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First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida, would rank as one of the greatest, most historic churches in the SBC. I had the great joy of making my first visit to FBC this past weekend, and what a treat it was! First Jax has one of the most impressive sites you could imagine, from the preschool building to the college ministry to the numerous parking garages and mammoth auditorium replete with HD flatscreens.  There were more people in one service than live in a typical North Carolina country town.  I had the joy not only of speaking there, but to be with several of our great SEBTS students—Jim Smyrl, whom I taught both in the MDiv and PhD programs, Marcus Allen, Chris Eppling, and Rush Witt.

I was asked to speak at a series called “August Nights Are for Apologetics.” My topic was “Reaching the Next Generation,” but since I was going to be there anyway they let me have even more fun, speaking three times to three diverse groups.

 

Sunday morning I spoke to the college and career class and met a great group of young. I challenged them to live boldly in the culture, to be missionaries in the place God put them, and they received it enthusiastically. I then enjoyed a wonderful time of worship and a great message by Dr. Mac Brunson. I have no doubt Mac is the perfect man for FBC now, and so enjoyed hearing him preach about the amazing work of Christ from Romans 3. Jim Smyrl and his wonderful family treated me to a great lunch. In over twenty years of itinerant ministry I have never been treated so graciously, from my airport pickup by David Key to his dropping me back there Monday morning, as I got from the great folks at First Jax.

At 5:00 PM I spoke to the parents of middle school and high school students–hundreds of them. I spoke from my book Raising the Bar, challenging them to treat young people as young adults, not 3d graders. I reminded them that if they bought a book I wrote it would help underprivileged children—mine J.  I tend to get after parents, as I am one myself and tend to get after myself with frequency. They seemed to take my abuse well.

Then I spoke in the evening service to a great crowd on Reaching the Next Generation. What a wonderful service—a huge, passionate youth choir, and such a receptive audience. I felt as if I had been there many times.  Here is a little summary of my message (I will add the podcast soon). I crammed as much as I could from my books Radically Unchurched and Join the Movement into the presentation (I do not know much more than what I have already written):

–I described our changing world, flattened and shrunken by the internet and other factors, and then the changing cultural forces shaped by postmodernism, and had a little fun with the different generations there. I also touched on the unchurched, dechurched, and churched youth population and how really pathetic we are at reaching young adults in the US.

I offered four fundamental points of change to reaching what is the largest group of young adults in US history:

1. Share unchanging truth…but differently. Young adults crave truth, but they resent our tendency to talk down to them as if they were children.  Give them a Great Idea about the truth of the gospel, more than the simple points, but the great drama of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. They can handle the truth, especially when they sense you care!

2. Focus less on Christianity as modifying one’s behavior and more on the concept of wonder—young people crave for real spirituality, not the auto-pilot, rote church grind we often present to them. Great awakenings often saw youth as catalysts, due to their hunger for spiritual reality.

3. Focus less on rules and more on relationships. Rules matter (God gives commands, not suggestions), but young adults today come from wrecked homes and have confused standards. They need someone to give a flying rip about who they are and where they are in life. This is a fatherless generation, and I speak to youth as much from the perspective of a father as a preacher.

4. Focus less on Christianity as an institution and more as a movement.  Young adults hunger to be part of something bigger than they are.  Millennials want their lives to matter, but they need a cause. What greater cause is there than the gospel?

I closed with the story of Renee I just blogged about last post.  As soon as the service was over a beautiful young adult lady came to me along with her husband, who was beaming (she was quite pregnant). She showed me her arm, exposing scars from a past of cutting herself. She told me how Christ has changed her, how she believed all I said was true, and how encouraged she was.

I already added more than a few on Facebook from the youth and college groups there. Here are a couple of the comments I received:

“I was seriously surprised at the insight you had on us youth! It was an awesome fresh breath of air to hear that there are older adults who do not immediately judge us. Thank you soooo much for coming to our church.” College student at UF

Thank you again for coming to FBC! It was definitely a cool reminder that we’re NOT out there alone,… and that there are adults out there who care about helping us to be all God wants us to be!                     High school student

  This weekend encouraged me greatly. I am already excited about going back! Dinner at P.F. Changs with the Education Staff 

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.