A bivocational pastor friend of mine recently had a heart-to-heart discussion with his church leaders. He asked them if their children would continue to attend church there in 10-20 years from now when their parents were no longer there. Most of the leaders admitted they were not sure, and some said they doubted their children would continue to attend that church once they passed away. The pastor then asked, "What do we do about that?" This started a conversation that is still continuing.
This was a great question although it is not one that is easy to ask. Many of our smaller churches cannot afford to lose too many people before they will need to close their doors, and yet few of these churches are asking these types of tough questions. How many of the younger members of the churches will continue to attend our smaller churches once their parents or grandparents are no longer attending there? Since much of the financial support for many of our churches come from the builder generation, what will happen to the finances of our churches when that generation is gone? What needs to happen to make our churches more relevant to younger people, and what do we need to do to help younger generations experience God when they come to our worship services? These are more tough questions that are not easy to ask nor are they going to be easy to answer, but I believe these are questions we must answer if we want to ensure that our churches will be here for future generations.
2 comments:
Smaller churches must begin to try to understand the postmodern mindset of the younger generations. Ministry to these groups must be different - not less Biblical, just different. My generation longs to experience Christ and His community.
In the USA, some of this "experience" desire has come from our consumeristic attitude. Hence, some of the success of the megachurch - although I believe younger people are tiring of consumeristic "churchianity" and longing for more authentic communities of faith. Small churches can appeal to this desire for real, genuine, and lasting community. As a matter of fact, IMHO, small churches have the unique ability to appeal to this desire of postmoderners in a more apt way then the megachurches. Megachurches work hard to develop small group ministries and programs - small churches have them built in!
Right on Jeff! I'm convinced that community is one of the primary benefits that smaller churches can offer to 21st century individuals. We have so isolated ourselves in the USA that we are among the loneliest people in the world. Those churches who offer genuine community will draw people to them and to Christ.
The second ingredient that churches must offer is the opportunity for people to experience God in ways that are meaningful to them. So many of our smaller churches only offer one means of worship that may or may not enable people to experience God in a life changing way. We must find new ways of worship that honors God and allows people to encounter Him in a fresh and powerful way.
If we are able to provide a sense of community to people and ways to worship that are meaningful we will find it much easier to attract our children to our churches and to Jesus Christ.
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