{"id":243,"date":"2012-04-12T18:38:16","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T22:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=243"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:26","slug":"the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ten Commandments of Reaching Younger Generations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, my alma mater<\/a> posed a question on Facebook:\u00a0 “How can the Church more effectively reach out to younger generations?”\u00a0 Many Christians are asking this as church membership in America declines, and there are a lot of bad answers out there.\u00a0 As someone right on the border between the two generations in question, I’d like to get the basic answer down first:\u00a0 What do Millennials and Gen-X need from the Church? Forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 So I guess the best approach to reaching us would be convincing us that we need it (preaching the law) and then delivering it to us (preaching the gospel).<\/p>\n

But, well…\u00a0 short and pithy has never been my strong suit.\u00a0 Leaving it at that is like telling someone that the Law is simply loving God with all your heart soul & mind and loving your neighbor as yourself.\u00a0 True, it teaches us the core of what the Law is, but doesn’t necessarily teach us what it looks like in practice.\u00a0 And so just as we need some moral instruction to teach us what the Law looks like, we also may need instruction on what preaching Law and Gospel to “young people” looks like.<\/p>\n

I therefore offer up the Ten Commandments of Reaching Young People.\u00a0 First table is primarily for pastors’ relationships with young people;\u00a0 2nd table is for all Christians’ relationships with young people.<\/p>\n

***First Table***<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Thou shalt preach the whole council of God<\/strong>.What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 Pastors should fear and love God so that they actually <\/strong>preach the whole<\/strong> council of God and trust that His Word contains all matters of theological necessity and that all matters in His Word are necessary.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Thou shalt not <\/strong>come up with artificial preaching gimmicks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 Pastors should fear and love God so that they do not make every sermon 49% law & 51% gospel or turn everything in the Bible into a bad metaphor for the Sacraments, but rather trust that He has already put these important matters in His Word and has no need for pastors to add them in.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 <\/strong>Thou shalt not use the efficacy of the Word as an excuse for poor, shallow, or negligent preaching.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 Pastors should fear and love God so that they do what has been given them to do to the best of their ability.\u00a0 While they should not trust their own efforts to achieve the Spirit’s work for Him, neither should they see themselves as a mere set of shoulders holding up their vestments so that they need not concern themselves with doing a good job.\u00a0 They aren’t casting magic spells from the pulpit;\u00a0 God has promised to act through <\/em>their work, not instead of it or coincidentally with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

***Second Table***<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Thou shalt not try to “speak their language” or embrace fads that went out of style a decade ago.<\/strong>What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 We should fear and love God so that we are content with foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews and not turn these things into ridiculous nonsense for everyone.\u00a0 In the immortal words of Hank Hill, “You aren’t making rock n’ roll better;\u00a0 you’re just making Christianity worse.”<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Thou shalt not segregate youth from the rest of the church.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 We should fear and love God so that we do not create separate age\/life-status groups but instead recognize that there is only one church, and if we segregate youth, we simply push them out of her.\u00a0 If what we’re already doing is important, then we need to teach them why they should join in. If they rightly suggest that we are neglecting something important, then let them start doing it with us. If they wrongly suggest that we are neglecting something important, then we must teach & correct them.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Thou shalt not <\/strong>command inquisitive minds to “just have faith” and “set their human reason aside.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 We should fear and love God so that we learn to answer their questions as best we can (i.e. apologetics<\/a>) and trust Him <\/em>to create a faith that keeps reason in its proper, God-given place.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Thou shalt guide and discipline the young in doing good.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 We should fear and love God so that we trust that His love will motivate Christians to do good works and therefore train our youth to embrace & channel that motivation.\u00a0 Sanctification is not the Think System.<\/a>\u00a0 God has not authorized us to protect the doctrine of justification by refusing His call to provide such instruction.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 Thou shalt be counter-cultural when God’s Word is counter-cultural.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 We should fear and love God so that we put His Word above the word of our culture–not just on hot-button political issues, but on all of it.\u00a0 Yes, yes, conservative churches are very good at remembering that marriage is between a man and a woman, and liberal churches are very good at remembering not to favor the rich over the poor.\u00a0 But I’ve yet to see a church of either stripe where the older women train the younger women on working at home and submitting to their husbands (Titus 2:4-5) or where youth struggling with sexual purity are taught to find a spouse (1 Cor. 7:2,9).\u00a0 Remember: teach the whole<\/strong> counsel of God, even when it’s not The American Way.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 Thou shalt let the Law and the Gospel do their work<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/em>\u00a0 We should fear and love God so that we do not snatch away the Law or withhold the Gospel.\u00a0 The Law need not always be encapsulated in “<insert sin here> is very bad and you should never do it, but it doesn’t matter anyway because you’re forgiven.”\u00a0 It is ok to just say “<insert sin here> is very bad and you should never do it.”\u00a0 Give them some time to take heed lest they fall.\u00a0\u00a0 Likewise, the Gospel need not always be encapsulated in “everything you do is very bad and you can’t help it, but it doesn’t matter anyway because you’re forgiven.”\u00a0 Don’t wait for fear, trembling, and the pangs of hell before preaching Christ Crucified.\u00a0 If you remember the whole counsel of God, you’ll cover both of these in abundance without taking either one away.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 Thou shalt not use silly gimmicks like “the 10 commandments of ________” as teaching tools.\u00a0 Otherwise you might have to add superfluous items just to make it to 10.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Like the original 10, breaking any of these means breaking the first, and keeping the first means keeping all of these.\u00a0 If our congregations really teach the whole counsel of God, they won’t have time to make these common mistakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, my alma mater posed a question on Facebook:\u00a0 “How can the Church more effectively reach out to younger generations?”\u00a0 Many Christians are asking this as church membership in America declines, and there are a lot of bad … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,25],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Ten Commandments of Reaching Younger Generations - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ten Commandments of Reaching Younger Generations - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The other day, my alma mater posed a question on Facebook:\u00a0 “How can the Church more effectively reach out to younger generations?”\u00a0 Many Christians are asking this as church membership in America declines, and there are a lot of bad … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-12T22:38:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-24T11:17:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"headline\":\"The Ten Commandments of Reaching Younger Generations\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-12T22:38:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\"},\"wordCount\":1126,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Christian Youth\",\"The Modern Church\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\",\"name\":\"The Ten Commandments of Reaching Younger Generations - The 96th Thesis\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-12T22:38:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:26+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-ten-commandments-of-reaching-younger-generations\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Ten Commandments of Reaching Younger Generations\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The 96th Thesis\",\"description\":\"The Devil Never Sleeps; 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