milestones - Next Generation Ministry

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!

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!