One of the things that has been great about having an itinerant (traveling) ministry is meeting all the different churches and especially (for the sake of this discussion) the church leaders. As we would sit down, there seemed to be a recurring theme, the church is aging and the next generation is disappearing from our ranks. Person after person stated the same thing, “It’s happening everywhere.” I doubt that’s true, but it is, nonetheless, a growing trend, but what we can’t afford, at least in my estimation is accepting this as “just the way things are.” Losing a generation is not something we can just accept. It’s something we need to pray about and it’s something we need to fight to change.
I think Reinhold Niebuhr said it best,
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Brothers and sisters, if Jesus is the only way to the Father, and He is, losing a generation is something that should burden our hearts like virtually nothing else. These are our children and grandchildren. These are the people to whom we are supposed to pass the baton. They are the church of today and they are the future of the church. Losing them is not one of those things Niebuhr (or for that matter Christ) says we should accept, it’s one of the things we need the courage to change. If we can’t see the difference, we need more wisdom. Eternity is at stake.
The answer is what it has always been, prayer and spreading the Gospel. The answer is going to where the people are. The answer is bringing them in. The answer is taking the unchanging message of the Gospel to an ever changing world. We have to jettison the fear we have of a judging world because the world is not our judge, Christ is. We have to be unashamedly about church growth. You might say it’s not all about numbers. Yes it is, because numbers are people! We need to be unashamedly evangelistic. Our Lord is the best “thing” going and He is the only way—our world’s only hope. You might think “But Dave, that’s not how the world works anymore.” I know and have you seen the results? Like our Master, we are not in this world to judge it, we’re in the world to save it, in the sense that we point our world to it’s Savior. Jesus came into this world on a rescue mission and when He ascended, He put that mission in our hands. That mission doesn’t change with the times. To think it does is to imagine a lifeguard who sees a drowning person and thinks, “Who am I to intervene? Maybe he likes drowning.”
The world needs the Gospel like never before. I’ve heard so often that the old methods don’t work anymore. I’m not always convinced that’s true, but if it is, then we better get creative church. We better fall to our knees and seek the Lord for what’s next, because the Gospel is still “…the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” Losing a generation is not one of those things to be accepted. It is something that can be changed. It’s time we knew the difference.
AMOKArts 