Making Room II

Church Planting Series, Part twenty-nine

Is there room for a new generation of leaders in the church? Will we welcome younger leaders with their fresh voices and inexperience? Will we help shape, mentor, and form them in a way that allows them to have a meaningful voice in Christ’s mission?

But what about current leaders? What about experienced voices?

We are living in an in-between time. Technology is changing rapidly, but not everyone has e-mail. Social networking is sweeping the world, but you can’t reach everyone through Facebook. The outcry is, “Let’s do away with paper and go all electronic!” Yet, reams of paper keep coming our way.

It’s an in-between time.

It’s an in-between time for churches. But we’re designed to be really good at this.

As the times started changing in the first century, believers were led by the Holy Spirit to realize that there is room for both old and new—-as long as God was being served and glorified. God gave Peter visions to show him the way. Finally, he was able to say, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35). In Acts 15 the Jerusalem Council made the declaration: “We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.” The council then instructed the Gentiles in some key teachings of Moses that would help lift up the Jewish believers and create unity in the church.

The Church has always been about bringing old and new together, living lives of reconciliation, doing change well, and harnessing everything for the mission of the Gospel.

This remarkable self-sacrifice is rooted in the remarkable action of Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7a).

As redeemed people, this is what we do—-joyfully and willingly, founded on the unchanging Word, for the sake of reaching out with the Good News of eternal life.

Are you willing to make extra sacrifices and expend extra effort in order to reach out during these in-between times? What will it mean?

• Flexibility in communication methods
• Flexibility in how people are involved in church
• Flexibility in mission outreach
• Flexibility in accepting “outsiders”
• Flexibility in listening to and honoring “insiders”
• Flexibility in governance style
• Flexibility in worship methods and tools

You get the idea. As the Church, we have the opportunity during these in-between times to live out the self-sacrifice of Jesus. When everyone gives, everyone will receive. Founded on the truth of God’s Word, how do you need to be flexible to make room for effective ministry?

Making Room

Church Planting Series, Part twenty-eight

Where will new Kingdom leaders come from? Are we developing them? Are we making room for their ideas and mistakes? Do they have a significant place around the leadership table? Two observations make this question even more urgent.

Observation #1: I was on a run in Florida recently and saw a group of 70-year-olds whiz by me on road bikes. Each was dressed like Lance Armstrong. These guys were flying.

I turned a corner and saw a man in his eighties dressed in his technical running gear, adjusting his playlist selection on his iPod.

These guys are not like my grandparents were. They’re still center stage, grabbing the gusto, and living life to the full.

The result? A good number from the late Builder generation and early Boomer generation still hold strong places of leadership in the church. They will be actively leading for a long time. The key questions are:

Will they make room for the leadership voices of new generations?

Will they intentionally identify and mentor new leaders?

Observation #2: My older brother is like many in our generation. He and his wife waited to have children. He is now 50-years-old and has a 5-year-old child.

A significant number of people in the U.S. are getting married older, waiting to have children, and having fewer children.

The result? The age gap between parents and children is growing. Instead of 30 or 40-year-olds succeeding their parents’ generation in leadership roles, many 20-year-olds will be in that position. The key questions are:

Will these 20-year-olds have access to a faith-maturing, leadership development process from their parents’ generation?

Will these young leaders be given a chance to reach their generation for Christ in new ways that fit who they are?

If we don’t make room for a new generation of leaders, share leadership and Kingdom lessons with them, and allow them to have a meaningful voice, they may find themselves alienated from the church and ill-equipped to bring Jesus to a broken world.

Are you actively making room?


Next Time: Making Room for the older and younger, together in the church.