One of my highlights of this last year was a Wednesday night visit at the beginning of May to the next generation ministry of Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, MN. For the last number of years I have been searching for communities that understand and practice a concept that I call "Generational Transference". This is a huge need. Many of our generations are better at keeping church for themselves than sharing the onus and direction and embrace of church with others. Segmentation models of the generations can be anti-biblical in my opinion as they can tend to reinforce a consumeristic paradigm of what is supposed to be the united and sacrificial body of Christ (See Dt 6; Mt 18)
It takes courage and endurance for a church community to actually believe in the biblical idea of transfering faith and leadership to the next generation… Investment comes with a cost… and to purposefully mentor 150+ youth means that 150+ "adults" need to give up their time, energy and emotions in order to equip and encourage a teenager. This is much bigger and better than the traditional "super-hero youth pastor" model… partially because it is much harder and more enduring. Thank you Open Door for taking the lead in this!! I saw among you a Psalm 78 movement, complete with intentionality of mission and an environment of encouragement. [Thanks go to Crown student Josh Morneau and Next-Gen director Stefan Van Voorst for the invite and the post-mentoring food.] Check out this video to learn more…
Sounds good Kelsey! You’d love the way they’re approaching things.
Ahh! This is so cool! Think you could connect me somehow? Would love to chat with them and find out how they got this started and how they matched up mentors 😉