What might God do?

We are very excited about the Legacy Student Leaders Conference and all that God might do as a result. The conferecne went well and I beleive we accomplished most of what we set out to do. More importantly, I pray God will accomplish all that He desires through the conference. We had a good crowd and I thought it was a wonderful day. I had one participant tell me it was the best conference they had been to in a long time and people are already requesting audio and video to share with Sunday School classes, parents and to post online. Stay on the look out for pictures and clips in the near future. Here is a taste of what I talked about at the conference.

How do we define success?
Leading isn’t easy, whether it is at home, in the community, or in the church. Leadership requires a standard of excellence (an example by which we measure success), it requires influence (the ability to move people from where they are to where God wants them to be), integrity (the moral character that allows our influence to make an impact over time), insight (the ability to see a picture of what God has promised), imitation (a walk that follows Christ), intensity (the urgency of spiritual battle), and purpose (clear understanding of why we lead and where we lead).
Our discussion today will center on the question begged by the first point, How do we define success? For over two generations in student ministry we have defined success in a deceptive way. Now we have a long track record and we are able to step back and measure our fruit. Steve has pointed out to us the stark reality of the crisis we face. We live in a time of spiritual crisis when most believers fail to apply biblical teaching to their life in a way that produces biblical living. Students are biblically illiterate and graduating from church, youth ministers are dropping out of ministry, and parents are abdicating their biblical role as primary spiritual leaders. All the while, we adopt a worldly, reactionary approach that essentially says be creative and throw more money at it.
As the family goes, so goes the future of the church. We know that to be true, the Bible emphasizes it, and our enemy certainly acts upon the principle in his attack on the church. Religious life in the home is the most influential spiritual element in a person’s life.
Yet, religious life in the home is nearly extinct. And how much time and resources are we investing to make the home the primary place where faith is nurtured. I believe it is time for the church to return to the biblical model of generational faithfulness we see in the Old Testament patriarchal system and in the New Testament communal discipleship system.
Generational Faithfulness: is the idea of passing down one’s spiritual heritage from one generation to the next as a means of continuing — or beginning, as the case may be — a legacy of God-honoring, Christ-serving, kingdom-advancing faithfulness.
We have poured ourselves into entertaining and educational programs that do little to equip parents for generational faithfulness and have created an enablement, drop-off mentality where parents are actually encouraged to abdicate their biblical role as spiritual leaders.
George Barna says, in Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, “The local church should be an intimate and valuable partner in the effort to raise the coming generation of Christ’s followers and church leaders, but it is the parents whom God will hold primarily accountable for the spiritual maturation of their children.” How many of our churches reflect that reality?
Unfortunately, this is most often not the case. We are not an intimate and valuable partner and we do not view or hold parents as primary.
What do we do and how do we do it?
There are better people than me to convince you that a problem exist in terms of how we do youth and family ministry, and to convince you that something should be done. I find myself focusing on the question, what can we do about it?
God has begun a movement across this country to return to a more biblical vision of how the two primary institutions that God has established in the Bible , the family in Genesis and the church in Acts, ought to work together. God may be calling you to be a part of this movement, as He did with me in February of 2007, but one thing is for sure, the change must begin with us.
1. Make Generational Faithfulness the priority of your home -
Making Generational Faithfulness a priority in your own home is the most important thing we can do in response to this issue.
It will fulfill our personal responsibility before God.
It will deepen our passion for the biblical concept.
It will give us fruit to share with our people.
It will greatly benefit the people you lead in that it will strengthen your family spiritually.
The greatest blessing for your church will be the benefit you and your family receive as you lead toward generational faithfulness in your home.
2. Make a personal commitment -
You must be convicted that this is something God is calling you to do. If you are not convicted of this truth, you will not follow through. You can not lead where you are not committed to go and the perseverance to endure the challenges comes only by the work of the Holy Spirit through the conviction of the Word of God.
3. Bring your church leadership on board -
After you begin to lead your own family toward generational faithfulness and you prayerfully consider your personal commitment to this biblical role for the church, then you should prayerfully and appropriately seek to share your conviction and vision with your church leadership.
If you are a pastor, begin to share with your deacons or elders, allow the conviction to come through in your preaching, begin to cast a vision to your staff.
If you are on staff, begin to share your conviction and vision with your pastor, talk with parents and youth leaders.
If you are a volunteer in the youth ministry or a parent continue the conversation with your youth minister and help share the conviction with the other church leadership. Above all, be prayerful, appropriate (honor your leadership) and patient.
4. Rethink your current ministry elements -
Again, we do not have to necessarily eliminate ministry elements or create new programs. This is not a call for a programmatic shift, it is a call for a philosophical shift, a change in vision. We have to ask ourselves, “How can we equip parents and promote generational faithfulness in the home through our existing ministries.”
Think, Plan and Pray from the perspective of the Family - We must submit our programs, ministry elements, schedules and numbers to the biblical model for Generational Faithfulness, which is the church and the family in partnership together. That means we have to think about everything from the perspective of the family (traditional and non-traditional), we have to plan according to the needs of the family, and we have to pray like a family for the family. This may upset our corporate leadership style, but we can not pray for our Youth Ministry or church like a businessman prays for his company. We have to pray for the people and families that make up the family of God.
We can all name young couples we know who have come back to church because they now have kids. Most of our churches understand that children and youth ministries are vital evangelism tools for the church. Far too often that is the only value a church sees in these ministries and it is the only outreach they do. However, far too few churches see children as a tool for the discipleship of parents. As soon as they come in, we separate them from their children and try to usher them into an adult discipleship program. They were motivated to come to church by their children and instead of partnering with that biblical view of the relationship between the family and the church, we inadvertently undermine it.
Ask the right questions -
What process do we have for assimilating families into the church?
Do we have a clear, single point of entry?
Do we deal with families as a unit or as a collection of individuals?
What happens when families go home? What are they taking with them?
What are we doing to encourage generational faithfulness?
How do we help parents disciple their own children?
How do we measure participation instead of attendance?
What are we doing to promote generational faithfulness in non-traditional families?
How are we equipping parents? Ask it about everything -
How does our ministry schedule impact the life of families?
What ministry programs at our church intentionally strengthen families?
Is the teaching youth hear reflective of that which their parents hear?
Do we see parents as our partner in ministry or our worst enemy?
Is the youth ministry connected to the ministry of the church or does it function like a para-church ministry?
Do we work in departmental territorialism or do we work together as a church staff toward a common goal? What is that goal? Is it a biblical goal?
Are we more concerned about building a ministry or developing students?
5. Cast the vision -
The key to any type of leadership is the ability to give a picture of where you are going. God gave Israel a picture of the promised land as one flowing with milk and honey. Have you ever wondered, why they did not just trust God that His promise was better than slavery? If Israel did not just trust God himself, I bet your people will not just trust you either. They need a picture. Parents know that the primary responsibility for the discipleship of their children is theirs.
I just read an article last week where Mark Devries insightfully says, “Parents are often coming from a place of their own need– there’s a lot of fear wrapped up in raising (and discipling) an adolescent. And so they bring this anxiety to the table, and we feel like they are attacking us– the truth is, they have a weight about their own kids that we’ll never feel. They’re going to be worried about their kids 10 years from now in ways that we never will. When parents have that level of commitment, we hope they care enough to raise issues. But sometimes we take that as an attack on us.”
They inherently know and they are looking for help. They just do not see how it is possible. We have to help them see generationally. We all understand the power of habit and tradition. We mostly do not even realize we do things a certain way, we just do them. The same thing is true of the church family as well, we just need to help change the habits and make them traditions.
Look at the big picture here. One family begins to change the culture of their home, as you partner with them to promote generational faithfulness. They begin praying together and doing family devotions. That grows to include family worship, the father disciples his son and the mother her daughter. They begin to do service projects together and worshiping together as a family in church.
Other families see the impact that a commitment to Generational Faithfulness has had in their lives, as they grow closer to God and to each other. They begin to participate in this movement within your church family. Those kids will grow up doing those things themselves and teach those disciplines to their own kids because it will be a normal part of their family life.
You do not have to teach kids foundational truths and discipleship disciplines every generation because they will learn it at home as part of life. It becomes part of the normal culture of your church and people without kids become mentors for single parents and kids without believing parents. What started with one event and one family (possibly yours) could impact multitudes of people for generations to come, leaving a spiritual legacy of God-honoring, Christ-serving, kingdom-advancing children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. An authentic spiritual legacy of faithfulness.
Teach and preach Generational Faithfulness: stir the passions of your people
In order to fight against the cultural norms (even within the church), the families in your church will need to hear a clear, constant and consistent message. You will need to constantly encourage them as they start and stall. You have to consistently hold them accountable for being consistent in the practice of the elements of generational faithfulness. You will have to make it clear at every opportunity that you believe in this and that you are willing to do whatever it takes to help them, but that it is not up to you, they have been given a unique opportunity by God to be the spiritual leader of their children, and to instill genuine faith in their kids.
Show the commitment: time and resources
In most churches, the most influential place of communication is the pulpit. So, we must teach and preach generational faithfulness. However, we can not just talk about it.
One of the most concrete and practical ways that we can communicate the value of generational faithfulness is the example of how we invest our time. How you spend your time and energy will make a statement to the people of your church and to your students - and they will notice.
The second way you emphasize the importance of generational faithfulness is the way you allocate resources. If you put your money where your mouth is, families will do the same. That may mean some other things have to go. We all have limited budgets, but if we invest in quality over quantity we also send strong messages about stewardship and priorities.
6. Take your time: be patient -
There is nothing about the terms generational or faithfulness that speak to the short term. We warn our people about the dangers of our instant gratification culture and then we do church exactly the same way. This is the proverbial marathon, not a sprint. You must make your commitment long term. You may not see results in three months. Attendance numbers may actually go down as participation goes up.
Our current crisis did not happen over night. So we can expect that it will take time to change the mindset of our churches, parents and students. However, we need to begin the process of gradual, peaceful growth and development that will result in a spiritual legacy of generational faithfulness in our churches and in our families. You will have to believe in it! You have to trust that what is biblical is right. You may have to accept by faith (for a time) that it is working. But if we do not start now, we will be enabling the same patterns of destruction to continue in our churches and families, and only multiply the problem. It is time for the church to rise up and make a new commitment to youth and family ministry.
It is not about a quick fix, competitive, numbers driven, pre-packaged, mass-produced, entertainment driven, strategy. It is about having a legacy mindset; developing leaders for the next generation by investing in the lives of those who are leading students spiritually today. It is about seeing things fro God’s perspective and choosing a long-term commitment to generational faithfulness that will produce spiritual fruit for generations. It is about allowing ourselves to be judged by what we leave behind. It is transferable to every context and it proves itself over time.
What matters is getting the reality of the presence of God into the homes of people who come to us for spiritual leadership in a way that allows that reality to be passed from generation to generation, to the glory of God.