All the Little Things!

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.......Bro Lawrence!

I believe that one of the biggest (not the only one of course, but one of the big ones) issues facing the American Evangelical Church today is the loss of kingdom mindset. We have moved away from building God's kingdom to building great churches and some of the "little" things that the church should be focused on have fallen to the way side, in the wake of; "it does not bring people in the doors".

Now don't get me wrong I think that part of the health of a church is weather they are growing or not, but let's be honest that is only part of the equation and probably not the most important part either.

We have forsaken those kingdom minded ministries for those that build the church and thus we are on the verge of becoming irrelevant to the world today. Some of those things I would call "kingdom mindset" ministries are things like; feeding the hungry, ministering to the widows, clothing the homeless, you know all those crazy ideas that Jesus had in the gospels, being a voice for the voiceless, being known for what we stand for and not what we stand against. None of these ministries are going to up the bottom line, they are not going to put more behinds in the pews, they are not going to build us big churches, or put more dollars in the budget; at least not directly.

Indirectly the #1 most forgotten age group in the church today, the 18 year old to 30 year old adults, really value these types of ministries. I would make a hunch and even bet that I am right, that if a church really wanted to grow and strategically wanted to target, reach out to, and partner with this age group then they would be doing these forgotten kingdom mindset ministries inside the church instead of doing them with out the church or even with another religion all together.

The problem is a catch 22! Most established churches do not minister to the 18-30 year old group because they don't see the value in that group or at least as much value in that group as there is in the children's group, which good tithing families are looking for in a church. They don't see as much value in the 18-30 year old group as they see in the student ministries group, which good tithing families look for in a church. They don't see as much value in the 18-30 year old group as they do in the 40-80 year old groups which tithe and have paid their dues in the church. So this group that probably has the biggest biblical kingdom mindset out of us all has been left out in the cold and sometimes are leaving the church and Christianity all together. We will hire a children's pastor to watch over our children. We will hire a youth pastor to look after our youth; because these are the two groups that 31-50 year olds look for when they are choosing a church. We will hire a worship pastor because we need to make sure we have the right worship feel in our services (the word "feel" and "service" themselves should show us how self centered that is), but we will not even talk about the possiblity of having a Young Adults Pastor until all other bases are covered and we have a healthy enough financial book to then maybe hire with a kingdom mindset and not a church growth mindset.

Now let me clear a few things up; I 100% beleive in children's minisrty and the importance of bringing our children up at an early age with a christian wolrdview. I 100% beleive in youth minsitry, I am one for the Love and have been for 10 years! I LOVE BEING A YOUTH PASTOR! I am not saying or trying to put any of these above or below the other in some sort of importance slide rule, what I am saying is that our lack of kingdom mindset sometimes influences how we are involved in minsirty today, and the world is watching!

Statistics show that 75% of our high school aged students who profess Christ, they would say that they are a born again beleiver in Jesus Christ the son of God, are leaving the church and faith when they go off to college. Then a very small percentage of them come back to the church when they get married and have babies, in their 30's. My theory (yes it is just a theory and I understand I am not the end all say all on this subject) is that the local church has dropped the ball on this group thus they are leaving the church because there is "nothing for them" at church. We teach them from birth that the chruch has programming specifically designed for them; then at 18 we "kick em out of youth" and it is find your own programming and niche until you can tithe and are 31 or so and come back and see us. Then we as the local church have meetings and lunches about how the 18-30 year old generation is walking away from church.

If this is the most kingdom mindset group in the history of the church, which statistics show that it is, they do more service oriented ministry, more care oriented ministry, more homeless, more feeding of the hungry, more being a voice for the voicless ministry then any other generation in a long time, maybe ever, then how can we continue to call ourselves kingdom mindfull until we as a local church start to become strategic about reaching out to and partnering with this generation of young people!