Aren’t Carwashes Enough…What About the Next Generation?

Sermon by Bill Copeland :: Christ Community Church :: July 23, 2006

INTRODUCTION

The theme of this sermon revolved around the need of the Church (our church in particular) to examine our commitment to discipling the next generations to be bold, passionate, and equipped servants of the Kingdom.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. If a young person asked you what you are the most passionate (see below) about in your life, what would be your answer? Would that be reflected in your daily walk?
2. As leaders in your church, what kind of mentoring are you giving the younger generation? What are you doing in the church to build relationships with the children and youth?
3. Thom Rainer in his book, The Bridger Generation: America’s Second Largest Generation… states the following: The Bridger generation (those born 1977-1998) is the second largest generation of teens in the history of America. It is projected that only 4% or 2.5 million of the 72 million Bridger’s will hold a “Christian” world view by the time they are adults. What would the Israelites have done with this type of information (see Judges 2:10-15)? What are you going to do with this information?
4. What are you (we) doing that may be building walls rather bridges into the lives of the youth?

THINK ABOUT IT

“Young people are among God's most forthright, frustrating and often unwitting prophets, reminding us that salvation is at stake, for they will not give up on love until they find it or until consumer culture numbs them into a kind of lobotomized compliance, whichever comes first. Whether they discover the true source of passion - whether they ever connect their desire for love with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ or with the church at all, for that matter - largely depends on whether the church bears witness to a love more true than those available in popular culture. And that of course depends on whether the church practices the passion we preach...”

“...Passionless Christianity has nothing to die for: it practices assimilation, not oddity. Passionless Christians lead sensible lives, not subversive ones; we are benignly nice instead of dangerously loving...” quoted from Practicing Passion by Kenda Creasy Dean

Merriam-Webster

pas·sion·ate
Pronunciation: 'pa-sh(&-)n&t
Function: adjective
1 a : easily aroused to anger b : filled with anger : ANGRY

2 a : capable of, affected by, or expressing intense feeling b : ENTHUSIASTIC, ARDENT