We are in one of the most significant spiritual declines in recently recorded history. Sociologists and groups like Barna, Pew, and Springtide Research are all keeping a close watch on the trajectory of faith within the next generation, and the numbers are alarming. 70 percent (and growing) of young people are walking away from their faith in their 20s. These are not youth who have heard the Gospel once long ago. These are children raised in Christian homes, regular church attendees, mission trip goers, and Jesus-professing youth — 70 percent!
So, how do we raise up the next generation? How do we do more than manage decline but reverse the numbers entirely? I suggest three principles for raising a generation of resilient followers of Jesus.
- We must tell a compelling story of Jesus.
- Our hope has to be in more than what I’ll call ‘southern habits’ and church attendance. Many students know that their family comes to church, but they cannot articulate why very well. They know their family believes in Jesus but cannot articulate how or when their parents came to the faith. They know that Jesus changes our hearts, yet cannot articulate how their parents' lives, marriage, finances, language, and worldview is regularly being changed by Jesus. In other words, many students learn in their teenage years that church is more a ritual than anything. They simply cannot see how what happens on Sunday defines anything between Monday and Saturday. Church attendance alone will not do it. We must pass along a compelling story of Jesus and invite the next generation into the experience of how Jesus has and is changing our hearts.
- We must see our legacy as the inheritance of our faith.
- Discipleship is this: Invitation towards imitation for the purpose of transformation. That’s it. We do it all the time with the things we’re passionate about. We invite others into our practices and rituals so that they become loyal to those things (in this case, college football teams). It’s not very different when it comes to Jesus. We have to learn how to practice building loyalty to Jesus through the process of inviting the next generation into imitation for the purpose of transformation.
- We must partner with what God is doing in the next generation.
- God is often at work in one generation to establish Himself in the next generation. In the book of Joshua, God brings his people across the Jordan River and then instructs Joshua to stack up 12 memorial stones so that when future generations see it, they will ask about them, and the story of God will be passed from one generation to another (Joshua 4:6-7). We are indeed in one of the greatest spiritual declines in recorded history, however that may be the perfect timing for how God desires to use you. Almost every great move of God throughout history has come from His people observing decline and resolving to now allow it on their watch.
Similarly, we need men and women who see the spiritual state of our culture and are willing to stand in the gap and commit to not losing this generation. We need men and women desperately asking God to break through and commit themselves to prayer. We need men and women who grasp the idea that God desires to breathe life into future generations through us presently. We need men and women who are willing to make their inheritance their faith above all else. Will that be you?
*We are a church located in Greenville, South Carolina. Our vision is to see God transform us into a community of grace passionately pursuing life and mission with Jesus.*
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Written by Matt Densky