Generation 2 generation
“I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise you forever and ever.” Psalm 45:17
I don’t hear people talking about the generations when talking about global evangelism. I don’t hear many people talking about old people passing to the younger generations, or about the importance of families, when talking about every tribe and tongue hearing about Christ and His return.
The generations are of the utmost importance to Jesus. This is such a big issue, and it is not JUST an issue of children, it is an issue involving all generations. The relationship between each generation is of vital importance. From the beginning of man, Christ has been building from generation to generation towards His coming again. With this in mind, when there is dysfunction between them, they are not working the way He had intended them.
We will be held accountable for our attitudes towards other generations. For example, His views on children are so strong that He even says that if someone causes a little one to stumble it is better for that person to kill themselves:
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6
When we look around the world today we see broken families. A fatherless generation is all around us, children are growing up with identity issues, while the rise of abortion is alarming. The church was destined to bring healing to these terrible situations, and see the hearts of the fathers turned to the children and children to the fathers (Malachi 4:5-6).
From my experience traveling in ministry for over a decade, it seems that the church structures are one of the ways to disconnect the generations. The church structures break relationships, when children and youth move UP to different age groups, sending them into different rooms and modeling itself on a Greek education system and not the Biblical one founded in Judaism. It can unconsciously disempower parents who, Biblically, are meant to be the primary disciplers of their children.
I hear youth leaders saying to young people, “It’s OK, you can talk to me about your problems because I know it is hard to talk to your parents.” This is disempowering parents, and it is not dealing with the issue that there is a problem within the family if they are not able to talk together about struggles in their own personal lives.
I only see TWO contexts in the Bible for raising the next generation:
1) Parents are responsible for their children (Deuteronomy 29:29), and
2) one whole generation is responsible for the next (Psalm 145:4).
Yet the church has turned the responsibility of raising up the next generations into a calling, instead of responding to a COMMAND on the lives of EVERY believer.
Political systems, other religions, even terrorist groups know that to take a nation you must take the next generation. In communist Russia they stopped the Gospel being passed to the younger generations, and over 75 years they captured the nation.
Other religions give their strongest leaders to the emerging generations to raise them to be nation changers. Yet some in the body of Christ see them as relatively unimportant, cute, the church of tomorrow, or don’t even recognize them.
The emerging generations are the church of today. They have the full power of God in them just like any adult, and the older generations have much to give to them.
I have spent years with Generation 2 generation traveling all over the world helping the body of Christ to empower parents and families, as well as bringing the generations together.
God is moving and we are seeing reconciliation and miracles. It’s not all doom and gloom, but this is a wake-up call to see the church unite not just denominationally, or ethnically, but generationally. Let’s not continue to have a fractured Body.
We as a ministry exist to see this, and to see the emerging generations raised up for such a time as this. Literally, for a time when we see abortion rising, the spreading of persecution globally, the moral decline of the nations, etc.
The laws that this generation live by were permitted by previous generations - we all must rise up and stand for truth. We must accept responsibility that they have pornography all over the Internet or graphic magazines and movies, etc. The emerging generation lives within the rules the previous generation allowed.
There is darkness all around us, persecuted nations, and thousands of unreached people groups globally still to hear of the saving power of Jesus. These are exciting times. Light is to run to the darkness, and this emerging generation is one that can rise up and make a huge impact on the world we live in. This generation can statistically complete the Great Commission.
Here is the mission statement for my ministry: “Reconnecting the generations and inspiring them to have an uncompromising passion for Jesus with a heart for mission and evangelism.”
If you are interested in hearing more, seeing how you can support us, or even get involved, please check out the rest of our website and feel free to email us.
This article was first published in M.E.X Magazine Issue No 1, January 2011.