Cross Generational Ministry

So our youth pastor is heading up a class this fall on the very topic, of cross-generational ministry. We talked yesterday about legacy and ministry; of the next generation learning ministry from those who've led for years and decades prior. The more I've thought about this the past couple of days, it's a complex matter... the process of one generation duplicating the next generation of leaders, while the next generation of followers of Christ have any entirely different life experience in terms of building relationships.

Hence, the concept of cross-generational ministry. Leadership duplicates itself. Yet, the "market" changes. Those who follow do not duplicate themselves... they enter the picture of their own volition.  So there is a significant, if not a great difference between pastors passing the baton of leadership and leaders ministering to multiple generations. There's also an incredible difference between a ministry that focus on a particular generation (seniors group versus college/career) and a service in which the pastor is preaching to three or four generations all hearing the same message.

Clearly, this issue is becoming increasingly prominent and problematic within the church. Older generations are tired and frustrated by the church for a wide variety of reasons. Subsequent generations  find the church irrelevant. It doesn't fit with modern and progressive thinking and a society and culture that has publicly desired to have and speak less of God and less highly of God in the public square.

Thus the church struggles to be a powerful counter-culture in a 21st context.

We need a move of God and even more, a move of the Holy Spirit to turn the hearts of humanity back towards the heart of their Creator.

Let's pray this #youthPastorWednesday, that indeed, we would witness a modern day move of God and the Holy Spirit upon this culture. Pray that God would soften hearts and prepare the minds of many to understand and receive what has been accomplish for us through the cross of Christ. Pray for a generational call to repentance and an openness to the things of God. Pray for wisdom, as the church works to reach the disenfranchised, the disengaged and disingenuous. May we witness the miraculous as we navigate these difficult and challenging days.

For there is no barrier that God can not reach,
No barrier that the blood of Christ does not cross.
No trial that Christ has not endured,
That is beyond the reach and capacity of God to heal.
For His glory and the cause of Jesus Christ.

- PNC

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