spiritually mature. In fact, they have all been raised in the church, not giving lip service, but rather growing to know the God of their fathers; developing an intimate personal relationship with Him. When asked about this group, the churches all readily accept and acknowledge that this is a wonderful blessing, to have this many young adults so mature in Christ and willing to serve Him. The leadership in the church understands that this is an important group, able to be used mightily in His service. But the disconnect is at how many of those people are going on to become leaders themselves.

I think they are well equipped to serve; they have been trained well by the current leadership. But they have not been given any specific areas of responsibility in which they can exercise their leadership ability. This is a key point in the developing of a leader. There must be a time when the young person can actually lead something. I don’t mean a Bible study here or there, or leading worship occasionally on Wed. nights. I mean they need to be given an area, a ministry, where they are the leader. And they need to be treated as such. The leadership needs to begin to include them in the decision making process of the church body. Allow them to do outreaches. Even empower them to get out into the community and begin to reach their generation.

Having a weekly Bible study led by the pastor of the church or a former youth pastor is wonderful. But I believe the greater blessing lies in these same young men & women holding meetings of their own, starting their own “churches”, for lack of a better term, in their own circles of influence. There is a huge need for non-traditional churches, which can be as informal as a gathering of 3-4 people at a coffeeshop on Tuesday evenings, or a group of 10 going to the oceanfront and holding praise and worship sessions. These can be done concurrently to the weekly Bible study - there should be absolutely no conflict in these two ideas. The weekly Bible study can even turn into a leadership meeting, where creative ministry ideas are shared, testimonies given, and what used to be teaching can turn into mentoring.

The current leadership in the church has the best of intentions, desiring to produce men and women of God. But by not releasing the current group of leaders into their own leadership opportunities, they run the risk of stifling or at least delaying a tremendous work here in these latter days.

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personal 12 Dec 2002 10:10 pm