The second row, dead center sanctuary was packed full in the evening service a couple of weeks ago. I sat to the right side in my usual place and snapped a shot on my phone with welling tears in my eyes. On a Sunday evening, when the attendance is usually 50% or less than Sunday a.m. attendance, there sat a row of young men and young ladies aged 17 to 23ish. They were all attentive throughout the sermon as Pastor Tim preached from John 21.
These kids don’t know how they encourage this chick’s heart.
I could see the next generation of fathers and mothers when I looked over at them. As Tim spoke of the call on the life of Peter, Jesus’ apostle, that we read of in John’s gospel, I thought of the call on these young people – those whom I have grown to love. I see the next generation of husbands and wives and members of the work force. I see marriages rooted in Jesus’ model for marriage and because of that, unbreakable to the pain of divorce. I see the foundation of God’s word being built brick-by-brick on their spiritual foundations. Those bricks have been mortared down to their foundations during their young lives by some of their parents, this church’s members and other people too.
I see these young people CHOOSING to be here, even when their families may not. Some have followed Jesus all on their own, not piggybacking on the religion or faith or push of their parents. I see a hunger for everything more than what the world is offering to them outside of these walls. I see a friend encouraging his buddy to come and join him for a Sunday night service that is without fanfare and entertainment – instead, singing in worship and listening to preaching.
They are connected to a community that will help them in decision making now and later, when they do choose a spouse, go for a big job interview, expect a first baby, experience loss in death and grow in sanctification together.
These guys and girls are being filled with truth and that truth will arm them for the week ahead…and beyond.
I also see an example of faithfulness that many older adults can glean from and some should be encouraged to follow. Many of these young people are more faithful to be in attendance for preaching and worship, than the older Christians on the membership role.
Their faithfulness and hunger during this season in their lives so incredibly encourages me! Especially when in the recent passing decades, young adults were leaving the church in droves after graduation.
But God is doing a new thing!
If you haven’t noticed the teens and young adults in your church (or spoken to or encouraged them) lately, look and see the goodness of the Lord in their lives. The corporate church has not been diligent to pour into them. The church has entertained instead of trained them in the gospel. The church has offered community without the substance of the gospel. But, God is doing a new thing in his people and we are opening our eyes to this failure!
Are you a part of this move?
Often, there is a huge age divide and segregation. The bridge of that gap between us and them is on our shoulders to fill – not theirs. How well are we doing with that?
Do you remember? Being pulled by the world? Confused by how your friends seemed okay with what your parents told you wasn’t okay? Can you remember that confusion and that tug toward just wanting acceptance? I forget too often the confusing time of adolescence and early adulthood. I fail to remember even with my own three children. And sometimes they have to remind me…and then I remember – my mistakes (oh so many in my twenties), my desire to be seen and known, to matter to someone.
Our opportunity as leaders, friends, and more mature Christ followers is that we can help them see how they matter to our God, but also to us and to the church. We have an opportunity to pour into them by speaking life and encouragement, discipling them, and walking alongside them as they discover how God has gifted them to work in the church. But mostly as they uncover how he will equip them to work *and fight spiritually* in the world where they are planted. We can offer grace when they stumble, and help them come back to the Lord by pointing them to the WORD.
How can we do that if we don’t see them? How can we offer these gifts to them if we don’t have conversations and connection? Is it possible if we always stay in our own age-specific groups? Our cliques?
How can we tell them how God has transformed us and continues to? How will they know they aren’t complete spiritual failures when the world pulls them out to sea for a bit? Do they know they can still jump out of that boat? They can always jump out! Who will tell them?
It is lonely to be a young person who is walking in sanctification and growing toward holiness and then who trips and falls a bit, to feel as though they’ve messed up too much and gone too far to return. They have to know we’ve all been there too.
I remember a season in my young adulthood of being the only one in my family who attended church. I was the only one at that time seeking Him and trying to reject my flesh and the world. About nineteen-years-old then, through I tried, without a spiritual support system of older Christians who noticed me and that I was journeying alone, I failed and drifted out to sea.
Unfortunately, it would be years before I jumped out of that boat. No one in the church came to pull me back, to call my name, to say we miss you here. No one there even knew I was straying away. The deeper I fell into sin, the more dirty I felt, and there was no one there to encourage me back in spite of my sin and shame. Instead of deepening my relationship with my God, I gave myself in relationships to young men who I had no business being with. I searched for counterfeit love that I thought would fulfill what only God could. No one was in my ear warning me of how dangerous it would be the further away I drifted, and I didn’t have enough of God’s word in me yet to transform me. After time, Satan and my flesh won out until I didn’t want the church or the things of God as much. Although conviction never went away fully, it weakened over time and my urgency for God grew less.
It took a while for that desire to grow in me again, and that was after I was left with a whole bunch of carnage that sin leaves in its wake.
Sanctification is a process. Lifelong. Until young Christians have walked it long enough, they won’t realize that faith deepens as we walk in continual repentance and we are able to rebound from our broken sinfulness more easily over time. We grow to recognize that without Him, we can’t do this walk of growing in holiness. It’s impossible. Because sin becomes easier to fight the more deeply connected we are to the Savior, it is then we begin to look like him. And when we fall and sin, we repent, and we stay. We don’t run in shame from the church or Jesus. We change over time and we need others to help us remember that.
Who is going to remind them of this truth when they are in the wrong boat sailing away from the church?
How will they trust us if we don’t open ourselves to those relationships?
Maybe you believe they don’t need you. Maybe you think they aren’t interested in you or your life. But I think that’s not the case. They are longing for “helpers” in the journey, because this world is so hard against them and against their faith. I know because I was once one of them.
We are called to walk together in this journey and you have a gift to share with the generation(s) under us.
Won’t you share it?
Speak to them, ask them about their lives, make time for lunch, coffee, open your home…but first open spiritual eyes to see them. When they start to go no contact or missing-in-action, be the first to go find them!
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our BLESSED HOPE, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. DECLARE THESE THINGS; exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Titus 2:11-15a
For more on our responsibility and honor as more mature Christians, go here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus%202%3A1-7&version=ESV 👇
Mining Beneath the Ordinary 