Interesting question, and one I have had to deal with a lot, lately. Based on my reading of reviews, I believe the book, "
The Great Evangelical Recession" by John Dickerson, will deal some with his ideas on that issue. It makes me even more curious to read some of it. One of its theses is that we are driving off (not merely losing) our young generation, and frankly, I see that happening.
Anyway, I think John Mark in the NT would be a good example to look at. Many know him for Paul's acknowledgment in 2Timothy after his dispute with Barnabas. When you look more closely, you find that John Mark was pretty young. However, he had been around Christ for awhile, even with those core believers who would gather at his mother's home to pray Peter out of jail. Before hastily judging him, we should consider the possibility that John Mark just plain wasn't ready for such a big undertaking as a journey to strange countries to minister to Gentiles with different customs, languages, and laws, and putting your life on the line, not being properly prepared.
I am trying to put together a book on a series of lessons I taught from Hebrews 6 on the Seven First Principles or Foundational Doctrines. One of those is the "laying on of hands." Highly interesting, and a volatile subject when you are dealing with an anti-Charismatic group such as we Baptists.
I will not give the whole chapter in this post, but I view "laying on of hands" as the passing on or transferring of something -- be it healing, or the Holy Spirit, or a gift, or a responsibility. That is why in 1Tim 4:14, Paul would remind Timothy, "
Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
Again, in 2Tim 1:6, Paul again reminds Timothy about this. "
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. In 1Tim 5:22, Paul shows it to include personal responsibility as he warned, "
Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins." In sum, don't give people responsibility before they are ready, and impart that wisdom through "hands-on" training.
I like what Tarheel Baptist has to say, and no doubt part of the problem is some folks who make a position for themselves and refuse to change. But lets go back to John Mark. Significantly, this young man who failed miserably on his first time out with little preparation and was refused by Paul was still mentored by Barnabas after the breakup of the first missionary team. Btw, Barnabas was an experienced mentor, involving Saul of Tarsus in ministry when he was a little known and untrusted young Christian. Later, we find Mark serving with Peter in Babylon. He is the writer of the Gospel of Mark, probably from Peter's account of the gospel events. No doubt this process did a lot to mature him.
Paul himself seems to have caught this vision from Barnabas. Though Barnabas took Mark with him to Cyprus for further "hands-on training," Paul in Acts 15:40 chooses instead to take Silas, who is a seasoned and older Christian originally one of the "chief men among the brethren" (Acts 15:22), a man chosen because of his experience in a "hazarded life" (Acts 15:25-27) and a prophet in his own right (Acts 15:32). But in Acts 16, he
adds a young disciple named Timotheus, whom he puts together with Silas often at the first (Acts 17:14,15; 18:15). Then he changes that up and sends out Timothy with Erastus to Macedonia in Acts 19:22, and in that verse notice that these two were only a couple among "
them that ministered unto him." By the time you get to Acts 20:4, Paul's collection of young men to train is in full bloom! There it names 7 that were with "them," and Luke was also with them at the time since he writes this using personal plural pronouns.
After VBS this summer, I challenged our older adults, who did quite a lot of the work, to use the principle of 1 to 3. In this way, hopefully each older, spiritually mature adult will take on no more than 3 other younger Christians to spend time with and try to mentor into performing their services. This helps to "pass down" the experience to another generation of Christians, and also encourages the currently working adults by giving them a sense of leadership and inspires them that they are not alone in their responsibilities. If we can accomplish this, it will help prevent the overwhelming fear that paralyzes many young Christians from engaging in ministry at first.
Do you remember when you first drove a car? You probably did not just take the keys and get in and confidently drive to begin with. But someone explained a few of the basics to you, finally gave you some keys while they slid over to the passenger seat, and talked you through your early experiences. And ohhhh, those early experiences! For me, it was crossing bridges with the rails up on the side, hemming you in. Then it was the nervousness of passing my first truck, or worse -- having a truck pass me on the left! But as I drove more, my confidence AND ability increased so that eventually, I didn't need that experienced passenger riding with me.
Rather than blaming the young for understandably being hesitant and "departing from them" and returning to home from Pamphylia, we should look at mentoring and introducing these young and inexperienced but godly Christians into ministry with hands-on training from older, experienced Christians. A policy which Paul seems to have learned well and put into practice quite effectively.
From personal experience, I was better prepared to speak when my Pastor had me read Alfred Gibbs' book,
The Preacher and His Preaching, and then had an experienced preacher, Bro. Benny Beckum, take me and another fellow and let us wail away behind the pulpit with just him for an audience. He then was able to help us correct some of our errors and keep us from making screaming fools of ourselves and calling it "preaching" by just flinging us in front of an audience to babble whatever came to mind.
When our Youth Director taught us soul winning, it was the same way. Scared? You bet! It didn't matter that I had weeks of Abb Thomas' soul winning course and passed the test or had memorized all the scriptures. That brand new "soul winners marked New Testament" in my pocket was a sorry crutch to lean my shaking knees on. If Preacher had just dumped us out on a street corner and told us to go knock a door like we had been taught, I would have ran away, I was so scared. Instead, with each of us, he would take one along and let us be the "silent partner" for a block or so, then let us nervously stammer our greeting at that first door before he took over. Gradually, we built our confidence up and was finally able to knock a door and present the gospel, mostly without a hitch. (Hey! It wasn't my fault, and the dog lived! But my silent partner had to go right home and change his clothes
)
I have had classes in Bus Ministry. I worked a van route as a teen in my home church (well, sort of, if you call riding in the passenger seat working the route). I've read Wally Beebe's books, worked on a route at Highland Park when Clarence Sexton was Bus Director, there, and captained one of the furthest routes from Trinity in Jacksonville. But I learned more by accident from my bus captain at FBCH than I ever learned on purpose or by experience. Our route was not always the largest during a program, but it was usually the largest in the division over the summer. When everybody else's fell off because so many students were gone for summer break, this route remained pretty consistent. And I think we had some of the highest numbers of teens going to City Baptist and on to HAC. Bro. Joe had 3 "secrets" used to achieve this.
The first, as far as I know, was done by everybody from Hammond. On Saturdays, the workers would walk the route all day. We played ball, had snowball fights, and played hide-n-seek. Sometimes the kids or the parents would be in a "talky mood," so we just pulled a chair up to the table and talked. No pressure, just time. The most valuable lesson was to learn that you accomplish more pastoring your people in their living rooms and at dining tables or on their streets than you can ever do screaming from a pulpit or holed up in an air conditioned office. The second secret was to take some of the teens soul winning on some Saturdays, involving them in the ministry and seeing them grow in their walk with the LORD.
The last secret was to use our faithful teens. Of course we were taught about "the program on the bus." Bro. Joe usually had us running the route during pick up, or taking kids to their door during drop off, or sitting amongst the unruly crowd, or just wrestling with them in the back of the bus. It was often the teens that led the singing, taught the verses, and told the stories. This did a lot to free up Bro. Joe and the driver -- actually all of us -- during pickups and drop-offs especially -- to administrate the route. And also to develop these younger Christians into ministering outwardly instead of constantly consuming ministry inwardly. Now, you could not just "have them do it." He did it himself and taught them how. He would sing the songs with a teen, give them a few pointers, or have a list of songs ready. Get them ready with a story on Saturday, or show them how to teach a Bible verse and have them write it on a poster. All I know is that this worked so that instead of losing all the teens in their senior-high years, that route and that Captain had a high retention rate and sent a lot of them on to Christian School and some even to Bible College.
I suppose there are a lot of different answers to this question. But I can certainly think of no better Biblical one than those who are doing the work should mentor others into the work, not just you or the pastor as solely responsible. This relieves the tension and fear in the new ones, and gives the experienced generation an enlarged sense of purpose and a "reset" to living the basics. If you do not involve your adults in training the following generations, then a congregation will condense, spiraling into an ever-tightening circle of aging adults who feel they are more and more enlightened. In reality, they are becoming more and more isolated, turning into a limited monastic or elitist style of church. It seals their doom.
In closing, Paul contended with the Hebrew Christians in Hebrews 5:12 by saying, "
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." Two short ideas. First, Paul appears to be saying that all Christians should eventually reach a point that they are teaching or mentoring others in the first principles or basic doctrines. Secondly, these mature Christians who were raised on the Word of God and familiar with the Law, the Prophets, Poetry, Songs & Historical Examples can return to a point of actually NEEDING the sustaining milk of God's word instead of strong meat. When a congregation becomes too elite and "mature" to reach out and include new Christians just beginning where they started their own Christian walk years before, and nurture them, then they deceive themselves into thinking they are strong and only need meat. They really need the milk, the basics -- a reminder that the most important thing is our foundation, not the edifice we have built over time.
So, I would recommend attempting to direct your adults to enroll and mentor new Christians and young people in general. Instead of your own direct and forceful persuasion, mentor your experienced Christians under you to go take 2 or 3 others themselves. "
The aged women ... That they may teach the young women ..." (Titus 2:3,4) It sure seemed to work well for Paul.
*Hat tip </
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