Transcript
NextGen Matters: It's Friday night under the lights, the kind of night that feels almost sacred in a football-crazy community. The high school band is crushing it. The student section is crazy.
NextGen Matters: Parents of the players, or band members, or the cheerleaders, or those parents are fired up, but they're also really nervous. And everyone is excited for the opening kickoff.
NextGen Matters: But take a moment and look past the field. and look across to the student section. Let's say there's a thousand students.
NextGen Matters: Those thousand students are all pressed together, their faces are painted up and arms are locked together. They're singing and shouting until their voices are cracking.
NextGen Matters: You can see their joy, you can feel their energy, and you can even sense their potential. And yet, can you see their stories? You know, the stories that you may never fully know or understand.
NextGen Matters: There's that insecure, quiet freshman who hides behind his hoodie. There's that sophomore girl who smiles big on the outside but is hurting on the inside.
NextGen Matters: On the field, there's that athlete He's a senior and he's feeling a tremendous weight of pressure to be perfect. Scholarships are on the line.
NextGen Matters: And then off in the distance is that student who wonders, does anyone see her at all? And then the spiritual weight of reality really hits.
NextGen Matters: You see in that crowd of a thousand students, only 40 students would identify as being a born-again follower of Jesus Christ.
NextGen Matters: Only 40 out of 1,000, other words, 4 out of 100, declare that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior by grace through faith and faith alone.
NextGen Matters: The other 960 out of that 1,000, oh, they're cheering. They're having a blast. you know They're laughing it up. they're They're having a great time, but they're also searching. Searching for identity, searching for belonging, searching for hope, searching for something genuine in a world filled with fake.
NextGen Matters: Here's the part that will really break your heart wide open. You see, of all those who received Jesus Christ, eight out of 10 received Christ before the age of 21, which means these Friday night faces, these students you're looking at,
NextGen Matters: They are now standing in and living in the most spiritually open window of their entire life. So while the stadium crowd erupts over that touchdown by the home team, you're now looking at eternal souls, 4% who know Jesus Christ and 96% who don't.
NextGen Matters: And yet all of them are desperately searching for the greatest love of all time to be theirs. And what's so unfortunate, most don't even know that love has a name and his name is Jesus.
NextGen Matters: Well, hey friend, welcome to the Next Gen Matters podcast, a show for ministry leaders seeking to move beyond overwhelm and move into leading with clarity, confidence, and consistency. The last two episodes, we talked about being missional in the sense of we taking our students on mission trips, on mission sites, overseas or over state lines, or maybe even over your community line.
NextGen Matters: But these next four weeks, we're going to be focusing in on the greatest mission field our students will ever be in. And that's their k their own community, specifically their own school.
NextGen Matters: So this being the first of four episodes focusing on this new topic, building a missional ministry culture, today I'm going to be unpacking why students are the best positioned ones to reach students.
NextGen Matters: Why Students or Reach Students. And then the next three episodes, we're going to be taking a dive as I do different interviews into those three environments of academia, right?
NextGen Matters: Public school, Christian school, and home school. And if you serve in a student ministry or even college ministry or children's ministry, you know you have students that are in all three of those academic environments.
NextGen Matters: While they're all different and they all are unique, they all have the same needs. And we're going to be talking to ministry leaders who serve in all three of those capacities and whose own kids are actually students in those three.
NextGen Matters: Full disclosure, I'm not here to say one is right and one is wrong. I can make an argument or a case, if you will, pro and maybe eh for all three. All three is is a parent, all three are decisions that parent has to make, which are not always easy decisions.
NextGen Matters: Let's be honest. If your kids go to a public school, parents are kind of like, all right, well, you're going. And we realize that just to be honest, the pedagogy, you know, the philosophy of academia in that school system is not pro-Christian.
NextGen Matters: but maybe you're sending your kid to a Christian school. Your pressure's different. One of those pressures is financial. It's a lot of money. Or maybe if you've chosen homeschooling, you know your pressure's a whole different pressure, and that is, I'm now playing the role, just not a parent, but of teacher.
NextGen Matters: And those lines can get blurred, and sometimes it's hard. So while all three is so has some great upside, there's also all three can have some components that are tough. So I'm not here to say this is right, this is wrong, because every parent has to make that decision under the authority of Scripture and under the authority of the Lordship of Jesus, how the Spirit is telling them.
NextGen Matters: What I will say is I'm a fan of all three because I'm a fan of students. So let's begin to unpack these first four episodes. Today's topic is going to be on why students are the ones who are best positioned best positioned to reach students. Now, going give you some numbers here and how that breaks down these three different academic settings, okay?
NextGen Matters: There is right now approximately 34 million students between the ages of sixth to 12th grade here in the United States of America. So if we have 34 million, how does that break down public,
NextGen Matters: Christian, you know, private school, Christian, and then homeschool. Here's the numbers. Got these today on the internet. Here we 27 million out public school, grade. million
NextGen Matters: ten percent approximately three million at attend private christian school And almost, it's 1.8, but almost 2 million are homeschooling between the ages of sixth to 12th grade. So that's 6%. So 84%, 84%, if I said 80, my fault, 84% attend public school, 10% Christian school, and 6% homeschool.
NextGen Matters: Again, they all need Jesus. They all are in different academic settings, but they all have similar needs and and desires, and hurts, and fears.
NextGen Matters: And we need to minister to all of them. My goal with this series is not to see us having three student ministries, but one. So if I could almost subtitle, and I guess I will, if I was subtitled this, that the topic or the theme of these next four weeks is this.
NextGen Matters: One team, one mission. Not three teams, public, private, and home, but one team, one mission.
NextGen Matters: So what I'm unpacking now, full disclosure on this, is my what I would call my signature lesson or sermon or talk that I would give when I'm speaking to a local student ministry. And I love giving this topic. I love this talk. I love trying to help students see let's stop being youth groups and become missional. Let's become student ministries.
NextGen Matters: And what I'm going to unpack for you right now, a lot of the content is coming out of that presentation that I will do. So when I'm on stage and I share these stats, these students, they get bugged. They're like, whoa, I didn't realize how many lost people are around me.
NextGen Matters: Exactly. 96% of your generation needs Jesus. So speaking of Jesus, right? The first place we have to go if we're going to be reaching people for Jesus Christ, is how did Jesus reach people?
NextGen Matters: So there's there's five basic ways that I see Jesus was reaching out to lost people we see in the Gospels. First of all, Jesus reached out to where people were. He went right to the people. I mean, that begins at John 1. He left heaven. He left the throne of heaven to become one of us, the incarnation.
NextGen Matters: Same gospel in chapter 4 of John, we see Jesus ministering to the woman at the well. He would go where the people were. So we need to go where the people are, right? Second way that Jesus reached out to lost people is he served them.
NextGen Matters: I'm thinking the gospel of John in chapter 13, the end of his ministry, he got down on his hands and knees and he washed the feet of the 12, and that's including Judas.
NextGen Matters: And for those three years even before that, he continually was serving people, whether was feeding, healing, etc. A third way Jesus reached out to lost people was he loved them.
NextGen Matters: He loved them unconditionally, did not love what they did. He was he would be dying very soon for those sins. He didn't love what they did, but he sure loved them.
NextGen Matters: i'm thinking of the Gospel of Mark in chapter 10, verse 21. says this. Speaking of the rich young ruler, when he rejected the words of Jesus, Mark says that Jesus looked at him and he loved him.
NextGen Matters: When that man rejected the invitation to forsake his riches and come follow Jesus, it wasn't because if I got rid of my riches, I would earn salvation. No, grace is not something you earn.
NextGen Matters: Grace is a gift. Grace will cost. And he had to lay down his God. And for for him, it was mammon, it was money.
NextGen Matters: And he would not lay down his God. He would not come clean with Jesus and admit his sinful need to be forgiven. Does that make sense? His sinful need. Well, you know to admit his sin and his need to be forgiven.
NextGen Matters: When he walked away from Jesus, I love how Mark says that. Jesus looked at him, and instead of having that that sense of, well, fine, fine, go ahead, just reject me.
NextGen Matters: You know, passive aggressive, that's not our Lord. It says he he looked at him, he was sad. He had eyes of love for him. A fourth way that Jesus would reach out to lost people, he taught them the word of God.
NextGen Matters: Luke chapter 4, verses 16 through 21, when Jesus is reading from the prophet Isaiah in his hometown, right there in his hometown of Nazareth, and he's in the synagogue and he's reading the words of life from the from the prophet Isaiah. Actually, it's miss Messianic preaching a prophecy about himself, declaring himself to be the fulfillment of scripture. He was the Messiah to come.
NextGen Matters: He was teaching the people the word of God. And then last, and there's more, but the last of the five that I have, how Jesus reached out to lost people, he invited them to become his followers.
NextGen Matters: We see that consistent through the New Testament in those four gospels. But I'm thinking toward the beginning of that three years, when he looked at Peter and Andrew, two brothers, and in Matthew 4, he says, come, come.
NextGen Matters: follow me. They dropped their nets. They left their life as young men to come follow the Lord Jesus. And he says, I'll make you fishers of men. Well, Well, I can tell you back in the day story.
NextGen Matters: So one step I would take when I was interviewing for a new position as a student pastor. So i'm talking years ago. Okay. So when I would go visit that community, If it was close enough where I drove my own vehicle, I would take my car. But if it was a rental, I'd take the rental. However, I would get over to the local public school, the one that was closest to the church campus. I would go over to that high school campus. I would sit, usually near the tennis courts because they're kind of toward the front typically. you know i would sit in the vehicle just looking at the school and I began to pray, Lord, if you have me here,
NextGen Matters: This is the mission field. Out of the words of the reformer John Knox, that great Scottish reformer, he would pray, Lord, give me Scotland lest I die.
NextGen Matters: And as the story went, he actually on the ground drew a circle around himself and he said, Lord, and then begin that work here in me. That's what I was doing, man. I'd be in my vehicle, in that car, and I'd say, Lord, if this is where you're calling me, this is our mission field.
NextGen Matters: Lord, burn that mission field in my heart, and let's go for it. Let's do it. Because that was going to be my mission field.
NextGen Matters: I knew as a leader, I needed to have the heart of God for those students if I ever expected them to have a heart for those students. So the question is, who reaches students with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Now, again, take you back in the day. So a lot of times we in in in student culture will say students reach students.
NextGen Matters: But is it actually true? I mean, data, is it actually true? So here's another back in the day story. In my years of teaching Youth Ministry of Liberty, youth classes, in our campus outreach class, I would be talking all about how my our colleagues, you know, your other professors and myself, we're all saying the same thing, students reach students, but i'd look at this group and this is crazy, okay? This is crazy because I taught this class for a decade And that's two times a year, two semesters, okay? About 30 students a semester. So I'm getting some, I'm gathering some data, all right? There's 30 students times two. That's 60 plus students every year for about 10 years. I was teaching that one class.
NextGen Matters: And I would say, okay, how many of you, your primary influencer of the gospel was, and then kind of like fill in the blank.
NextGen Matters: And here's what I meant. I'd say, how many of you, who was your, well, me back up. Who was your primary influencer? Not the person that was necessarily on the stage if you prayed to receive Christ out loud or next to you if received Christ with a counselor.
NextGen Matters: I mean, who was your primary gospel influencer in your life before you came to faith in Jesus? And then I would say, how many of you, it was an adult, specifically your parents or a relative raise your hand.
NextGen Matters: Out of 30 a semester, about 20 to 25 hands would go up. Their number one influencer, yes, was an adult who was a relative, usually a parent or maybe another relative.
NextGen Matters: I said, okay, how many, it was an adult, but it was not a relative, but it yet it was an adult. Most other hands would go up. Okay, how many of you, it was a a peer that led you to faith in Christ, a teenager that led you to faith in Christ?
NextGen Matters: Out of 30, maybe one or two hands would go up. Here's the teachable moment. I say, so Dr. Van Gryff and have been lying to you the whole time, right? they Had that confused look on their face. I go, but before you say we were lying to you,
NextGen Matters: Remember, you in this classroom, you 30, the majority of you were part of that 4%.
NextGen Matters: So if you're not in that 4% and you're part of the 96%, who's gonna reach you? And then I circle back and say to that one or two who raised their hand, who were saved through a peer's influence of the gospel, who did not have a Christian family,
NextGen Matters: I would say, now, who was your influence? They say it was a friend, et cetera, cetera, you know, somebody their own age. And then they were saying, yeah, i wasn't from a Christian home. And then the lights would kick on with our students.
NextGen Matters: They realized, yes, like my own story as well, they were blessed to have a good and godly home or a good and godly church with good and godly adults pouring the gospel into them.
NextGen Matters: But 96% of students do not have that. and who's going to reach them? And that's, I said to the class, then that's what we have this class. I said to them, because someday you're going to be graduating here, hopefully another year or two, right? You're going be graduating from here and going out into the world to train your students to reach students. And I don't have that platform anymore.
NextGen Matters: This platform I have now is you. You're the adult. You're the one not having to be trained to go become a youth worker, a children's worker, a young adult leader. You are in this game. You are in that place of influence now. So now what we have to do is train the 4%, come on, to reach the 96%.
NextGen Matters: then I want you to consider the following. Why are safe students the most effective in reaching their own generation?
NextGen Matters: Why are safe students the most effective at reaching their peers? I have six criteria. I put this in the book. I mentioned his name, Dr. Van Griff, Steve Van Griff, dear friend of mine, co-author. We wrote a book back years ago through Moody Press called Student Ministry Essentials.
NextGen Matters: And these six are in that book. They were also in my work text. I wanted the students to get it. And here they are. There are six key words and I'll explain each one of why I say that an adolescent in Christ is the best positioned one to reach an adolescent who doesn't know Christ. Here's the first one, number one, identity.
NextGen Matters: The saved student knows the culture. The saved student speaks the culture. The saved student understands the culture because they are the culture.
NextGen Matters: That sense of identity. I am an adolescent. I get you because I am you. We are the same. We're adolescents. That sense of common identity.
NextGen Matters: First reason they are the best position to reach their generation is because they are a teenager. All right. Second reason versus identity. Second is empathy.
NextGen Matters: Empathy. Now, as an adult, and I sincerely mean this, I can look at teenagers today, and I've done this and even just recently, two weeks ago, speaking at a camp. I said, i do know to an extent how you feel. I do know. I was there once and I shared some stories of back, gosh, it was 50 years ago when I was a teenager, okay? 50 years ago? I didn't say that, but still.
NextGen Matters: But when I shared what I was going through emotionally, some rejection of standing up for Christ and being rejected by those around me, had two freshman girls woke up after my talk and say, Rich, I understand what you're saying. Thank you for sharing with us what it was like when you were a teenager.
NextGen Matters: So yes, adults, we know that we do know what they're going through, but they don't think that we know that. Just like for me 50 years ago, for you 20 years ago, whatever, we didn't think our parents understood us.
NextGen Matters: Then when we became parents, we realized actually our parents didn't know what we were going through. But when you're a teenager, you think the only ones who understand you are another is another teenager.
NextGen Matters: That's what I mean by empathy. The saved student knows how the unsafe student feels and thinks and believes, et cetera. Now, I also have to say, while I can somewhat understand what they are going through, to be honest, 100% honest, no, I don't know everything they're going through.
NextGen Matters: It is a different world. in this year I'm i'm shooting this is 2026. It is a different world now in 2026 than in 1986. It is a different world.
NextGen Matters: The stressors, the anxiety, the depression, the suicide rates, the the the occult explosion, all the things, the ponagraph the pornographic explosion, everything that they are being faced, you know, basically right now on their iPhone, okay, we didn't have that. We didn't have the immediate gratification pressure that they have.
NextGen Matters: So while to an extent I can say, I do know how you feel, I also have to set the bar with them to say at the same time, I don't know exactly how you feel. And that's where the Christian student, the safe student, can look at their unsafe peer and go, get you.
NextGen Matters: Because they do. The third of the six is the word relationally. The saved student is naturally engaged in friendship structures with the unsaved student. And we're going to be unpacking that, especially getting into the Christian school environment and the homeschool environment.
NextGen Matters: Well, I am, again, I'm a fan of both of those. I attended the Christian school as a teenager growing up myself. And yet I also played baseball in the summer with a bunch of unsaved pagan guys.
NextGen Matters: I'll tell you what, man. My faith was challenged. My faith was ripped. Not my faith in Jesus, but they ripped on me for my faith. And yet my faith got stronger.
NextGen Matters: Because when I was in the struggle of the culture against me and against my faith in Jesus, either I stand up or shut up.
NextGen Matters: And what I did, I stood up. I wanted to stand up for Jesus. It actually made me stronger. So what I'm getting at by that right there is I want students, no matter what environment they're in, at some point to be in the minority because it is a narrow road.
NextGen Matters: And the culture is very, very much on that broad road against Christ. And how else are we going to reach them unless we go be with them? Exactly what Jesus did. I just said about 10 minutes ago.
NextGen Matters: relationally putting ourselves in the position we are engaged in friendships structures. you know And on the stage, I'll share this with students. I go, look, as a youth pastor, back in my day, I would go with permission. i would be invited in and I would go into the schools to have lunch with my own students in the lunch tables, you know, in the cafeteria. Right.
NextGen Matters: and And yet people would think that's weird, especially today because of the distrust for adults, you know, you know, creeper and everything, right? That's kind of cringe and all this. Well, it is a struggle for me as an adult to go have a conversation with an unsafe student without one of my safe students with me to be the ambassador, right? To be the bridge.
NextGen Matters: It is kind of creepy looking. And that's where our Christian students come in. They have the natural trust to be naturally engaging in friendship structures.
NextGen Matters: Which then leads to the fourth one. The fourth word is proximity. Proximity. The saved student is currently in the culture and is already among the unsaved students. So relationally, they're engaged. with them For me, back in my day, was playing baseball with these guys.
NextGen Matters: You know, throughout the week in the summer, I'm getting to spend time with them. And yes, awesome as this was on the walk back home. Welcome to small town of a thousand people. You're you're done with you're done with practice and you're all within five minute walk to your house. As we're walking home, all of a sudden the God questions would surface with these guys who literally were making fun of me on the field. But when we were alone, they had all kinds of God questions.
NextGen Matters: because I was relationally connecting with them and I was in the proximity with them. The same thing with your students now. They're currently in the structure and they're already among the unsafe students, which then leads to the fifth word socially, socially. The safe student is among unsafe students. And I did some math on this years ago between the grades of six through 12th.
NextGen Matters: If you think six hours of school, a day 180 days of school per school year times seven years you ready for the number 7560 hours that they are spending 80 plus percent in an unsaved environment especially if they're in public school, they're spending over 7,500 hours with unsaved people all around them.
NextGen Matters: Socially, they're already in the mix. They're among them. Relationally, the proximity, socially, and then the last word I think is the most powerful. The word I chose here was the word credibility.
NextGen Matters: And here's what I mean. The saved student, is more trusted and more believed by a peer more than an adult.
NextGen Matters: Now that's unfortunate. I wish that as adults, we would be seen by the adolescents we serve as trustworthy. which I guess is why writes to Timothy and says in 1 Timothy 4.12, be an example to the believer. We have to earn it.
NextGen Matters: And unfortunately for us, so many adults have blown the trust card that we're already behind with the students that we try to serve because they already are jaded toward us.
NextGen Matters: They go into a new relationship with an adult with a jaded perspective. as As one who's a guest speaker, I get that. I have to quickly try to do my best to, humanly speaking, earn some street credibility while at the same time trusting in God's sovereignty that he will open up their eyes and their hearts.
NextGen Matters: Yet, our safe students already have credibility with their unsaved peers. So what I'm getting at when I say those six again is these six factors are huge when I say students are best postured and best positioned to reach their generation.
NextGen Matters: The word identity, that student knows the culture, speaks the culture, understands it. The word empathy, They know how the unsafe student feels, thinks, et cetera. The word relationally, they're naturally engaged in friendship structures.
NextGen Matters: Proximity, they're already currently in the culture, in and among them. Socially, they're spending time with them, especially if they're on a band, you know, in a marching band like my oldest was back in the day in his public high school or my daughter is a cheerleader or Ryan when he was wrestling.
NextGen Matters: That flesh and blood, but he's wrestling, you know, ninth grade wrestling. Okay. They got the cool haircut back in the day to try to be buff and macho. I digress. Sorry. Sorry, Ryan. I brought that up. But socially they're with students, right? And then the credibility factor.
NextGen Matters: Think about this. Student ministry is missional ministry. Right?
NextGen Matters: Student ministry, not youth group. um'm I'm done with that. I've been done with that for decades. I don't want youth group. I want student ministry. We are students, which means, I love the word, the double entendre.
NextGen Matters: Student, of course, means responsibility. academically speaking? Well, the word methetes in the Greek for disciple, apprentice, student, that's why I love the word student, y'all.
NextGen Matters: That double entendre there, right? Not only are they academically in an academic and and environment, but spiritually, they are to be disciples, methetes, apprentices of Jesus, students of Jesus, which means we got to bring the heat. We got to bring the word.
NextGen Matters: Student ministry, not about us, about him and about others. Ministry. Student ministry is missional ministry. This means being missional with each student seeking and saving the lost, but also missional in the sense of strategy of how we as adults do student ministry.
NextGen Matters: And here's what I'm saying. I think of it like two tracks in a railroad system, two rails, if you will, one track, but two rails. The left rail, let's call that our structure.
NextGen Matters: We develop and design various structures, discipleship structures, outreach structures, etc. Your Wednesday programming, your weekend programming. We design a structure to help them grow and become missional. But the other rail is the student themself. She or he has to be missional in their own ministry efforts. And when both rails are going the same direction,
NextGen Matters: we win. So if I can create a healthy, organized structure, which is highly intentional, missional, discipleship, we we are focusing on some of the things I shared a few months back, those five W's, we are focusing on that, having a a a solid, biblically sound structure of ministry, and our students are owning the mission.
NextGen Matters: When those two rails are together, we win. We go places. so that's why going to say this again. This means being missional, meaning that each student is seeking and saving the lost, but also missional as we do our jobs in creating a strategy of how we do it ministry-wise, we do it well.
NextGen Matters: Another back-in-the-day story. Many of you don't know this, but before I was a preacher's kid, I was a missionary's kid. I was born into a family where God had called mom and dad.
NextGen Matters: Both they knew individually in their hearts was ministry. And then they met and God put them both into get their seminary training because they knew they were going to be going to a nation far, far away.
NextGen Matters: When I was five, my parents were accepted into a mission agency. because we were getting ready to raise our missions, deputation, our support, and then and then go off to the land of Peru in South America.
NextGen Matters: So I'm five, six, and seven years old, or every weekend, we're the missionary family going out to local churches, doing our thing, you know singing the songs in Spanish, and dad would be preaching, and hoping that that little church would say, we'll sign on, we'll be part of your team, and raise your support levels.
NextGen Matters: you think about raising money for a one week or one month trip, raise money for four years. Yo, it takes about three years. So we did. Then we went to Guadalajara, Mexico to do one year of language school. And I've shared in the past already, it was during that year, my dad got very ill, very sick.
NextGen Matters: We had to go back to the States. The Lord healed him. But the Lord then rerouted our whole family. So instead of me growing up as a missionary kid in the land of Peru, I grew up 30 minutes north of Binghamton, New York in a small farming community called Marathon, New York, where my dad became a preacher and a pastor.
NextGen Matters: I say that as the backdrop to say this. As someone one who grew up in a godly home preparing for overseas Christian ministry, I would remember both of my parents speaking of the journey needed to become an ambassador for Christ in a foreign and distant land.
NextGen Matters: This journey consisted of years of Christian education. For them, my dad took six years because he was also full-time working at IBM in Binghamton, New York, as well as a full-time student. And this is way before, let's say, you know, distance learning and online education. You actually had to go to class, right? So it took six years for him to get through seminary.
NextGen Matters: Then those years of seeking out or that time from seeking out a sending missionary agency took about six months. Then being accepted by the agency a few more months.
NextGen Matters: Years of rainy raising that that support, it took us three years. And then that one year of language school. When you add those numbers up from the time a young adult may sense the calling to go overseas, it's about 10 years before you actually get there.
NextGen Matters: And even after that missionary arise on site, even though we as a family, we're taking so Spanish classes and learning the language of of the Spanish speaking people there in Peru, we also know when you get this, you also know it takes months, if not years to earn trust from those local people.
NextGen Matters: So it may take even more years to see spiritual fruit from what you've been doing in presenting the gospel to those people in that nation.
NextGen Matters: I say that to then say this, your students, they're already on the campus. They're already in the population.
NextGen Matters: Your students already speak the native language. Your students know the native culture. They already have credibility.
NextGen Matters: They already have proximity, but what's missing?
NextGen Matters: engaging and equipping students. And that's our job. I've said it passionately and said it and said it. If we as leaders will begin to truly own the mission of training, equipping, and then unleashing our students to do the work of the gospel among their generation, we will begin to see that only 4% number become higher.
NextGen Matters: become much higher
NextGen Matters: When I would finish this talk with students, I would say the following, and I'm say to you now, I would say to these students while staying on the stage, students, you have adults in your life right now.
NextGen Matters: These small group leaders of yours, this youth pastor, et cetera, you have adults in your life right now. You got godly parents, you are blessed. If you got parents in your life right now and other leaders in your life right now who want to encourage you spiritually,
NextGen Matters: You are a blessed person. See them as your coaching staff. Then I say to the students, if these adults are your coaching staff, then who are you? You are the players on the field to reach your generation.
NextGen Matters: You are the ones best position to make the difference for Jesus. So as as we conclude today's podcast episode, want you to think about this.
NextGen Matters: on any given day in America, even on the school year, not the summer, but on any given day in America, more than eight out of 10 teenagers walk into a public high school, and one in 10 head off to a private school.
NextGen Matters: And then just under 6% are learning from home and co-ops. Three different environments, three different cultures, three different discipleship realities But here's the part that should stop every one of us in NextGen Ministries right in our tracks.
NextGen Matters: No matter where they learn, the vast majority of today's students are growing up without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
NextGen Matters: And the window to reach them is shrinking fast. So picture this. the public school student, she's navigating a hallway of pressure and identity confusion.
NextGen Matters: The private school student, he's surrounded by Christian language, but is still searching in many cases for real faith. And the homeschool student, well, maybe they're learning around the kitchen table, but they're also leaning into that sense of where do I belong?
NextGen Matters: Do I have connection? And do have a sense of purpose? Three worlds, one mission, and God has placed you and I right in the middle of all of it. This is the moment, my friend. This is the calling. This is why this generation matters to God.
NextGen Matters: And we have the opportunity to coach them up and to train them to be missional with their lives. I hope this has been a real blessing to you.
NextGen Matters: As you think through what was just shared, I have two action steps for you today, just two calls to action. Ask yourself an honest question. Are the students entrusted in your care, are they being intentional in a sense of being missional?
NextGen Matters: Are they being intentionally missional? Or on Wednesdays, do they just settle for group? or throughout the week are they just settling to survive? Ask yourself, how are your students doing at being intentionally missional?
NextGen Matters: And the second call to action. I'm not from New Jersey, but if I was, I'd say easy peasy, right? So here we go. This one's easy. Share this episode with your leadership team and then ask for their input.
NextGen Matters: Get this podcast, YouTube, Apple, podcast, Spotify, video, audio, either one. Get it in the hands of your leaders. Walk through those six words that I went through already today.
NextGen Matters: Ask them about this content and say, hey, what is what is this done for you? How is this speaking to you? Are we going to become more missional? Are we going to become more effective in training our students?
NextGen Matters: I'm hoping you're to be longing to hear the next three weeks because we are taking the next three episodes to go deep into what it means to become one team and have one mission.
NextGen Matters: Praise the Lord that he has given us that mission. We are his ambassadors. So let's go represent. Take care, my friend. God bless. Have a great day.
