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REVEAL!

Ultrasound of my pastor’s baby

If you have followed me for any length of time, you know I have written much about milestones. The reason is because milestones in next generation ministry are both valued and celebrated. Brian Haynes lists seven legacy milestones in his book Shift that the church should partner with the home in celebrating. As a next generation pastor, I believe it is important that all next generation pastors create a next generation team (composed of the leaders of the preschool, children, student, and college teams). This next gen team needs to sit down together and map out how the milestones will be celebrated in the life of the church and then send this proposed plan to the senior pastor/church for approval.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss the milestones or the milestone process in the life of the family or church. I have spent enough time writing about milestones and or rite of passage events. The purpose of this post is to celebrate a milestone that is often overlooked. Before I get to that, let me first celebrate a personal milestone! This is my 100th blog post! In July of 2016, I stepped out in faith and began this website. I appreciate all of the website traffic and hope my next 100 posts will be better that the first. I am learning to celebrate moments and not just milestones!

Enough about me. What is the unseen milestone? It’s really quite simple when you think about it. Who in the next generation is unseen and overlooked? THE UNBORN. God says to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” King David penned something similar in Psalm 139:13-16, “For you formed my inward parts: you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, everyone of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

Can you catch David’s passion for the unborn? David knew the unborn were wonderfully made and the unborn were a wonderful work of the Lord. He says he knew this fact very well! David knew that the days for the born were formed before birth. Catch this! David is not celebrating the unborn as much as he is celebrating the one who created the unborn. God gets the glory! This is important for us to understand. As important as it is to celebrate milestones in our lives, it is more important to celebrate the life giver of those milestones. Without God, nothing would be possible because we wouldn’t even exist. God not only creates us and the world, but he sustains both (Gen. 1:1, Col. 1:16-17).

When the unborn are killed, it breaks my heart. When the governor of Virginia speaks of killing the just born, I am grieved even more. Abortion and infanticide are both wrong. Do these murderers really believe they are going to get away with what they have done? I am understanding of abortion in special circumstances where the doctor says either the mother or the baby is going to die. But, I am not talking about special circumstances. Let’s stop with all of the excuses and call abortion out for what it is. It’s never fun to celebrate death. That’s why celebrating the unborn life, those in the womb, should be a special occasion!

My church celebrated this milestone this past Sunday! My pastor and his wife created a quick post-sermon milestone event called “Reveal.” They got in front of everyone at the end of the morning worship service holding a huge black balloon with the words “he or she.” The whole church was about to find out the gender of the unborn baby. When my pastor and his wife popped the balloon, streaming blue paper went everywhere. It’s a boy!

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Family Worship vs. Worship as Family

Google the words “family worship” and you can discover some great resources that describe what family worship is and the importance (and even requirement) of having family worship. For example, a Ligonier article entitled “Family Worship 101” by William Boekenstein defines family worship as the regular use of Scripture, song, and prayer by a family unit, guided by the head of the household.

Lately, I have been equipping parents with resources to lead their children (including teens) in family devotions. Family devotions is not the same as family worship although family devotions are a form of worship. Family devotions should only last about ten minutes a night. You can find many resources that will help you lead daily devotions for your family. Family worship might also be every night but is a bit lengthier than ten minutes. For instance, some families have been known to have family worship for 30 minutes a night (excluding church days or a once a week family day). Is there a happy medium? I think so! I would suggest families planning a “family night.” Family nights last up to an hour long and incorporate a time to eat, play, study, and pray together. I don’t know of any better resource for family nights than GenOn Ministries “Family ’round the table” curriculum. Family night is definitely family worship!

But should family worship take the place of worship as family? When I say “worship as family,” I mean families attending their weekly congregational worship together. The answer to this question is no! Family worship at home should not take the place of family worship at church or vice versa. Both churches and families should partner together in making disciples of the next generation (Deut 6:6-7, Ps 78:5-7, Acts 2:46; 5:42, Ephesians 6:4, 2 Tim 3:15). This is the way it always has been in the Bible. Family discipleship should take place in the church and in the home. Simply put, families should have a time of worship together at home and in the church. Healthy churches help make healthy homes and healthy homes help make healthy churches!

Fathers or single-parent mothers (as head of the household), let’s be honest. Family worship is often the exception and not the rule. Most families worship at church but family worship at home is found wanting. Donald Whitney has an excerpt in his book, Family Worship which says, “I am persuaded from my own ministry experience in hundreds of churches that so little family worship regularly exists in Christian homes today, that even in our best churches, most of our best men do not even pray with their wives (and children if they have them) much less lead them in ten minutes or so of worship as family . . . God deserves to be worshiped daily in our homes by our families.”

Barna Research echoes Whitney, “Eighty-five percent of parents with children under age 13 believe they have primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual matters. However, a majority of parents don’t spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious materials with their children . . . Parents generally rely upon their church to do all of the religious training their children will receive.”

This atrocious trend of families relying on the church to meet all of its spiritual needs must come to an end. Equally important, ministry leaders must stop trying to do all of the family’s work. Ministry leaders, please equip your families with resources for leading worship at home. Families, as you begin worshipping at home, you will notice that worship at church becomes that much sweeter! And in-turn ministry leader, you will notice your burdens at church becoming lighter (Matt 11:28-30).

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Time for a retreat?

I recently attended a retreat with the purpose of discussing the book Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Gieger and the book Gen Z by James Emery White. Simple Church is a book written many years ago that revolutionized many American churches. Gen Z was a book that once I started reading, I could not put down.

Retreats are good for anyone, but especially ministers. If you are a ministry leader, make sure you make time to schedule a spiritual retreat on a regular basis. Retreats should be restful but also prayer-full. You should walk away from a retreat with new insights and renewed devotion. Below was my takeaway!

Having focused so much on discipleship as of late, it was a breath of fresh air to be reminded of the missional movement that took place before the big push on the importance of having Discipleship Groups. I want to thank Robby Gallaty and his Replicate Ministries Team for highlighting the need for D-Groups in local churches. No doubt, the church needs to be making disciples! But my retreat takeaway was the reminder that local churches also need to be making missionaries! It is not either/or, but both/and. Every member needs to be a disciple-maker and every member needs to be a missionary. No matter your location or vocation, you are a missionary. But you are a disciple-maker too! Let’s not talk about one without the other. This insight was confirmed to me when I got home and read the postscript (written 5 years after the book was released) of Simple Church:

“They (simple churches) seek to move people to a place of living a missional life. Discipleship to these churches is not information, but transformation. And a true disciple is someone who seeks to transform the community around him. A disciple understands he is a missionary. These churches streamline their programming to create space in the lives of their people to live as a disciple/missionary in their community.”

Well put Thom! Let’s be missional, but let’s also make disciples. Another takeaway from Simple Church that I walked away with was the need for one-word church vision statements. Members can remember one word statements better than they can remember two! Your vision statement can and should be aligned for all ministries in your church, including your next generation ministry!

Here are three words I formulated for a possible vision statement at my church: (1) Become, (2) Connect, (3) Develop. Step 1 in our discipleship process would be Become a church member (in our Worship Service). Step 2: Connect with others (in a small group such as Sunday school/Life group). Step 3: Develop into a disciple (D-Group). Don’t forget what I just wrote: Disciples must be missional! I differ with Thom and Eric in making ministry teams the third step. But suffice to say, if disciples are being made, they will be serving on ministry teams.

And catch this! Don’t get so tied up in the process that you miss the people. If a person comes to your church out of order, who cares? In the culture we live in, getting a person to come to church on any day/night of the week is a win! Having a discipleship process is important, but it is not more important than the people who the process was created for. We desire for people to follow the steps, but if they don’t, I’m just happy they came!

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The Discipleship Challenge

https://www.facebook.com/mtcarmeldemorest/videos/2254894118113290/
Go Fish!

I offered a discipleship challenge to my church this past weekend. The challenge was to start Discipleship groups (D-groups) that operate out of and from within Sunday school classes. To understand how D-groups work, just watch the above message, beginning at the 36 minute mark. The response to my message was good! I believe we will soon have D-groups up and running at the student and adult level.

I have developed curriculum for Student D-groups in the M.A.P.’s Journal. The journal contains one scripture per week that students will need to memorize for their D-group meetings. D-Group Leaders for Student D-Groups will need to purchase Next Generation and Discipleship to obtain the teaching passage used in the M.A.P.’s Journal (what I call the MAP). Adults may use the M.A.P.’s Journal for D-groups as well. My recommendation is that adults read the entire chapter (that their weekly memory verse is located in) before their D-group meeting. Students simply need to read the passage that the memory verse is located in.

For example, the memory verse for Week 1 of the M.A.P.’s Journal is Luke 14:27. Students would need to read Luke 14:25-33 while adults would need to read all of Luke 14. The D-group leader needs to go one step farther than his or her students by reading the online IVP New Testament commentary offered for free at www.biblegateway.com for the week’s selected passage (students) or chapter (adults). This way, the D-group leader will be able to facilitate discussion amongst students. The end goal for D-groups is increased Christ-likeness for all group members!

Having talked about my first two books above, I leave you with a promo for my third: While driving around, I came across two church signs recently. One church sign read “youth group, fun and games, Wed. 7 pm.” The other church sign read “student ministry, Wed. 7 pm.” In my latest book The Student Ministry Time Machine, I talk about where student ministry has been (the first sign), where student ministry is (the second sign), and where student ministry is going (read my book!). For the purpose of this post, I will simply say next generation ministry and discipleship go hand in hand!

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Faith and Culture Presentation

https://www.facebook.com/mtcarmeldemorest/videos/2096662023763124/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDYzNzg5MDc4NToyMTk3NjQwMTUwMjY3MjI3/

Culture matters! So does Faith! We need to keep up with culture if we want to reach the next generation for Christ. It is ok to have a Bible in one hand and a smart phone in the other. Like the men of Issachar, we need to understand the times in which we live so we can know what to do (1 Chronicles 12:32). If you have read Acts 17, you know the Apostle Paul was great at analyzing culture. He understood his culture and audience so that he could present the gospel in the clearest manner. He used his audience’s culture as a point of contact to begin gospel conversation. I hope this video will encourage and inspire you to share the gospel and to fulfill the cultural mandate!

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The Journey Continues

In my last post, I identified some beginning markers for my journey into next generation ministry. Today, I would like to build upon some of these markers to further delineate differences found in next generation ministry and traditional children and youth ministry.

As a new next generation pastor, I have found myself spending the bulk of my time in the preschool. Why? Because the foundational building block must be set up for excellence. If the beginning block is unstable, the ensuing blocks you build upon are likely to tumble. Just ask any preschooler who likes to build towers! As I’ve spent a lot of time getting this beginning block in order (kids check-in, etc.), I have found myself spending more time with teenagers. I say all of this to say that as a next generation pastor, you may find yourself spending more time with a specific age-group (preschool, children, youth, college) in certain seasons than others. Things tend to balance out in the end!

As a next gen pastor, I have also been able to spend a lot of time in the community building relationships. I help coach a youth basketball team and this has allowed me to cultivate relationships with students and parents I would have never met if I stayed locked up in my office.

I have also allowed my teams and leaders to lead. I have a team for children, students, and college-aged students with a leader for each team. I consider everyone on each team a leader, but I consider the team’s leader as the leader. This bottom-up leadership has been so valuable that it has allowed me to do things for my church that otherwise would not be possible. For instance, I am soon to give my church a presentation on the topics of faith and culture (I will try to add video of my presentation in my next post). I will also be preaching soon on the topic of discipleship and value of having D-groups for all ages. Other items to come in the future could include hosting Sunday school teacher training, beginning a new members/new believers class, and the start-up of special needs ministry. None of these items were on my job description, so you may ask how in the world would it be possible for me to do even one of these other listed items. The truth is everything boils down to leadership. I have great leaders under me that allow me to lead at a higher level which makes the church healthier and stronger. Get this: I have been on the job for over two months and have not taught one lesson to any age-group. Now, that is true next generation ministry! I have leaders that excel at leading and teaching their specific age-groups that I am able to wear more hats and do more than has been asked of me.

In team meetings, I attend and serve almost as a mom/dad voice in the room giving approval or disapproval. Like every ministry to the next generation, we have opportunities and challenges to discuss. A challenge we are currently discussing include adding an extra hour to our Sunday night youth programming. A challenge I am sure you have dealt with in your own ministry is when to begin student ministry (6th or 7th grade). I provide these as examples just to say that next gen ministry is not without its challenges.

So, what is it I hope to accomplish in next gen ministry that could not be accomplished by a children’s or youth pastor who was working unto him or herself. Besides, the teams I mentioned above, I also have a next generation team that consists of the leaders of each team mentioned above. I will meet with these leaders and we will talk about implementing milestones for our next gen ministry. As a team, we will decide on which milestones to include and which to not. Then I will be able to create a next gen booklet specific for my church that any member can access at anytime.

Hopefully, this journal of my next generation ministry journey is helping you along in your own!

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Praying for the Next Generation

I have written much about how to reach and keep the next generation. However, before you or your church do anything, pray. And after you and your church have done everything, pray some more.

Regardless of where your church is at in reaching the next generation, you should pray. Perhaps the high-speed train is rolling and your bringing in the next gen by the cart loads or perhaps the train isn’t even on the track because you don’t have a train to reach the next generation with. No problem. Wherever you are, begin and end in prayer.

Strategies are important, but even strategies should be saturated in prayer. One strategy I have been using as of late is called “Seven Sundays of Focus” and it comes from www.reachingnextgen.com. I have adapted the strategy some, but my church’s “Seven Sundays of Focus” looks like the schedule below:

First Sunday – Pray for Students in Preschool (Ages 0-5)

Second Sunday – Pray for Students in Grades 1-5

Third Sunday – Pray for Students in Grades 6-12

Fourth Sunday – Pray for Students in College/Career (Young Professionals)

Fifth Sunday – Pray for Leaders of Preschool, Children, Youth, and Young Adult’s

Sixth Sunday – Pray for Parents of all students from cradle to college.

Seventh Sunday – Prayer about where we are and where we are going.

In practice, I spend three to seven minutes talking about each group and then praying over each group. You could bring groups to the front, have them stand, or simply raise their hands before praying over the group.

Churches need to be made aware of the times we live in. Churches need to understand how culture and theology work together. Churches need help in understanding who the next generation is (Milennials and Gen Z are not the same), but more than anything, churches need help in praying for the next generation.

If you do a good job of promoting the “Seven Sundays,” you can expect a spike in attendance. But realize more feet is not your ultimate goal. You are there to do serious business with God because you believe prayer is vital and you believe you need God to answer your prayers.

What will the results be? I think the results will be different for every context. However, I am believing in faith that my small church is going to baptize three or four more young people this upcoming year. For a large church, that number may swell to thirty or forty more and for a mega-church, that number may balloon to three or four-hundred more.

All I do know for sure is that Christianity is on hard times in North America and that the church needs to pray. Next generation leader, this starts with you. Approach your pastor about this strategy or another and I pray you get his blessing. But before you knock on his door, pray!

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The Walking Dead: It is real

zombie

There are dead men and women, dead boys and girls walking around us every day. It is hard for us to believe that they are dead because we see them moving, breathing, and making all types of sound. Ephesians 2:1 and Colossians 2:13 teach that those without Christ are dead in their sins. You may recall how Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again (John 3:3). What does a person who is dead but is alive look like?

The popular television show The Walking Dead, now airing in its 7th season, has garnered more attention than any other cable or broadcast series for 18 to 49-year-olds. The show made its season debut last month with a viewership of 17 million. In a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies (“walkers”), survivors attempt to do just that-survive.

To me, The Walking Dead paints a vivid picture of what it means for a person to be alive, yet dead at the same time. The survivors who have not yet been eaten or infected represent humans who are alive and who are doing everything in their power to live to see another day. The zombies are those who are already dead, who have passed onto the other side. There is no hope for the zombie, but the survivors hang on to a glimmer of hope.

My fear is that there are Christians today who are living out a half-life, a life based on survival. Jesus did not come and die on this earth so that those who know Him could survive this life. He came so that his followers could thrive in this life (John 10:10). Yes, persecution and death may befall the Christian, but ultimately there is life in death for the believer. There is a joy to behold in this life and the next and his name is Jesus, the One who conquered death itself. The Kingdom of Heaven is to come but it is also present in the hearts of men made alive now.

The Dead Man Walking made a way. Jesus may have looked like a zombie to those who saw him soon after he walked out of the grave. But who could have imagined?

Christians, we are more than survivors. We are thrivors! There is no need to drag. The same power that was at work in bringing Christ out of the grave is the same resurrection power that is at work in our lives! We go out into the world to infuse Life into those who have bitten with the death curse. We have the lifeline, the good news cure to share with those The Bible claims are dead in their sins. We hope they will be born again so that they too can experience life to the full.

Let’s rally together and go wake up the dead Christians who seem to be sleepwalking and remind them of what Life is all about. Let’s tell those who are dead in their sins how they can have Life eternal. You don’t have to wait until the apocalypse to see a world filled with dead people. Just look around you, witness the hopelessness and despair, and get moving!