The (Not-So-Secret) Secret to Reaching the Next Generation by Kevin DeYoung is such a helpful resource for those who are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to reach people for the sake of Christ in the midst of the culture we are living in. I grew up in the 90’s with all the youth group cliches and we tried a TON of things to round up students and win them for Christ. Many of those things were all well and good, but what truly won me to Christ and most of my friends who are Christ followers to this day…and many of whom are in ministry…was simply a student pastor that loved Jesus and loved us well and surrounded himself with godly men and women who were committed to showing us a better way than this world would ever have to offer.
I really didn’t start attending church regularly until the 10th grade and came to know the Lord the summer before 11th grade. I loved the afterglows, the pizza parties, the lockins, the midnight ski trips, and all the other fun things. But, what I remember now as a 45 year old (30 years later) is that my youth pastor tied all those things to a clear discipleship focus. I had a blast on the Crosstraining trip to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play baseball and to spend the next day at Six Flags. That trip was tied to us attending a certain number of Sundays and Wednesdays that semester, taking notes during the sermon, memorizing Scripture, and attending Sunday school. His ultimate goal wasn’t for us to be Cardinal fans or to spend our lives pursuing roller coasters…He wanted us to love Jesus. To this day, I still hear from my student pastor and his family as they encourage our family in our walk with the Lord.
DeYoung makes a clear point that discipleship is the primary responsibility of parents and I’ll support that all day long. My husband and I know that one of the highest callings in our life is to point Emma and Eli to Jesus in what we say as well as what we do and the choices we make as a family. After that, we are charged to surround our kids with men and women who are showing our kids a life committed to following Christ. We do that in layers with the families who are our closest friends that we intentionally spend time with and in our families investment and involvement in NorthStar Church and North Cobb Christian School. We will fail our kids in many ways, but Christ never will.
This was a great book…only 49 pages. I highly commend it to you. It makes a great gift for anyone you know that has kids or has the privilege of investing in kids. As a high school principal in a Christian school, this is a book that I’m sharing with all of our faculty and staff. The culture will always be confusing. The message of Jesus will always be same. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6).
I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- After thinking through the question for over a year, I’ve come up with five suggestions for pastors, youth workers, campus staff, and anyone else who wants to pass the faith on to the next generation: Grab them with passion.
Win them with love.
Hold them with holiness.
Challenge them with truth.
Amaze them with God. p. 8 - We’ll be far less likely to lose our young people and far more likely to win some others if the spiritual temperature of our churches is something other than lukewarm. People need to see that God is the all-consuming reality in our lives. Our sincerity and earnestness in worship matter ten times more than the style we use to display our sincerity and earnestness. p. 9
- One of our problems is that we have not done a good job of modeling Christian faith in the home and connecting our youth with other mature Christian adults in the church. One youth leader has commented that how often our young people “attended youth events (including Sunday school and discipleship groups) was not a good predictor of which teens would and which would not grow toward Christian adulthood.” Instead, almost without exception, those young people who are growing in their faith as adults were teenagers who fit into one of two categories: either (1) they came from families where Christian growth was modeled in at least one of their parents, or (2) they had developed such significant connections with adults within the church that it had become an extended family for them. p. 13
- Likewise, sociologist Christian Smith argues that though most teenagers and parents don’t realize it, a lot of research in the sociology of religion suggests that the most important social influence in shaping young people’s religious lives is the religious life modeled and taught to them by their parents. p. 14
- Do your friends, your church, your family, your children know that God is the center of the universe? Can they see that he is at the center of your life? p. 18
- As you try to reach the next generation for Christ, you can amaze them with your cleverness, your humor, or your looks. Or you can amaze them with God. I need a lot of things in my life. There are schedules and details and a long to-do list. I need food and water and shelter. I need sleep. I need more exercise, and I need to eat better. But this is my greatest need and yours: to know God, love God, delight in God, and make much of God. p. 18