Next Steps for Multi-Generational Ministry
Attention Church!
Often times my blog is simply a recap of the previous message. Therefore, you might be tempted to skip over it. This blog is not that.
Here I attempt to apply all that we have learned over the past three weeks about creating a church for the next generation to some practical next steps for the church.
I once read a story of a little boy named Billy who sheepishly walked into the kitchen where his mother was working. As he stood before her with his head towards the floor he said, “Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from generation to generation?”
“Yes?” his mother responded.
“Well, this generation just dropped it.” Billy confessed.
Over the past several weeks we have been reminded that the Church of Jesus Christ has been entrusted with a precious gift that has been passed on from generation to generation and we are stewards of that gift. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the generation that drops it. As the current generation of adults who make-up the church, no matter your age, whether you are 26 or 62, we carry the burden of responsibility to pass on our faith to the next generation.
So, the question we must ask ourselves as we conclude our series titled Generation to Generation is this: “What is the best way for us to pass our faith on to the next generation?”
There are many potential approaches to passing on our faith, but what is the best way? We could take the systematic educational approach much like the public school system, but information is not the same as transformation. This approach also confines involvement to a limited number of teachers in classrooms a few hours per week.
I am not dismissing the importance of Sunday School classes and increasing biblical knowledge in our children. But can I propose to you that the biblical model for faith transmission from one generation to the next is much more relational/conversational. In Deuteronomy 6:4-8 God tells the Nation of Israel:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
The emphasis in these passages of Scripture is upon conversations that happen in the midst of daily life. It is relational. It happens as a result of sharing life together. This has great implications upon the role parents play in the faith formation of their children, which I will be talking about this Sunday, but what implications does it have upon the church. I believe it means that the church must recognize that faith transference to the next generation reaches beyond our Sunday School rooms and how we engage our children and youth in the life of the church.
Here are some practical next steps for us to consider.
- Serve together. One of the best things we can do as a church is to engage our children and teens in our service events to the community. What better way to show them our faith in action than to involve them in what the gospel looks like in action? And I think we need to be intentional about not just having them present, but having them work alongside the different generations in the church so that relationships are fostered.
- Allow them to Minister. At one of our recent fellowship events I was thrilled as I watched the kids from our children’s department take delight in the opportunity to wait on tables and serve food to the rest of the congregation. They enjoyed it and the adults enjoyed it. It was a great opportunity for them to grow as they served in the church.As our children grow into teenagers the opportunities for them to serve in the church are numerous – if we will let them! As Reggie Joyner writes, “Think about it. When did you grow as a leader? Didn’t most of us get jumpstarted in our faith when we plugged into a ministry and served? If most of us grew more when we assumed ministry responsibility, what makes us think that wouldn’t be true for teenagers as well?”
Last month my eyes filled with tears as I watched my daughter Katy raise her hand in worship to God as she participated in leading the congregation in worship during the youth service. I cried as I watched her best friend Macy (who we have watched grow since kindergarten) play her guitar in that same service. I was emotional not just because I was watching them grow-up, but because I was watching them grow-up in their faith as they were ministering to the Body of Christ.
One last note on the subject of creating room in the church for them to minister – it provides a natural environment for mentoring relationships to be fostered. As adults are engaging them and helping them to learn how to serve in the church, deep relationships and trust are built.
- Multi-generational Connect Groups. I am a big supporter of age-specific environments. I believe settings like children’s church and youth group allow us to teach them in such a way that truly connects with them and addresses issues that they are dealing with. Having said that, I think we need to look for more opportunities to bring the generations together. One of those opportunities could be to encourage more multi-generational connect groups. These groups could be on-going or seasonal. The important thing is that we intentionally and consistently look for opportunities to bring ALL generations together for practical spiritual conversations.
I hope these next steps are helpful and will give us much to think about as we move forward as a multi-generational church for ALL generations!
-Pastor Brandin
More than weeping
The old saying goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Life experience teaches us that this statement is painfully true. As a young leader I am motivated by that statement to lead the church of Jesus Christ in such a way that this statement can’t be said of the church of North America.
I have spent a lot of time in recent days studying and talking about the current condition of the church and how over 3,000 churches die in America every year. I have pointed to two things as the main contributors to the death of the church: (1) the average age of the membership in most mainline denominations is over sixty and within the next decade 50% of their denomination will pass away; (2) that 70%-80% of the kids who grow up in our churches walk away from the church upon graduation from high school.
The reality is we only have the power to address one of those issues. We cannot turn back the hands of time, but we can and should do everything possible to ensure that the next generation remains an integral part of the church. This will not happen unless we are showing them and including them in a vibrant and life-giving faith.
Over the past couple of weeks I have shared some of the ways in which we have failed as a church in America. Confessing those failures has been healthy for us as a church as we have admitted…
- We must confess that at times we have let our rules get in the way of God’s love.
- We must confess that at times we’ve failed to recognize that there are absolutes that God requires of us.
- We must confess that at times we have thought that what belongs to us is more important than who we belong to.
You can listen to those messages online, but I want to encourage you to join us this Sunday for the third and final message in this series that will give us a vision for how we move forward as a church for ALL generations. Many of the statistics we look at today are not encouraging, but I think there is HOPE! Remember, we serve a risen savior who lives to redeem and restore. I believe that He can redeem and restore the church in America today.
-Pastor Brandin
Stones of Remembrance
On Sunday we remembered just some of the ways that God has blessed our lives. We marked a stone with a word or two and shared what God has done. It was a powerful experience for us to do together as a church but it will also be a powerful experience for you to do as a family.
If you weren’t with us on Sunday or misplaced your instructions, they are below. We’d like to encourage you to take a picture of your jar and post it on our Facebook page. Sharing your picture will encourage those within the SFN family to participate as well but may also start conversations with other friends about God’s grace and provision on your life.
Stones of Remembrance instructions
Sometimes we forget or take the good things that have happened in our lives for granted. Here’s an idea that will help you remember.
Find a pickle jar or similar transparent container, a permanent fine-point marker, and some small, smooth stones you can write on (or you can just use scraps of paper). Take a minute and ask God to remind you of some of the blessings you’ve experienced in your life during the last year. As you think of each one, thank God for it. Then write a brief description of the blessing on one of the rocks and put it in the jar.
Leave the jar in your kitchen or somewhere you pass by every day. As blessings flow into your life, give thanks, write what happened on one of these “stones of remembrance,” and toss it into the jar. If you keep it up, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your jar fills up and overflows.
One generation away
There is nothing that I can write here today that could compare to the experience we enjoyed in God’s presence this past Sunday. I just finished listening to the podcast of yesterday’s service and I think I could listen to it a hundred times more. What a powerful, powerful experience! I would encourage each and every one of you to listen to the message, either again or for the first time, and reflect on what God wants to say to us through this message.
If there was one message that I wish I could share in every church across America it would be this one. According to a 2005 study, the median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings. With an average age over 60, these congregations can expect to lose as much as 50% of their congregation due to death in the next decade. Add to that total the roughly 70%-80% of college-aged students who leave the church upon graduation from high school and we are very clearly one generation away from losing the church in America. Our churches and our people need a wake-up call!
I could go on, but I really would encourage you to listen to this message in its entirety to hear what I believe God wants to say to the church today. May God bless you and challenge you as you listen to this week’s message.
I would also like to encourage you to follow through with the Stones of Remembrance jar that we introduced on Sunday. What a powerful way to set the tone for the Thanksgiving season for your family.
-Pastor Brandin
Major Faux Pas!
Throughout Scripture we read time and time again about how the people of God inappropriately engaged and incorporated the practices of the culture around them into the life of Israel.
These mistakes led to some painful seasons in the history of Israel. You could say…these were some serious faux pas.
A faux pas is defined as “a blunder; especially a social blunder.” Over the past several weeks at SFN Church we have been talking about how social media has overtaken our culture. For example, according to Business Insider, 96% of Americans use Facebook and there are 10 million comments posted on the site every 20 minutes. We are a Facebook nation and that includes us as Christians as well.
The question for us as Christians is how do we engage this cultural phenomenon in a way that is glorifying to God and avoids all of the evil that our culture uses it for? How do we avoid making some serious faux pas? Well, we started out with some helpful tips from Josh Veach and Aaron Dicer but moved on to address some potential faux pas.
Faux Pas #1: Christians shouldn’t use social media.
Social media is amoral, meaning it is neither good nor bad. But because there are people who use these tools for evil things Christians have often determined that the best rule is to completely separate ourselves from these things and declare that they are “of the devil.” Take movies for example. For years the church told us “don’t go to movies. Movies are of the devil.” And for decades the church neglected a tool that could have been greatly used to influence our culture. Finally, the tides have begun to turn and people like the Kendrick brothers and Sherwood Pictures have begun to make movies like Fireproof and the new movie Courageous that are taking advantage of the medium to influence our culture. By the way, Courageous was #4 in the country opening weekend and has brought in over $25 million.
I tell you that to say that I think it would be a serious faux pas for Christians to neglect the use of this tool that is having such an enormous impact on the culture around us. It made me think of the Apostle Paul who said, “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” I believe that Paul would have been burning up Twitter and leveraging Facebook for the sake of pointing people to Jesus.
Faux Pas #2: How I use social media has nothing to do with my Christian faith.
This is a serious faux pas as well! Our use of social media has serious implications on every area of our Christian lives, from our marriages, to how we parent, to the effectiveness of our witness. To fail to think intelligently about how our use of social media impacts our faith is a serious faux pas.
The difficulty for many comes in the fact that the bible does not specifically mention social media, such as Facebook. It didn’t exist! But the bible does have a great deal to say about how we relate to one another as human beings and as Christians. And those principles apply whether we are relating to one another in person or online. I think if we will apply the values of Ephesians 4:29 and 2 Corinthians 5:20 we will be certain to honor God and avoid many of the faux pas of the culture around us:
- “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29)
- “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
To hear the message in its entirety and my answers to many of the questions I have fielded over the past couple of weeks, click here.
-Pastor Brandin
Friend request
This past Sunday we kicked off a new series titled Faux-cial Networking that is designed to help us engage in a conversation about how Social Media impacts our lives as Christians and how we can faithfully live out our calling in light of this new technology.
As John Dyer, author of From the Garden to the City, writes, “…younger people often uncritically embrace any and all technology while older generations sometimes make shortsighted critiques of technology.” As believers in Jesus Christ, we don’t want to naively accept anything and everything into our lives, but we also don’t want to reject everything new at face value. Thus the need for a thoughtful conversation.
Without thinking intelligently about the role technology plays in our faith I think we run the risk of what I would call “Faux or Faux Pas.” When something is faux it means it is artificial, fake, or false. A faux pas is defined as a blunder, especially a social blunder. My fear is that without exploring this subject we could unknowingly accept something fake in place of the real thing that God desires for us, or we could take some missteps or make some real blunders that affect both our relationship with God and others.
I think the first area that we run the risk of accepting a fake in place of the real thing comes in the area of relationships, namely friendships. The explosion of social media outlets such as Facebook show that we are hungry for connection; we long for friendship, but it has also shown time and time again how poor we are at real friendship. This week’s message highlighted some common relationship destroyers, their sources, and how God can help us to become the kind of friend we long for.
To listen to the message in its entirety and for a study guide click here.
Have a question about how Christians use (or should use) the Internet and social media? We want to hear it! Email Pastor Brandin at bmelton@sfnchurch.com.
Connect Groups
The Connect Groups at SFN are off to a great start. Each week of Connect Groups we have twice as many adults participating than the typical week of Sunday School. This is an amazing response that I believe highlights our need for relationships and spiritual support. This is a phenomenal beginning to a ministry that we think is going to bless so many lives.
Our Connect Groups are off to such a great start that we actually are in need of starting three more groups as soon as possible. Many of our Connect Groups are already at maximum capacity and there are still many more people who need a Connect Group to join. In addition to that, we believe that God is going to continue to bless our church with new people and those people will need a place to connect.
If you would be interested in hosting a Connect Group or serving as a Connect Group Leader please contact us at connectgroups@sfnchurch.com. It doesn’t matter if you are already a part of a Connect Group or have yet to participate. We would be happy to train you and include you in this important ministry to others.
-Pastor Brandin
God’s prescription for anxiety
As we concluded the sermon series Prescription this past Sunday, my wife shared her personal story of her struggle with anxiety disorder. I knew God wanted to use her testimony in a powerful way to encourage others who are facing similar challenges, but I was still amazed at how deeply so many were impacted by what she had to share. She did a wonderful job of sharing and God was faithful to use it.
The fact of the matter is, the number of people being diagnosed with anxiety disorder is on the rise. According to statistics, there are approximately 40 million Americans who are dealing with this life-immobilizing condition, many of them Christians. A lot of Christians suffer along silently because they are afraid to admit their struggle to others out of fear that they will think they are somehow less-than Christian. What they fail to realize is that just as Christians are subject to suffer other maladies, such as diabetes and migraine headaches, Christ can give us the strength to overcome.
Once again, we went to God’s word for a prescription for dealing with anxiety. It was as follows:
- Humble yourself and recognize your need for God’s strength. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
- Pray. (Philippians 4:6-7)
- Cast your anxiety (cares) on Him. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
- Meditate on Scripture. (Psalm 91)
To hear my wife’s testimony and the rest of this message click here.
- Pastor Brandin
Serve Day @ Horace Mann
Serving our community is at the core of who we are as a church.
Saturday, October 15th was just one opportunity for us to serve as a collective faith family. In about six hours, our 50 volunteers gave the playground at Horace Mann Elementary a major face lift! The work included painting:
- 3 swing sets
- 8 tether-ball poles
- 4 soccer goals
- 3 sets of monkey bars
- 10 four square courts
- 6 hopscotch courts
- 3 bike racks
- 5 shoe scrapers
- a baseball field backstop
Thank you to everyone who gave your time. The 420 students (and the staff will greatly appreciate everything you did!
At the core of who we are: Service
At our leadership retreat a few weeks back, we did an exercise to confirm that we are staying true to our mission to reach the world in Jesus’ name, connect people to God and each other, and help them grow toward spiritual maturity. Our exercise identified service to the community as being at the core of who we are and we believe that is exactly the church God is calling us to be!
This Saturday gives us an excellent opportunity to serve the community by giving of our time at Horace Mann Elementary. This project will allow us to impact approximately 430 students, half of which are receiving free or reduced lunches. As I mentioned Sunday, this opportunity is truly a gift from God as we believe partnering with the local church is essential to us fulfilling His mission in Springfield.
We had a great response of volunteers sign up on Sunday but we definitely have room for more! Please email jveach@sfnchurch.com if you are able to help this Saturday, October 15. We will meet at 8am and plan to wrap up by 2pm.
In addition, there are a few supplies that we need to provide to make this day a success. Please email jveach@sfnchurch.com if you’ll be able to bring any of the items listed below:
- extension ladders
- step ladders
- push brooms
- rakes
Thank you for your continued support of the Kingdom through the ministry of SFN!
-Pastor Brandin
