Lead a Weblog for Young Adult Leaders

While the call to discipleship is clear, it’s not necessarily easy. Here’s why. And here is some practical help as well.

Ready or not … a new year of ministry has begun (or will soon begin). And the reality is that some of us … are not ready. Many more of us find ourselves much less ready than we’d like to be. Some of us find ourselves in a place of spiritual, emotional or mental distress. We don’t feel ready for a new year. Not for the return of students, the start of classes or the work of serving as pastor to a rapidly moving community. And the bad news is that we can’t do anything to stop time or delay the return of students or the start of another year. But all is not lost … there is good news!

The beginning of the fall semester is a crucial time for your ministry to reach students.

The first step to bringing in a new kind of content is the realization that sitcom-style church simply does not connect with an emerging generation. Sitcom content makes the assumption that things can be resolved at the end of church. It seeks to leave an audience with some key, practical steps to having their best life now.

The Scriptures teach us to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” In addition to Sundays, I think the Bible is reminding us we need some special down time. What I don’t think is that it’s calling us to be lazy and neglectful.

My husband and I have officially worn out our welcome. The “welcome” word on our doormat, that is.

A few weeks ago, Ryan noted that the welcome mat at our front door was faded and shredded. You couldn’t even read any of the various multi-lingual “welcomes” that once covered it. As usual, our perspectives on this mundane domestic development were about as distant as the loyalties of Red Sox and Yankees fans or the political views of Mary Matalin and James Carville.

Church historians consider Nehemiah among the greatest leaders in the Bible. What is the pedigree for a man with such a reputation? What was the background of one who could rebuild a city in 52 days? Nehemiah was a nobody before he was somebody.

The simple truth of the gospel does not change—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died as a sacrifice so that we might, by faith, be put in right relationship with God. Though this truth is timeless, we must always evaluate the presentation of that truth to make sure it’s connecting in a culturally relevant way. Here are a few principles we’ve found to be helpful in the discussion of how you evangelize young adults:

Groups focused exclusively on themselves are sad to see. Sure, they have lively discussions. They know incredible amounts of theological terms. There is never a shortage of opinions regarding predestination, the end times, or the Nephilim. The problem with groups like that is that they have given themselves over to intellectualism, and in so doing, have lost many of the other benefits (serving, praying for one another, bringing new people into the group) of meeting together.

All of us know the tragic stories of wives and children of pastors and planters that grow up to hate the church. The greater tragedy is that I believe most of these stories should never have to be told. Instead, the stories exist because the leader of the home is failing to lead well.