Change Happens Roll With It
We have to change the way we do things to reach the younger generation.
I’ve never gone fishing before (though I’d love to try it sometime), but even I know you can’t catch a fish with an acorn. If you tried, I could imagine the fish laughing at you as it swam in circles inches from your hook.
So why do we try and attract young people to Christ using techniques that barely keep us awake?
In an era when MTV and gangsters are revered, we have to present an exciting, honest and fulfilling gospel to young people.
We can’t be afraid to think out of the box. Change is good.
| “The secular world should be getting their cues from the church. It shouldn’t be the other way around.” |
In the latter part of 1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul says, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (NIV). We need to ask God what the church needs to become for young people to find Christ.
The old techniques just don’t seem to “hook, line and sinker.” If I may.
Just like you didn’t like your parent’s music, most teens don’t like your music so why would they enjoy your idea of church.
An hour and half on a hard pew hearing about hell and brimstone likely won’t keep a young person wanting more—these days young people watch horror movies for fun.
We live in an age when the secular world is light-years ahead of the church in innovation. They are using their God-given gifts to attract youth to their Satan-given garbage.
The church should be the ones on the cutting edge with innovative ideas. Our churches should be filled to the brim with young people serving God.
Instead a Barna study has found that after teens finish high school there is a 58 percent drop in church attendance.
Yet secular videos, nightclubs and pornography are doing quite well.
We serve a God who created this earth and everything in it and around it. I am sure He would be willing to download a creative idea or two—if we’d only ask.
Let’s stop coasting and start pressing and asking God what’s the next MySpace or YouTube or the next move that will attract teens. Then let’s be diligent to continue to pray and ask God what He is doing next so that we will always be ahead of the game instead of bringing up the rear.
The secular world should be getting their cues from the church. It shouldn’t be the other way around.
We can’t be afraid of change and new things. Maybe young people do things differently but as long as it lines up with God’s Word should it matter? It shouldn’t.
Let’s start praying for creativity when ministering to youth.
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