Please remember,
White Rock Community Church
– our LPD Church of the Week.
Thanks to Anna (Ben) Crumback at Sointula Community Church for producing the Church of the Week!
As a grandfather, I want our grandchildren to enjoy Raffi, Fred Penner and other children’s singers, just as our children did.
Unfortunately, our collection of Raffi, Fred Penner, Sharon, Lois and Bram, and other children’s artists are all on cassette tapes. (For the sake of younger readers, learn what a cassette tape is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette).
This presented a dilemma to Karen and me. If we wanted our grandchildren to hear these familiar artists, we were presented with several options. We could toss out our tapes and go to CD’s. We could go to MP3’s or MP4’s. We could go cheap and purchase a used cassette player. OK, we “cheaped out” and bought a used cassette player.
Now our grandchildren can travel about listening to the tunes on the portable Fisher Price karaoke cassette tape player!
Such is the challenge of each generation. Methods change. Technology changes. If we want our grandchildren to hear these children’s songs, I need to present them in a way that they can hear.
So with the Gospel! While the message cannot change, the means of delivering and relating the message must change, if it is to be heard and received by new generations.
As churches, we need to be clear on what and why we hang on to what we do; and also on what must change and what cannot change. Values are constant. The Word is constant. The Gospel is constant. Styles and preferences in worship? Well, not so much…
In a recent article, “18 Churchy Things the Class of 2018 Won’t Get,” the “Unstuck Group” reminds us of our need to keep informed of changes and not assume that our hearers will readily relate with terms, songs and references that may be familiar to previous generations, but not to younger ones.
Just as people are getting up to speed with Millennials, now along comes “Generation Z.”
https://theunstuckgroup.com/2018/04/class-of-2018/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=62138278&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8noCBXW9boa63Bf_JsO9S_1W8UPkJtqTxowW6lWlkfAcDYEVmtbfJYGbQLZBHRSJAyClhxA1O_3LV6Noueb8Bx_5kAjw&_hsmi=62138035
Speaking of “Millennials,” I am observing a shift in attitudes to both work and vocation in younger people. I am also observing this in the church, and in many younger pastors and staff. The idea of a “life-long calling” or vocation is becoming more and more rare. Here is an interesting on “motivating millennials.” There are lessons for people of all ages here!
https://theunstuckgroup.com/2018/03/6-keys-to-motivating-millennial-leaders/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=62655385&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9Y1WBwxmaYKMm7QzvJLn3N6zl8TRA3tfPMgS0W7iYp1i8jei6Z7-o_zP0h9wEKGUDUCCuKAgM0Xp3tFLzsN51wejTuFw&_hsmi=62655385
Here is a take away for us all, “Help Them Join a Cause“
Everyone knows that millennials are cause-oriented. But what most churches haven’t come to grips with yet is one of the key reasons so many millennials are leaving the church: they don’t view the church as a cause worth giving their life to. Is your church an institution, or a movement? Have you turned the Gospel into something to be dissected and intellectually understood, or something that is powerful and mysterious? Help them see the church as a cause worth giving their life to.
That is a statement that I believe is increasingly true of people of all ages.
Meanwhile, back to Raffi. So important is it that our grandchildren hear the songs of Raffi, Fred Penner, etc., that Karena nd I have changed our methods. For Christmas, we bought CD’s and have downloaded some MP4’s on ITunes.
How about you? How about your church?
P.S. Just after I wrote the above yesterday, and was heading home, I joined a conversation between Laura (Phil) Harris and a gentleman in the church parking lot of Johnston Heights. “Al” had walked over to the church, and was ready to receive Christ as his Saviour and Lord, and forgiveness and eternal life through Him. A couple of people from the church had earliershared the gospel with this man at an earlier date, and God had spoken to him. What a delightful experience for us to lead him to receive Christ, right in the parking lot of the church!
As we speak of “revitalize” in the EFCC, we are again reminded just what Good News the Gospel is, and how God still uses his people to both sow the seed and harvest the fruit of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
Please pray for Al, as we follow up in the days ahead.
Please pray for:
