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A new generation


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#1 Gareth

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Posted 02 September 2010 - 09:34 AM

At a conference I recently attended one of the speakers said "there is a new move across north America of which most pastors are unaware. It is among young adults who have rejected the Christianity of their parents for a more vibrant reality." I certainly find this true in the young adults with whom I fellowship. They have a deep passion for the Lord, His Word, holy living and a deeper work of the Spirit. This causes my heart to praise as I have not seen such passion for many years - the last time was in a time of revival.

#2 Guest_Marvin Harrell_*

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Posted 02 September 2010 - 07:44 PM

Could this be the start of a new move of God? If Life 2010 is any indicator with several hundred youth coming forward to commit to overseas service for God, we may just be and the start of this new thing. Truly encouraging! Let's ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His field!

#3 Justin Fischer

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Posted 03 September 2010 - 08:09 AM

For sure. I know that this is true where I'm at (upstate NY). This may just be the first fruits of this postmodern generation. It seem that everyone speaks about postmodernity in a negative tone, and it definitely presents some challenges. However, if teens and young adults can come to a true understanding of Christ and faith through their questions, then the result will be a rich and genuine faith. As a youth pastor, I am using these thoughts to intentionally shape my philosophy of ministry. I think that it is important to provide a solid understanding of Christ and the Scriptures during the junior high years. In senior high, though, I transition to teaching the students how to ask good questions, and look for answers for themselves. If they can grasp this skill within the sheltered setting of youth group, it will prepare them well for college life, or whatever may come next in life.

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Posted 11 January 2011 - 12:35 PM

Hi Gareth. Has there been any more examples? Or has anyone else seen similar movements of God's Spirit?

#5 Jay Turner

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Posted 11 January 2011 - 10:47 PM

For sure. I know that this is true where I'm at (upstate NY). This may just be the first fruits of this postmodern generation. It seem that everyone speaks about postmodernity in a negative tone, and it definitely presents some challenges. However, if teens and young adults can come to a true understanding of Christ and faith through their questions, then the result will be a rich and genuine faith. As a youth pastor, I am using these thoughts to intentionally shape my philosophy of ministry. I think that it is important to provide a solid understanding of Christ and the Scriptures during the junior high years. In senior high, though, I transition to teaching the students how to ask good questions, and look for answers for themselves. If they can grasp this skill within the sheltered setting of youth group, it will prepare them well for college life, or whatever may come next in life.


I believe that one of the big reasons why people have such a problem with Post-Modernism is because it is typically lumped together with relativism. Relativism is basically the belief that since everyone sees things differently and has differing understandings of the world around them, then there must not be an objective truth, and because of this, there must not be a God. Post-Modernism is more the idea that any given truth can be displayed in a multitude of different ways without betraying its basic underlying truth. In theatre, for example, this would translate to having a pool of all the different time period's, genre’s, acting styles, etc that you could draw from and piece together in order to best get the point that you are trying to make across to the audience.

When you start looking at life, faith, and God from a post-modern perspective, it will cause you to start thinking in a whole new way. Let's say that you were trying to share the Gospel with a group of gays and lesbians. Because of the sub-culture that they have created, their mentalities, the fact that they have largely been ostracized by the church and are considered social lepers, etc they probably will not receive the message like others would. But if you get a better understanding of their lifestyle, how they think, how they perceive different concepts like family, community, love, etc, it can help give you a starting place and a better understanding of how to share the gospel in a way that they will be more receptive to.

An important aspect of Post-Modern thought is that you can't simply look at a truth or an idea as simply being a picture, but instead it is more of a sculpture or an intricate mechanism. You can look at a thing and see it from a specific aspect, but what happens when you start pulling apart all the pieces or start looking at it from various different view points? You start getting an understanding of it as a cohesive whole and the better you understand it as a whole, the better you understand its interrelationships with the rest of creation.

Let’s take the scripture Matthew 5.29-30. “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” Most of the time when I have heard people teaching or preaching on this passage, it was to state that if something causes you to lust after it or causes you to sin, then we need to remove it from your lives.

According to Nelsons Illustrated Bible Dictionary, “the right hand is the hand of strength and blessing, but the left hand usually indicates deception and treachery. Now when you take this understanding and look at Matthew 5.29-30, you start getting the idea that when something that is supposed to represent strength and blessing is causing you to lust and sin, then it needs to be removed.

When you think about it, this is why Jesus directly came out against the priests and the scribes, but for the prostitutes and the tax collectors, He would love them in spite of their sins. The priests where supposed to be a physical representation of what it meant to be a believer. They were supposed to represent God to the people. But instead they were using their authority and power to build up their own self worth. They were giving God a bad name and causing people to turn away from Him because of their actions.

With this one piece of seemingly superfluous information, we took a verse that we all know and found a whole new understanding and application for it. It doesn’t really change our original understanding, but it does give it a whole new level of depth to that understanding.

A large part of post-modernist thought is the idea that with everything that we think we know, there will always be vital pieces of information that we are missing and in turn our understanding will inevitably be flawed in one way or another. This doesn’t mean that we should give up the search for truth, but instead it should remind us that it is a process. The more we search for God’s truth, the more He will reveal that truth to us and reveal it in ever more depth.

This also means that we need to be careful when we try to tell others who God is and how they should live their lives. Because of our incomplete understanding of God’s truth and our inability to judge rightly, what may be right for me and the direction that God is leading me, may not be applicable or appropriate for you.

This brings us back to the importance of being in a right relationship with God and knowing the voice of the Holy Spirit. When we are walking in the Spirit, even though we typically don’t have the answers that we want or have a complete understanding of things, we can know that as long as we continue to let the Spirit guide us, we will always be in God’s will and on the right track.

Post-Modernism has the potential for being an awesome breeding ground for seekers and new believers. But because of the thought processes behind it, we can’t continue giving people the same old answers that we have been. The more we claim we have the truth and expect them to live up to our understanding of God and His ways, the more we will push them away. We need to meet them where they are, answering their questions as honestly as we can, while admitting when we don’t have all the answers. We need to live out our beliefs and our relationship with God. They are not blind. They see when our beliefs and our lives don’t match up. They are looking for something real and something that works. When they see it, they will be attracted to it. They would rather see something that works in the midst of our flaws, than something that doesn’t even when our lives have the appearance of perfection.

I believe that we are in the perfect time to see the great commission come full circle. There is a seeking mentality like no other and people would do just about anything if they saw something real and something that works. There is no doubt that God is more real than any of us could ever imagine. The question is, will we let our facades down long enough so others can see the real Light that shines inside of us? And will we place ourselves in a position where people can get close enough where they can see that Light.