Last month, I and several board members attended a seminar for church leaders. It was called, "Reaching People under 40 while Keeping People over 60," and was led by Eddie Hammett, who has written a book by the same title. The title intrigued me because we have a balanced representation of generations within our church, and yet there is a challenge to minister to each generation simultaneously. We can much more easily do ministry separately. The youth have had a loud worship service in a mostly dark room for years. Adults may not enjoy it, but it does not directly affected them. (By the way, if you did not like the black walls, you need to check out the new "bright" color scheme in the Youth Center now.) The JOY group likewise has meetings which would be equally uncomfortable for many young adults. The challenge comes when we all try to come together - namely for a weekly worship service.

I believe there is a benefit to being a multi-generational church. I love interacting with men and women almost twice my age. I love and respect them and can learn much from their years of service to the Lord. I also am challenged when I work with Christians almost half of my age. They have a different and challenging perspective on issues of the faith, many of which I have taken for granted. We basically have 4 generations in our congregation, each of which are fairly evenly represented. Hannah Faith Jacobs was born this month and comes into the church to worship with her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and numerous aunts and uncles.

The biggest challenge of the seminar was to realize how quickly the culture is changing. If you view the generations as floating circles, the circles are spreading further from each other. The generations used to be pretty similar, and there was a large common ground.
But with the increase of information and technology, the generations find themselves floating further apart with little or no overlap.

What does this mean for the church? One challenge we face is working with those who were raised in the church and are part of a new generation. While this is difficult, it is possible to "train up a child" to appreciate certain traditions and show respect for those who are older. However an increasingly large percentage of our population is completely unchurched - as much a 70% of our community. It is unrealistic to think that they will cross this generational gap in order to encounter the power of Christ.

Partly because of this dynamic, 92% of churches in North Carolina are declining or plateaued in attendance. Eddie Hammett told us that his research speculated that 60% of the churches could close in the next 20 years. Unless the church recognizes the challenge and determines to do something, the church in our culture will become like the churches in Europe - beautiful structures without a congregation within them.

Now I am not suggesting that we get louder or alienate the older generation in order to reach the young. I am advocating that we take hold of the challenge to reach the lost. I think we have a lot of work to do to improve our worship service. Some changes, I think you will like. Others, you may not. But understand that our future is dependent on how quickly we can respond to the changing conditions of our culture. I want to try in the next several months to make our service more worshipful to every generation. I am asking you to accept the challenge and be willing to do whatever it takes to reach those who do not know Christ, whatever their age.

With love and prayers,
Pastor Joey