The Next Generation of Church Leaders

Pastor Philip and I with our Student Preacher, Dane.

This week my volunteers and I had the privilege to take our students to MFuge Camp-a Lifeway Camp-in Barbourville, Kentucky. It was a great experience as usual. This year was our fourth time to take students to MFuge, and every year we try to take our students to a different MFuge site. Our students have been to Charleston, South Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, and Ridgecrest, North Carolina.

The church I serve at typically allows our students to lead the worship service on the Sunday morning following camp. The students have the opportunity to lead worship in song, prayer, and preaching from God's Word. You read that correctly! One of our young men has the task to pray, study, and prepare a sermon for the entire body of believers.

This leads me to the purpose of this blog post. I am excited about the next generation of church leaders, deacons, pastors, and missionaries. This next generation will-I believe-be used by God in a magnificent way for his glory. Let me provide you with four observations about this generation that will hopefully drive home this point for all my readers.

1. The next generation is hungry for the Word of God. The next generation wants to be taught the depths of God's Word. In fact, they almost demand to go deeper in their knowledge of the Lord. They want expository preaching. I watched these students engage with the campus pastor at MFuge for nearly forty minutes each night. This was after a long day of service projects in the Kentucky heat. They spent nearly an hour in quiet time and Bible study every morning before heading off to their mission sites. They desire to be fed the Word of God which "is living, and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb 4:12).
2. The next generation desires to engage in genuine worship. It doesn't matter to the next generation the style of music, the dress for worship, or the structure of service. They genuinely desire to have a worship experience with the true God of the Bible during corporate worship and in their individual worship time. They want the freedom to raise their hands in praise. They want the freedom to sing about the gospel with other believers from different parts of the nation in order to exalt the King of Kings and Lord of Lords with their singing. One of my favorite parts of camp is watching our students have the freedom to just worship without any reservations. They want to gather with believers around the throne of grace and cry out with a loud voice,"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth" (Ps 8:1)!
3. The next generation desires to work hard to propel the gospel. This generation may get a bad name for being the entitled generation, but I don't think that label is entirely accurate. This group of students worked hard to propel the gospel. They spent time clearing a path for a 5K run in Kentucky. Why? The path would end at a church and all the runners would have an opportunity to hear the gospel. One group went out of their comfort zone in order to do some door-to-door evangelism. They were a little nervous at first, but they were bold after the first few houses. One group spent time with people in nursing homes just talking with them, praying with them, and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with them. These students want to live their lives on mission. They believe Acts 1:8 which reads, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." 
4. The next generation believes in the power of prayer. These students are praying students. I watched students pray for people they had just met. I heard about students prayer walking the trail they were clearing for the upcoming 5K. Our students were continuously in prayer on this mission trip and leading up to the Sunday morning service. When students pray, they are praying from their heart. Their prayers are genuine and not scripted. I love hearing our students pray, and by the way they pray, it shows that they believe in the power of prayer. "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer" (Rom 12:12). 

From these observations, I am excited to see what God does with the next generation of church leaders from all students across this nation that profess the name of Jesus Christ. Think about this next generation of church leaders based on these observations. They are going to be standing strong in their faith through the Word of God as the lamp to their feet and a light to their path (Ps 119:105). The next generation of church leaders will be all about genuine worship, and the propulsion of the gospel to the ends of the earth. They believe in the power of prayer for all that God has in store for them. I am encouraged in these days. I am excited to invest in the lives of young men and women because they will one day replace us as pastors, missionaries, leaders, and deacons. Let's equip, encourage, and pray for this next generation!