How to reach the next generation: Stop trying to reach the next generation.

How to reach the next generation.  Don’t try to reach the next generation.

Maybe there are too many articles on reaching the next generation.  It’s not new to our current flavor of the month “millennials.”  Although everywhere I look there’s another article on it.  Here’s the problem.

Guys like me read every single one of those articles and we desperately want to reach them.  All of my friends in the ministry share the same #1 priority = reaching lost people with the good news of Jesus Christ.  I don’t write that lightly either.  It is what drives us.  It is why we sacrifice our own money, free time, and relationships.  We open our homes, use our gas, and cook far too many cupcakes, casseroles, and BBQ.  It has very little to do with feeding our own egos (not any more - we’re in our 30’s).

We’ve been playing the game by the wrong rules.  In order to accomplish this goal we have sacrificed too much.  Stay with me.

My church, Westside Christian Church, has grown by 22% this year.  That’s fine.  But it’s not good enough for me.  Not for a good reason either.  I’m just never satisfied.  I brought that up to my mentor.  He didn’t laugh.  He told me that the way the church grew was that Jesus started with 12.  Then it went to 72.  Then, years later, in Acts - in one day it jumped to 3,000.  He said, “The problem is that everyone now wants to start with 3,000.”  

I think that has very little to do with ego.  Seriously.  I have too many friends involved in the ministry that have incredible hearts to believe it’s some deep seeded issue we all share.  I think we all want to start with 3,000 because we look around our communities and can come up with 3,000 people that desperately need the Holy Spirit working on their hearts.  They need to become a part of our church because we believe the teaching in the Bible will heal their relationships, free them from the prison of unforgiveness, cure the pain in their hearts, and free them up to live their lives in the comfort and peace of God.  That’s this side of Heaven.  We can barely allow ourselves to even think about thousands of people in our community not having eternal salvation.  We are well aware of it.

So what do we do?  Well, we read articles on how to reach those people.  And those articles contain great insight, strong studies, and wonderful opinions.

And, they suck.

Those articles cause us to lead from fear.  The fear of losing an entire generation.  Uh, I can’t lose an entire generation.  It’s not mine to win or lose.  However, I can invest my life into my church, my neighborhood, and my community.  I can do no more than that.

So I’m done reading those articles.  I’m going to replace that with having real relationships with actual people who live where I live.  Then I ought to be able to start figuring out what will “reach” them.  I may even have to form relationships with people of all ages, races, and socioeconomic statuses, in order to really understand what life is like on my block.

Since I’ve made that transition my sermons are a lot better.  I don’t mean they are better to listen to.  I mean that they are answering the questions that people in my community are asking.  They are expanding.  The teaching is going outside of the 30 minutes on a Sunday morning.

Also, we are making disciples.  We are having people confront their spouses and friends in truth and love.  We have people taking their relationships with others much more seriously.  We have people using their money differently.  We have people taking prayer more seriously.  We have people wanting our church to do more in our community.  We have people who are excited about the lives being changed in our church of the people that they know and love.

Articles train us to fear.  Relationships motivate us to love.  Our church is the people.  It isn’t for the people.  Our church is all of us, including those who are not yet “us.”

When we let the articles become too loud in our lives, we are tempted to train people that the church is about them.  It’s about your favorite music.  It’s about really cool tables that look so great and have chrome on them.  It’s about a sermon that’s not crammed down your throat - because the Bible is so easy to swallow, right?  It’s about a Pastor wearing a really cool shirt.  It’s about telling my friends I attend the church with the really nice logo.  

It’s not.  We are training them, not to be disciples, but to be consumers.  We are the problem.  I am the problem.  We need to stop making spiritual brats, and work on the much harder (and far less glamorous) process of making disciples.

We sacrifice true discipleship when we lead from fear.

Recently one of the Pastor’s in my community went to a country in Western Europe.  His family lives there and was filling him in on the churches there.  He said that they were all waining.  Many of them were closing their doors or just struggling to stay alive.  So they were relaxing their values (values they’ve had for centuries).  They were accepting things that are unacceptable according to the Bible.  Those churches were dying and were not respected in their communities.  However, there were a few churches that were growing.  Why?  Great music.  Just kidding.  Great sermons.  Just kidding.  What was it?  They were gospel-centered churches that were staying close to the teaching of the Bible.  Apparently the teaching contained in the Bible was relevant to them.

Wow.  I’ll bet they are reaching the next generation.

Tim Boyd

Lead Pastor - Westside Christian Church - Bradenton, FL