An Emerging Culture
As I travel, I see churches facing the challenge of raising the next generation. One of the most asked questions in the small group world is, "What Shall We Do With Our Children?" It is, in itself, encouraging that the question is being asked! God is bringing this question to the lips of His people because He has his plans for this generation. He is calling from all over the earth a mighty army of children and young people who will go to the darkest places on earth and take the gospel as never before in the history of mankind. Our generation gets the tremendous privilege of raising them to be soldiers of the Most High God.
The successes of many churches is that they are now mobilizing small groups of children and young people who are starting to realize their potential in Jesus. Their gifts are being released as they experience the presence and power of Jesus to release them into the purpose to which they have been called.
Most churches are making decisions about children's small groups as they transition their children's ministry, and some are restoring them into the community in which their parents are a part - the intergenerational small group. These steps are a tremendous step forward from being church as we have known it for a generation or more, and it is encouraging to see a generation emerging to take their full place in the whole community of the Church of Jesus Christ.
In moving forward, there is a challenge that will release them even further! The Bible clearly speaks of the responsibility that one generation has for another. Judges 2:10 says, "When this generation had returned to its fathers a generation grew up who did not know their God or what He had done in Israel." One generation had not passed on to the other and the result was a rebellious and wayward generation. God’s plan was that "one generation shall praise your works to another" (Psalm 41).
There is a whole generation of children and young people for whom God has tremendous plans. We are commissioned by God to mobilize them for the kingdom; but in order for this to happen, a whole generation, every single person, must be turned to the next! Quite a challenge!
Not only must there be a change of structures but a change of culture in the Body of Christ. A culture where raising the next generation is the God given responsibility of every member! Every leader, every member in every small group passing on what God has given to them to the next generation.
Within that, there is the responsibility of parents for their own children and young people.
Deuteronomy 29:29 says, "The secret things belong to God, the things revealed belong to us and to our children." What God has revealed to a parent belongs also to their child. Every testimony given in a small group meeting, every rhema through the Word, every story of God’s goodness in their lives, every ministry that they are operating in, every anointing given by God is given to them AND their children. Every Pastor having his family as paramount importance, every small group leader, whether in homogenous or intergenerational small groups, modeling to his group and encouraging his members in the discipleship of their own children as of primary importance. So the challenge is there. How are we going to restore to parents the role of being the primary disciplers of their own children?
This will be accomplished by changing the culture of the Body of Christ so that it is the heartbeat of every person in every generation to pass on relationally to the next. What we are given we are given in trust for the next generation!
Psalm 45:17 says, "I will perpetuate your name through all generations THEREFORE the nations will praise you, and rolling on through history future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn."
If we face the challenge of changing the culture of the Body of Jesus we can change the course of history, the nations, and the generations yet to come!
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