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Transcript
Every year, so much time is spent in getting ready for the fall season, so much so that the shift from summer to fall can feel like a shock to the system sometimes—sometimes emotionally, physically, even spiritually.
Even if you don’t have kids who are in school, or kids at all, every aspect of our lives is affected by this shift, which can be exhausting at times.
But thankfully, this season doesn’t last forever. New rhythms and routines start to click in, new habits form, and everything feels a little more familiar as we find our new normal.
And it is this new normal I’d like to highlight, especially as we consider that back-to-school prep is just behind us.
And let’s be honest, unless you are a parent with kids in school, or a student yourself, for most of us, these new normal days may not include much thought about school anymore.
But what I want to keep in front of us is to continue to be praying for and championing the next generation. As it says in Psalms, one generation commends God’s works to another, and even when we are old and grey, we are to declare God’s power to the next generation.
What does this mean for us as the church today? The development and the discipleship of students is not just for families and youth workers. We all have a role and responsibility to carry out.
Now, if you’re older like me, We don’t truly know what it’s like to be 16 in 2026. And some things never change. When it comes to adolescent spiritual development, there is nothing new under the sun. It was, is, and always will be a rich season for spiritual formation that shapes our identity and our sense of belonging.
According to the Fuller Youth Institute, every question that young people are asking finds its genesis in three big questions:
Now, these questions aren’t just for students or young adults and young professionals. Adults still wonder about them every day too, but these big questions come to the surface in big ways during adolescence, and perhaps way more often than any other time in life.
And so, I invite you to listen to a few youth and their youth pastors from churches in the Central District as they describe what it’s like being a student in this day and age, and how God is uniquely moving and shaping how they see themselves, how they connect with others, and how they are finding their place in this world, and, importantly, in God’s kingdom.
Definitely in my generation, social status is a huge problem. A lot of people in society now are driven by money and success, right? Because that’s what determines successful or doing well in life. People are doing anything online to make their life look better than the guy beside them.
There will be many changes in your life. Many decisions that you have to take. But my question for you is, when you will have to take those decisions, The words of God will be in your mind and in your heart? Or which kind of things will be preparing you for the storm?
Mental health is like a huge struggle in my generation, and my hope is to see more people turning to Christ with those struggles, because that saved my life.
Because whatever has been the foundation today in your life, those are the things that will last in the future when the storm comes in your life.
In Matthew 7, and it’s about building our faith on a foundation. You have to dig. You have to engage. Then you know for certain that you’re building on a strong foundation. And then it creates this transformation in our lives.
I want to learn more about God and build a stronger relationship with him.
So, I always like to tell our students they’re not the next generation of Church. They are a part of the Church today. They have the same Holy Spirit lives in them, that lives in myself, that lives in all of us.
God is already building the future before we even notice it. He’s already planting seeds in their hearts.
What gives me hope about this generation is that they see the importance of connection. They see the importance of living in community, of doing life together.
One generation commends your works to another. They tell of your mighty acts. I think that’s the hope that I have for this young generation.
As leaders, we need to pass on the testimony and the witness of what God has done in our lives to the next generation. God is present in their lives every day, and not just on Sunday, but every single day.
Alliance Canada, we have a critical window of opportunity to invest in the next generation, which will have lifelong and eternal effects. God is inviting us to partner with him to see young people’s lives transformed in Jesus’ name.
However, we’ll never be able to inspire and influence the next generation if we don’t understand some of their most pressing questions. And friends, young people here in Canada and around the world are especially interested right now in knowing what Jesus has to say about the questions they are asking.
And because of this, this current generation of youth is being called the Open Generation. Barna, after interviewing 25,000 13- to 17-year-olds from around the world, found this:
Students are searching for truth. Truth about their identity, truth about belonging, and purpose. But right now, they are also more culturally and collectively open to hearing what Jesus has to say about it, They’re also more open than ever to relationships with caring, older adults.
Church, the window of opportunity is open, and the Lord is writing a new story, and he is inviting you and I into this next chapter with our students.
At a recent national prayer time, it was discerned that as a movement, as a family of churches, God is inviting us into a new era of Kingdom story-writing. That was one of the discerned prayers, and I believe the next generation is one of the primary storylines of this chapter.
How may he be inviting you to take a next step for and with the next generation?
Now, everything we do starts with prayer. And so, a few reflections for us.
Would you pray with me for the Open Generation in general, and for students specifically in your sphere of influence?
And secondly, I wonder would you pray a courageous prayer and ask the Lord how may the Spirit be inviting you as a leader, as a fellow church person, to write a new kingdom narrative with the students in your church?
How is God asking you to use your role, your area of responsibility, as an opportunity to entrust and empower the next generation and students under your care?
Personally, this has felt so convicting and palpable to me that this was why at General Assembly we did not only create space for students to attend, but we created space for students to also lead us in worship, an encounter of our great King, Jesus.
Jesus is inviting all of us into a fresh kingdom narrative for such a time as this.
How may the Spirit be inviting you to follow Jesus’ lead and to surrender all that you are and have for his name and his fame? And uniquely so, that this next generation can be empowered and equipped to not just be the church leaders of tomorrow, but already of today.
And so we end as we began. As fall already begins to move on, as the new, next things already begin to demand our attention, let us not lose our focus, and my prayer is to remind ourselves again of the passage we read earlier:
One generation commends God’s works to another, and even when we are old and grey, we are to declare God’s power to the next generation.
Lord, let it be so.