A New Generation

Church Planting Series, Part seventeen

I was hanging out with some young ministry leaders over the weekend. These college students and recent graduates were fired up in their faith and ready to reach the world for Christ. But they were thinking differently about ministry.

I asked one person what ministry path he was thinking about. He responded, “My life is my ministry.” He is forging ahead to become a math teacher, making every moment of his life outreach for Christ and using every opportunity to serve inside and outside the church.

Another young leader heard me make the comment, “The church is not a building; it’s the people.” He let out a loud “Amen” and proceeded to talk about the small group he is in and how they serve and reach the lost.

A young woman told me how she came to know Jesus and how she started reaching her young classmates who were on the fringes of the mainstream.

My friend told me about his college student daughter who is looking for a church while she’s away at school. One front-runner was a “church under the bridge” that met with and served the homeless.

A seminarian getting ready to graduate told me about his desire to partner with a friend to become “worker-priests” and simply live with inner-city residents to see how Jesus might open doors for life transformation with the Gospel.

There is a new generation of young ministry leaders. This generation is not thinking as much about career in ministry as they are about contributing to the expansion of the Kingdom. These leaders are not thinking as much about mega-church building as they are about making Christ’s difference in the world. These Christ-followers are thinking not as much about stardom as they are about sacrifice. These servants are not thinking as much about charging into the world with a big impact as they are about changing the world one person at a time.

How can we be good stewards of these new generation leaders? Shall we funnel them into old systems of training and church structure? Shall we tell them that they are idealists who need to get real and get with the old, established programs? Or shall we let these leaders soar by giving them permission, training, mentoring, support, and maximum flexibility to allow for a new movement of transformational ministry for Jesus?

Church is moving outside the walls. A new generation of leaders wants to bring Jesus to the world in a powerful way. Can we join them? Can we contribute to this new movement? Can we be part of a decentralized, smaller, servant-oriented, fluid network of faith communities that infiltrate neighborhoods and cities with Jesus? What will that look like? What steps must we take to get there?