It continues to baffle me when I hear that churches do not understand why they can’t reach young millennial’s. They continue to disregard them by listing their flaws but fail to see their real potential. This is not love. Love is viewing people as God does. God see’s the potential in us all. Young people today are wanting to be apart of a real movement of change. They want to do something that will change the world. God wants to change the world. Millennial’s desire transparency and truthfulness. God calls us to live a life of righteousness that reveals Christ and His truth. This generation wants to have deep, meaningful relationships. God is relational. So what seems to be the problem? These ideals are great! The problem is not millennial’s, the problem lies with the abandonment of Biblical principles.
Churches have abandoned discipleship. Discipleship is the process of reproducing the life of Christ that is in you, into the life of someone else. It teaches self denial and the reproduction of the fathers love to others.
Luke 9:23 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
One reason the world laughs at us is because of our hypocrisy. We love to quote scriptures but we fail to follow them. Many Christians condone behavior that God is against. We claim to love God, but relish in disobedience to His commandments. The biggest argument against the Church is that we love to sin to much. The world looks at our hypocrisy and laughs. We must deny the lusts of the world. This is not just sexual lusts, but any area that leads to selfishness. Our selfishness leads to our own deception; in which we cling to worldly things instead of Christ. We must deny ourselves, follow Jesus and prepare to die. When we truly live in Christ it leads to selfless love for others. This love changes the world.
John 13:34-35 New King James Version (NKJV)
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The second way we fail millennial’s is that we do not reproduce the love of Christ in others. The best way to influence and inspire is to genuinely love and care for the person that you are trying to reach. Find the common ground, demonstrate your love for them and shine Christ brightly. True love puts aside an agenda and invests time and energy necessary to cultivate an authentic relationship. To demonstrate Christ’s love, it requires a soft and gentle approach that meets the person where they are in life. This requires the Christian to remove all judgmental attitudes. Jesus always had compassion and reached people specifically to their needs and understanding. To truly love someone; you must be patient with them. After all, hasn’t God been patient with you? Discipleship is a #proofofyourfaith.
Share this:
“Churches have abandoned discipleship. Discipleship is the process of reproducing the life of Christ that is in you, into the life of someone else. It teaches self denial and the reproduction of the fathers love to others.”
I could not agree more and you have written true words! It’s truly sad that we have become a church that is this way!
Thank you.
Maybe, this is an Europen perspective, but I think you miss the main point. As you rightly say: Millenials want to do something that will change the world. Many of them feel, that our world is on the downslope, that we are destroying the very planet, that God has given us to live upon. However, many Christians (and Christian communities) fail to acknowledge that.
In a time, where the individual didn’t count, Christian faith (Luther) made it important, that every man and woman is loved by God as an individual, that everyone counts before his eyes. This is why Luther translated the Bible from Latin, so that every individual can read the word of God and make his own decision. That was an important message, and it counteracted the spirit of the days.
Today, we live in a society, where this has totally changed. We live in a indivilualistic socienty, where every individual only looks for his own needs and desires, and it is this selfishness, that is destroying the planet. To “genuinely love and care for the person that you are trying to reach” is important – however it is again only one individual towards another individual. It stays fully in the “spirit of the time”, and is missing the point of the Millennials.
I think, what what is needed – and what the Millennials are looking for – is a spirit of “we” instread of “I”. That “we” take responsibility, that “we” together influence society and take on decisions, that might impose hardship onto “my” life, but will enhance the good of all. This is why – at least in Germany – they use car sharing instead of buying their own car, they refuse to eat meat (not for health reasons, but out of compassion for gods creatures), they try the exit from nuclear and fossil-fuel energy. Where are the Christians, fuelling this sense of “we”, taking responsibility for the “good of all” (and not just of “us” Christians and our churches)? Are we Christians stuck in our world of “I”?
Esther, Thank you for your thoughts. I would agree with you that the world is in a “downslope”, and that we are destroying the planet. I do not know of a single Christian who would disagree with you on that point. In fact we have a mandate by God to be good stewards of the earth. Although there are a few bad apples in Christianity who ignore this, there are socialist communists and atheists who also are polluting the planet. I am encouraged by the fact that today Many Christians recycle, use organic foods, and are mindful of the mandate given to them by God. We know that God’s wrath is severe but just in Revelation it says this:
“And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
Revelation 11:18 NASB
It is because of this that we are also hyper sensitive to the greatest pollution infecting the planet; the virus known as “sin”.
“Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””
Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of good and evil, they allowed sin (a virus) to enter the world and curse it by mutating God’s perfect creation. It mutated the earth, mankind and all living plants and creatures. This is why Jesus had to come, die and shed blood. He had to purify our polluted lives with a blood transfusion. In Ephesians it says this:
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”
Ephesians 1:7-12 NKJV
Only Christ will heal our planet and our soul. So we as Christians are called to love others and through our love change the world. We see that the greatest pollution that we need to stop is sin. Sin brings death to a world that needs hope. We believe Christ is that hope. The real follower of Christ shares, loves, and does the work of looking after the afflicted.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:27 NIV