"Pastor, what is the single biggest pressing need for the rising generation in our flock?"

Reader Questions

If I had to name one, and only one, it would be a deep, personal sense that God is real, holy, and near, and that we all live life before His face.

The rising generation doesn’t suffer from a lack of information. They are over-saturated with words, images, arguments, and explanations. What they lack is depth, gravity. Very little in their world presses on the soul with permanence. Everything is selectable, editable, scrollable, reversible. Identity itself is treated as something you can try on or take off. In that atmosphere, God becomes easily sidelined, abstracted, recognized, but not reckoned with in the soul.

They need to know, in the marrow, that the living God addresses them in the Covenant of Grace. That He sees. That He speaks. That He commands. That He invites. That He forgives. That He will judge the world in righteousness. Without that, the bible becomes trivia, doctrine becomes a burden, worship becomes atmosphere, and morality becomes pliable.

This is why biblical, reverent worship matters so much. Why preaching must carry scriptural authority, without pretended-performance. It’s why fathers and mothers walking humbly with God in the home, preaches more loudly than a thousand youth programs. Why the ordinary means of grace, regularly administered and attended, are more precious than religious baubles and bubbles, (to quote Thomas Brooks). Most importantly, the rising generation learns what is real, by what their parents today, treat as real. And they are watching us.

When a child grows up in a church where sin is called sin, where grace is offered without cheapness, and where the Word of God is spoken with fear and tenderness, something is pressed into his deepest and most pliable parts. He may wander. He may resist for a season. Yet he does not easily escape the sense that there is a God with whom he has to do. I find this most true, about the time they get married and have children.

In short, the rising generation does not most need relevance, or invention, or protection from the hard edges of the faith. What they need is the fear of the Lord, and believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ in an awakened, personal way. Everything else that will last through to the rising generation, will grow from that soil.

If you have a question, you can email me. If I think the question is practical and helpful, I will post it here.