A Generation of Promise
The Heart of Tomorrow’s Leaders
by Phil Tuttle
As a pastor, a parent, and the leader of a global ministry, not to mention a former teenager myself, I’ve had the opportunity to witness a lot of student ministries. They are a vital part of the church today, and most of them involve many dedicated people with good motives and a genuine love for students.
I’ve noticed that the primary theme of student ministries in some churches seems to be playing defense against the culture. Instead of equipping their students to engage their world, they’re creating an alternative peer group so students will have a place to go and friends to hang out with. They provide entertainment, tell kids not to do the wrong things, and wait for them to grow up so the church can start asking them for their time and money.
But others do much more than that. They make disciples now. They teach youth how to give their lives away in service. They understand that the next generation is not the church of tomorrow; it’s already the church of today.
I got a great reminder of that in our church several years ago. Our pastor asked all the teachers and school administrators in the audience to go to the youth room immediately after the service for a time of prayer.
“That’s great!” I said when I saw him later. “How cool that the students want teachers to pray for them as they start the school year!”
“That’s not what I said,” he laughed. “Come with me. You have to see this with your own eyes.”
He led me to the youth room, where I soon realized that the adults had nothing to do with organizing this event. The high school students had initiated the meeting because they wanted to pray for their teachers and administrators. They were taking the lead. They were being the church of today.
The Gen Z King
That kind of initiative reminds me of King Josiah.1 The kingdom of Judah was in terrible shape when he became king at the ripe old age of 8. Older people who had seen a lot over the years had probably been talking about how “things are just getting worse and worse” and how irresponsible the younger generation must have seemed.
Now, after a violent and traumatic transition in leadership, someone from the younger generation — really young — was in charge.
But over the next few years, Josiah demonstrated remarkable spiritual maturity for his age and made decisions that determined the direction of his future. And in the eighth year of his reign, when he was 16, he had some kind of spiritual awakening. We aren’t given the details, but something significant happened in his heart. He began to seek God.
If that 16-year-old Josiah lived today, we would call him late Gen Z, or maybe even borderline Gen Alpha. As with Millennials before them, these generations are stereotyped for being pampered. Everyone gets a trophy for participation, no one knows the meaning of hard work, all are addicted to their phones, and the selfie serves as a metaphor for an entire generation’s character.
But that’s hardly a fair representation. I know quite a few hard-working, responsible young people. Our ministry has hired or contracted with several young adults, and though they work a little differently and like some flexibility in their schedule, they get things done. They are creative, resourceful, and dedicated, and they know how to leverage new technologies for greater impact.
And we need them. The only way to reach the next generation is through those who are following Jesus within that generation.
Full of Promise and Purpose
Josiah inherited a long, negative legacy to deal with — a nation called to be wholly dedicated to God that was instead deeply entrenched in idolatry. He saw the sins of previous generations and wanted to set his kingdom on a godly path. So as a 20-year-old, he began tearing down idols and altars and beating them into powder. It was step one in reforming the spiritual life of his people.
Like Josiah, many members of today’s younger generations are passionate about correcting problems inherited from past generations. Sometimes they seem too critical — and it’s easy to criticize them for that — and some give the impression of being more interested in tearing down past mistakes than building something new in their place. But many are actually doing the hard work of taking action.
At a conference a few years ago, a large audience of college students — not exactly at the peak of their earning season in life — came up with more than $3 million to fight sex trafficking.
That’s the kind of passion we see in this generation to reverse the problems that have grown up in the past. While many from older generations have been talking about the next generation’s inability to problem-solve, many young adults have been out there solving problems that previous generations have either created or neglected. I think we can trust what God is doing in the years to come.
Christian young people are doing a lot of things right. Older adults may tend to look at the next generation with a lot of anxiety because “tomorrow’s leaders” don’t always look ready for leadership, just as Josiah didn’t look ready to spark a spiritual revival in Judah and bring the nation back to God.
Apparently God doesn’t see generations the way we do. He sees a generation full of promise and purpose, just as he saw a future king in a shepherd boy named David and a strong reforming king in one of David’s descendants named Josiah.
Young Josiah may not have had all the leadership skills he would one day need, and he probably didn’t fully understand God’s call on his life. But he knew to turn his heart in the right direction, and it changed the life of a nation.
Many hearts in today’s generations are turned in the right direction too, and they are carrying with them the Spirit of God and the message and ministries of his kingdom. And we have every reason to believe they will change the life of their nation and their world.
Adapted from Revolution, a six-week curriculum on the life of Josiah by Phil Tuttle, president and CEO of Walk Thru the Bible.
Josiah’s story is told in 2 Chronicles 34-35.