ARE WE A PEOPLE AT HALF TIME? - Leadership Network

5) Worship music for this generation will
probably not involve keyboards. As you
get to know this generation, you will
hardly find a keyboard sound anywhere in
their music. The new music will incorporate
guitars, drums, and percussion elements of
all sorts.
6) Worship will be concentric, not linear.
There will be all kinds of things happening
at once. This drives boomers crazy, but
the next generation can handle four or five
different things happening in an event
simultaneously. Worship may not have a
beginning or an end; it might just stop for
awhile.
7) Worship will not just be Sunday
morning. The prime time for next-generation
worship might be 10:00 Saturday night.
8) Next worship might require new
leadership with new skill sets. Typical
preaching may or may not be effective in
reaching this generation. Musicians who
have been effective in the past may not be
included in this approach. The average age
of the leadership might be significantly
younger than in the past.
9) Worship (or event) will be the springboard
for establishing small groups of
people who have a strong “affinity” for
one another. Worship (or event) will also
serve as the stimulus for significant
mission work and involvement.
A key word that always pops up in any
discussion of Gen X is “passion.” We, as
God’s church, must cultivate a passion for
this new ministry. This passion will drive
us to commit resources, develop leadership,
and become actively engaged in the work
of reaching the next generation.
Handt Hanson is the Worship Team Leader
at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in
Burnsville, MN. This article is used with
permission from Perspectives, the
newsletter of Changing Church, Inc.
(http://www.changingchurch.org).
Built To Last participant comments,
continued from page 3
Steve Sjogren,
Senior Pastor, Vineyard Community Church
Cincinnati, Ohio
“He (Collins) gave me a lot of language and I came back with a new glossary of
terms—the BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Maybe this has been part of our
discovered success or backing our way into something that works by intuition, but
we have had BHAG’s from the beginning. He confirmed what we were aspiring to
do from the beginning was right. It was the right tack to take, taking on a goal that
is so large that only God and a lot of focused effort could really pull it off. For
example, we have said in our explicit vision statements for some years now that
we aspire to touch every person in our city of 1.8 million people. Since the
Collins forum, we have put more language to it and said we are going to literally
touch a million people in 1998, and we worked out a formula to do it.”
Mike Slaughter
Senior Pastor, Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church
Tipp City, Ohio
“I have had to become much more intentional about coaching the next generation
of leadership. For example, we have a 31-year old preaching
pastor who now preaches at one of our services every
week. He could replace me if something ever happened.”
George Bullard
National Consultant on Transformation
“The idea of a core ideology crystallized for me what I
want to do in preparation with a congregation before they
begin their strategic journey. This has to be done before
they begin to discuss vision and do strategic thinking.
Also, building the lists of what are you going to stop doing and what will you start
doing was important. To build something enduring, you have to think beyond
yourself. To help your congregation succeed 50 years from now, you have to have
a servant-leadership mentality that focuses on the congregation succeeding, not
just yourself.”
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