Generational Gap

Have you ever stopped into one of those old time drive-in joints that serve greasy burgers, thick fries and old time milk shakes? There is usually some oldies music playing on the jukebox and 10 or 12 middle age or older couples sitting around really enjoying themselves. I walk in at 26 years old take one look around, laugh and remind myself that I am only here because the food taste good. I tend to lean more towards the Applebees and Red Robins of the world. In fact you wouldn't find many teens now days hanging out at the old time drive-in joints. It isn't that I dis-like the drive-in atmosphere or even the company that frequents such a place it just isn't my era. You don't find Applebees playing the music they play at Johnny Rockets. Okay now that I have rambled allow me to help you understand where I am coming from. I love both Applebees and Johnny Rockets...both have their time and place.

I was recently in attendance at a sectional church meeting. I was the youngest preacher there and one of the five young people in the building since there were only three youth in attendance. It was here I was reminded once again of the great "generational gap" we have in Pentecost. Allow me to compare this church meeting to Johnny Rockets. Usually the folks who frequent Johnny Rockets are very sentimental about those types of places. They are sitting in the booth sipping their old fashion milkshake with two straws remembering of a Friday night in 1965 when they were driving a 1957 Chevy two door Bel-Air wearing a letter-mans jacket after a homecoming drubbing of the football rival 20 miles down the road. As I sat in this meeting listening to a 60 year old 4th generation pentecostal singing a song her mother must have sung at a fellowship meeting when this sister was my age I had to stop and look around at the young people sitting around me and wondered to myself if they thought the same way about this meeting as I do at Johnny Rockets. Oh, and the reason there are only three youth in attendance...they have been to these meetings before and refuse to come back because of this very atmosphere.

Think about this for a moment why do we have children's church during our traditional Sunday morning worship service? Because for the most part young children cannot relate to what is transpiring in that particular form of church. Why is it that when kids get older and become young adults we suddenly feel the need to subject them to grandma pastor's wife singing "On the Wings of a Snow White Dove" to some really bad piano playing. I know that I am about to get blasted out of the water here by some of my more traditional peers but I have kept my peace for 10 years and I am more concerned for the present generation of youth and my own generation than I have ever been. I know, we have youth rallies and youth camp and youth convention (hold on to your bladder) but some of those meetings are not any different than what I have described above. Youth Camps and Conventions are great and they hold some of the most memorable experiences of my young life but why am I subjecting the current generation to participate in the same activities at youth camp that I participated in. It doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to understand that no generation has the same interest.

I am in no way implying that standards of holiness need to be let down to appease a generation of vipers. In fact, I believe we need to hold the line as strong as ever in this generation. I am not talking about holiness, I am talking about methods. I can already here the screams of traditional Pentecostals, "REMOVE NOT THE OLD LANDMARKS!" Consider this for a moments. When Moses was faced with a water crossing at the Red Sea, the LORD told him to lift his staff. When the next generation was faced with a water crossing the LORD instructed Joshua (the new leader) to have the men carry the ark of the covenant and step into the Jordan. Both men received the same result, but two separate methods were used under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Imagine for a moment if Joshua had walked to the Jordan and lifted up his staff waiting for the waters to part. That generation would have never walked in the promise that God intended for that hour! The problem is too many generations of Pentecostals are standing at the edge of Jordan with the same method that the previous generation used. To break it down even further...trying to build churches and see a harvest in their cities with the same methods that the previous generation used. We need more Joshua's that in lieu of just walking to Jordan and lifting a stick because that is what Dad or Grandpa did, they wait upon the Lord for his inspiration and then act on it in their hour.

I am not sure what happened to the interim generation in Pentecost. I appears to me as though we have a whole slough of Azusa Street folks and a whole bunch of North American Youth Congress folks but not a lot in the middle. Those that are in the middle seem to lean towards the Auzsa Street folks, because they are the generation that passed the mantle to them. Now here comes the North American Youth Congress group whose parents are leaning towards the Azusa street group but they are seeking a new method and the Azusa Street folks can't figure out why we don't want to be just like them. I hear questions from the Azusa Street group like, "Why do you guys want to sing all that new music?" "What is wrong with the hymns?"

There has got to be a coming together in the day and hour that we live in. We have to close the generational gap! The present generation has to embrace the former and their methods and the elder generation must embrace the younger and their passion to be on the cutting edge of what God desires in this hour. Until the generational gap is closed we will continue to have empty sectional meetings and minor interest from each generation in what the other is doing