A Place for Young Adults

Message Transcription

We're in a series called All in the Family. If you're new to Broadway, my name is Carl. I'm one of the ministers on staff here. And if you come fairly regularly, you'll see me standing up here quite a bit. But but this month, the month of August, we're excited because it's a month we try to dedicate to thinking about the next generation and reaching out to those who are starting their journey of faith. Sometimes that's a journey of school, sometimes it's at other places. But you've heard a couple of different voices. You'll hear another one next week. If you came this week thinking that Jeremy would be preaching and you took a big collective sigh because Brian misled you accidentally last week. Jeremy is next week. Brian was this past week. If you haven't had a chance to hear his message, I want to invite you to go back online. You can do that and listen to his word of compassion about what it means to be a place that makes space for our youth, our teenagers, to find and explore a relationship with God. We began in week one looking at children and how Jesus often invited children to come to him to bless them and said, This is the kind of heart and spirit and mind that we want to have when we receive the kingdom as someone who's open and available and trustworthy. And so we've been thinking together about what it means to be a church that takes seriously the call for the next generation.

How do we open ourselves up to create a place and space for those who are young in the faith? Now we're going to spend a couple of weeks in a couple of weeks talking about our older members. So often in the church, the ends of the spectrum tend to get left out, left behind. We spend so much time focusing just on on maybe the more traditional family. And that's a good thing to spend time focusing on those and helping parents learn how to raise kiddos. And we're going to do all of that, but not to the expense of some of our younger members and our older members. So we're going to spend a couple of weeks talking about those. So today I want us to spend some time thinking about this group of folks called Millennials. Now, how many of you know what a millennial is? If you do, just raise a hand? Most of you are millennials, right? The rest of us are like, what is a millennial? Well, a millennial is someone between the age of 23 ish to 38 ish. This is this generation of of young people that are stepping into the workforce. They're they're finishing college. They're jumping into the world and they're trying to find their way. And we want to be a church that is available and open, creates space for millennials. Now, as we think about that, I did some research this week. My head's kind of swimming, so if I seem a little scattered, that's normal.

But if I see more scattered than normal, well, that's because I've been trying to absorb a lot of information. Here's a couple of stats from the Pew Research Institute as they think some about millennials that most often what you find is most millennials aren't married. In fact, most of them, about 44%, are married, 56 or so percent aren't. Right? This is a generation of young people who grew up and saw the devastation of divorce and challenges that relationships faced and have have waited tended. They tend to wait longer to get married. Many have children, but they do it at a later age. One of the next thing, next slide over. Millennials are less likely to have given birth. If you control for the age and the stage and you compare different generations, Gen X, the boomers, what you find is it's millennials are less likely to have a kiddo, right? They've been impacted by the world around them. There's lots of interesting information, so many stats that I could throw at you that your mind would would be swimming like mine is. But not only do they wait a little bit later too, or do they wait to have children, they wait later. The average millennial right now is around 26, almost 27 before they have their first kiddo in 1980. Do you know what the average age of the first kiddo was? 22. I'm kind of an interesting shift.

And so it gets us to think and wonder about, okay, what does that mean? What does it look like? How is a church? Are we impacting? Are we creating space for this young generation that's looking for their place in the world and their place in the church? If you're like me, the last many years you've heard about how many students, Christians walk away from their faith when they graduate high school and move on. And we've wrestled with that. And what does that mean? We have people who are dedicating their lives at L.s.u and Texas Tech and other places to study, to understand, to help us. How do we grapple with that? Well, it's been interesting in the research I've found is actually it's a that's a little bit of a misnomer. It's not that they've walked away from God and walked away from faith. It's that it's begun to change how they experience faith, what it means to be a part of a church. We see many of them grew up in a place where they weren't allowed to ask many questions or wrestle with doubts. So what does it look like to be a church that is open and willing to engage and create space for questions and doubts? That's one of the things we're trying to wrestle with here at Broadway. Some of you may be familiar with a guy named David Kinneman who's written for Barna. He's the CEO of Barna. He's written a couple of different books.

1 in 2011 on Millennials called You Lost Me. And it's the study of millennials who are who are leaving the church, but not necessarily leaving faith. But they're they're wandering. In fact, the word that often would come up is exiles. And so their follow up study on that study is called Faith for Exiles. And what's interesting is they found not so much that that millennials had left the church, that this group of folks had had just walked away from God, walked away from everything, but instead found that there were a couple of different things happening that were impacting them. Number one, they said the culture has changed so radically. They they likened it to the difference between living in Jerusalem and being carried off into captivity in Babylon, what it's like to live in Jerusalem, in Babylon, it said in Jerusalem. If you think of that old way, it's this idea of faith was at the center of all that we did. To have questions about faith was normal, to have conversations about faith and church and around the water cooler. It was pretty normal. There was a strong monotheistic effort. Life was a slower pace. Now the idol that they faced in Jerusalem was false piety. I now know that none of that happens here at Broadway, but let me tell you what that means. It means when you show up, you're pretending to be something that you're not, Right. That was the idol back then, was to be more religious, more faithful, more, more jesusy than you really were.

And they were centered around simple life. Well, now this group, Millennials and the Generation Z coming up right behind them are what they call digital natives. That means they've always grown up with one of these with some version of a screen, with some connection to the Internet. And in the culture today, there it's pluralistic. And instead of there being this slower pace, it's frenetic. There's so much information at the time. In fact, many times during my sermon, if I spit out a fact to you, there are people fact checking me in real time in the audience. Right. I know because Terry Sparks will text me. Right, Terry. Now, he doesn't do that. Actually, he doesn't. But others have there's just this connection, this availability to information, and it's immediate. The idol then for them has become fitting in. How do I learn to be a part of this? What does that look like? Now, it's not necessarily unique. That's just one of the struggles that they face. So how do we create space in our church community to engage with and to disciple millennial generation? Some of these folks are single. Some of them are married, some of them are in our church now, are having kiddos. What does it look like for us to be a church, a place that makes space, you know, before what the research at least they began thinking these young people are walking away from faith.

Rather, what they said was these young people are becoming exiles and they're wandering. And so Kinnaman points out four different kinds of exiles that that we find not only in millennials, but now in Gen Z, the same type of thing. They define it this way. They're prodigals, right? So they surveyed over 2000 Christians who grew up in some way, shape or form, Christian, either in a church or had been a part of of a church or a faith community for a little while and found 22%. This is in 2019. 22% would be called prodigals, meaning they used to believe and they don't believe anymore. Well, that number right there has doubled. In 2011, when he wrote his first book, it was 11%. Now, 22% have said, well, yeah, I would be one of those who walked away from church and I walked away from God. But the majority he found. Where this group called Nomads habitual churchgoers and resilient disciples. So nomads are folks who have stepped out of church. They're wrestling with their kind of what we would call a lapsed Christian. So they still have some beliefs. They still have some values, but but they don't typically engage much in church. They haven't attended church in the past month, is how they categorize that habitual church goers of folks who have been to church at least once in the last month. And they have a few beliefs, but but not many.

They're still searching. They come because that's the habit. Their friends come. Their their parents are still making them come. They're they're they're habitual in that they'll they'll show up, but they're still wrestling with what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? He said 10% now are what's called resilient disciples. They're folks that that have not only hung in and hung on to their faith, but that faith has become their own. In fact, he defines it this way in these four categories. He says these are Christians who attend church at least monthly and engage with their church they trust firmly in the authority of the Bible. They're committed to Jesus personally. They affirm he was crucified, buried, raised again. And they express a desire to transform the broader society as an outcome of their faith. These are young people who are saying, I want to be involved. I want to be involved in my local faith community. I want to have make a difference in my community. How is a church? Do we engage with this church, with this group of people? Here's how Kinnaman kind of summed up his findings. This was actually written in his first book, but it's been echoed in the findings in his second. He says Mosaic, which is another term for millennials. He says they need better, deeper relationships with other adult Christians. They require a more holistic understanding of their vocation and calling in life how their faith influences what they do with their lives from Monday through Saturday.

They also need help discerning Jesus leading in their life, including greater commitment to knowing and living the truth of Scripture. Okay, Carl, let's get off the sociology report. Let's talk. What does this have to do with us as a church? Our story. Qr story. If you have your Bible, turn over to Samuel. Samuel Chapter three is often referred to as the call of Samuel. It's the first time we kind of see that call experienced in his life. But if you read through it, what you'll find is there's a lot more to the story than just his calling. It is that. But it's so much more than that. As Chapter three opens up, we find Samuel is living and working with Eli, who is the priest at the tent in Shiloh, the place of the Lord in Shiloh, Chapters one and two. Give us the backstory of Samuel's life. If you haven't read it, I invite you to go back and reread it. It's a pretty amazing story. We don't have time to to read it ourselves, but just the CliffsNotes version of it. Hannah, who is Samuel's mom, has been praying for a child. She's barren and she's been praying for a child. And the Lord blesses her with Samuel. She had promised him if you would give me a child, Lord, I will dedicate that child to you. And Samuel is given to her. And so she dedicates Samuel. To God. And so Samuel is taken after he's weaned and he begins in the service of Eli, who is the priest there.

And what we also learn is that Eli has his own children, his own sons, and they're wicked. They're taking advantage of the people who are bringing their gifts to the to the tent, to the Lord's house. They're also sleeping with various women in and around who are connected to the temple. And so God pronounces judgment. He sends this man of prophecy to speak a word of judgment over Eli and his family and especially his sons. He says, your sons are going to die and you are no longer going to be this priestly lineage. So it's a pretty hard word that's kind of as Chapter two ends, that's where the story of Samuel kind of opens up. So that that shadow, that prophecy is kind of hanging over Eli as the story unfolds. In fact, as chapter two ends, it does so this way. It says, God says, I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. Now, my son Gabe is a sophomore in college this year, but when I think he was in middle school, Kayla can correct y'all me afterwards. But he was learning in English class one day and they were teaching him the concept of foreshadowing. And so we were watching a movie that weekend and right after this scene where we kind of know what's happening with Samuel here and Samuel chapter three, we've heard a little bit of the story and we get a little window into I will raise up a prophet who will do my work.

Right. This little foreshadow. Well, there was a movie we were watching and all of a sudden that little scene happens where it foreshadows. And Gabe, just out of nowhere says Foreshadow. And so now it's kind of become a little joke in our family. Whenever we come across a faucet, we'll just go foreshadowing. So as chapter two ends, the author says foreshadowing, Right? God's going to raise up a prophet and he's going to do what God's what's in God's heart and his mind. And so, again, that's kind of the backdrop for what we have in Samuel one. And so we're told the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days, the word of the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. That's kind of interesting. Tracy read this section for just a moment ago, but I want you to notice over the next couple of verses how many times this reference to vision and to sight and to perception and understanding happens. Aren't the writers wanting us to to see not just with our eyes, but to see even deeper ways that the story that's unfolding is not just one about literal sight? But about learning to see beyond. So notice how the story unfolds. One night, Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak, right? He can't see.

He was lying down in his usual place. It would have been right outside the tent somewhere. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord where the Ark of God was. So Eli's eyes are becoming weak. And the time of the night is the lamp of the Lord has not yet gone out. That's kind of a reference to the end of the evening. You see, priestly protocol had that you would light a lamp in the sanctuary next to the Ark of the Covenant, and it would burn from sun down to sun up. So this is potentially just just a reference to the time of day. It was getting close to dawn. It wasn't quite there yet, but it was close to dawn. But what's also interesting is the lamp of God lights up the arc. What was the role of the arc that was God's presence, His illumination to the people. And you have this young man who's who's lying down sleeping right next to this great illumination and he can't see it. We're going to see in a minute he can't see what's going on around him. And you have this old man who's laying just outside the tent and he can't literally see, but yet he's going to perceive something here in just a minute. The amazing thing is the chapter unfolds. God calls out to Samuel three different times, and each time Samuel returns to Eli and says, I'm here.

And Eli keeps saying, It's not me, pal. But it's only after that third time that he realizes or rather, the text tells us he perceives Eli, whose eyes are so weak he can barely see. All the sudden now he. He gets it. He perceives. Wait a minute. Something bigger here is going on. Samuel can't see it. Now, remember, in chapter three, as it opens up, we're told that the word of the Lord was rare in those days. So before we start thinking, Samuel's just kind of a goofball, like, what's his problem? How come he can't see? You see a few French fries short of a Happy Meal. Like, what's wrong with this kid? Well, we realized, number one, he's not a kid. He's a young boy. But the word of the Lord didn't come very often. There aren't many visions, so He doesn't have a strong reference point to know what does God's voice sound like? Which I find so interesting, is we think about are we becoming a space for millennials, for that young generation, 20 something, 30 something who may not have had a rich interaction experience with God. That for many of them, as they're trying to navigate life as a single adult in a culture, in a time that doesn't value what the church values and they're trying to make sense of, what does God's voice sound like? Or maybe some of them have have found a relationship that's meaningful and they've decided to yoke their lives together in marriage.

And they're going, what does God sound voice sound like when it comes to being married? Or maybe some of them have have taken and bitten off maybe a little more than they could chew and said, we're going to start a family. And how do we learn to raise our kiddo? What does God's voice sound like? They may not have a super strong reference for what God's voice sounds like. They're going to need someone to help. Come along and say, Here's how you learn to hear God's voice. Here's how you learn to discern God's speaking to you. Samuel needed someone who could help him discern because he kept thinking it was someone else's voice. He kept thinking it was Eli's voice. Or maybe at some point he started thinking, Is this just my own voice? Am I just talking to myself? He needed someone like Eli who could help them understand. And so Eli gives Samuel this instruction, verse nine, Go and lie down. And if he calls, you say, Speak Lord, for your servant is listening. And so Samuel goes and he lies down and he does what Eli tells him to do. Church As we think about the kind of people we are being, the kind of space we're creating, are we creating space where young people can come and ask questions and maybe wrestling with some really hard issues and they're not sure how to listen to God's voice on this? Are we becoming the kind of place that says, well, here, lie down here? And listen.

And when he talks to you, say, Speak, Lord. Are we the kind of church that's that's engaging our young people and creating the space for them to do that? It's a powerful thing that when when Samuel follows Eli's counsel, the Lord returns, we're told in verse 11. And he said, See, I'm about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it. Tingle. And at that time, I will carry out against Eli everything. I spoke against his family from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about. His sons blasphemed God and he failed to restrain them. Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli. The guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering. And again, we hear this judgment. It returns in Chapter three, that same judgment that was pronounced in Chapter two. Only this time it's given to Samuel. And as you can imagine, Samuel now has this word of God for the man who has taken him into his own home, who has said, Here's how you discern God's voice. Wright has cared for him, has provided for him. And now he says, Hey, the Lord is about to speak to you, Samuel, Go lie down. And when he when he calls out, you just say, listen, right? Eli has helped him learn how to discern God's voice.

And this is the message he's got to bring back. So as you can imagine, Samuel is wrestling. He is struggling. I don't want to have to give this word. This is the message I'm supposed to give. Even in the midst of this judgment, we get a little window into Eli. That Eli did rebuke his sons. He tried to get him off the straight and narrow, but he couldn't control them. He couldn't help shape them. He he failed to do his job. And God says, because of that, you're going to be punished. Eli knows that the Lord is speaking to Samuel and he wants to know what he says. And so as Eli, rather as Samuel, opens the door of the tent, which again is is a literal phrase, but foreshadowing. Right? We understand like Samuel is like opening the door to the tent now and stepping out a different person. In fact, what we're going to learn is he's going to step into a new role. He's going to step into Eli's role. How's this going to go? How is Eli going to respond that this young person who he's poured time and energy and investment in? Now is going to be the one delivering. The bad news. How will this go? It's really quite a scene. Samuel lays down, we're told in the morning, open the doors and the house of the Lord.

He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, verse 16. But Eli called to him and he said, Samuel, my son. Samuel, my son. What'd you hear? Eli immediately creates an opportunity now for Samuel to deliver a word. My call on my son. He uses familial language. And what's interesting is Samuel responds in kind as he's responded all night long. Here, am I? We see Eli taking the steps to create space, that Samuel can give a word that he can give Samuel the tools to discern God's speaking into his life and then give him the space and ability to actually wrestle with it and live it out. It's a powerful thing. You know, Eli could have gotten upset. How dare you? After all that I've done for you. After all the money I've spent on you. After everything I've had to swallow for you, you dare say this. That's not Eli's response. It's kind of an amazing part of the story. Verse 18. Samuel tells him everything, right? Eli said, I want you to tell me what's going on. Samuel, my son, I want you to be honest. Tell me everything. Don't leave a word out. In fact, he says it so seriously. He says if you leave something out, May. What happened to me happen to you? And Samuel's like, No, I don't want that. So we're told. Samuel tells him what happened. Leaving nothing. Hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said. He's the Lord. Let him do what is good in his eyes.

What incredible faith. What incredible trust that Eli says. I'm going to give you the tools to learn how to hear from God. And even if by doing that very thing, it exposes the hard truth about me and that maybe God has decided to move on from me and install some new leadership in this place. He is the Lord. Let him do what he thinks is best. Right. To borrow a phrase from that ancient future prophet, the Mandalorian. This is the way, right? Eli's response. This is the way. And we'll go on to read as chapter three ends. Is that the Lord is with Samuel and he doesn't let his words fall like God's presence is powerful with Samuel in his ministry to the people. Again, I know the story is a little different than as we think about millennials. They're a little bit older than Samuel was at this moment. By the time Chapter three ends, Samuel is a is a millennial age wise. You see, young people are looking for real relationships. They're looking for space and opportunity. Can I be honest? Can I ask some questions? Can I wrestle with some doubts? Can I think about some things different than the way that you think about things and still be in relationship? Because in our day and in our time and in our culture, that's not allowed. Have you noticed that? That if you don't agree with me, then you hate America or you hate Jesus? Right.

There's no room for conversation. Eli makes incredible, incredibly humble move. Church Are we willing to be humble? Even if by equipping the next generation with the tools to explore and find faith in God's voice into our lives, even if it costs us. Our place in our leadership. Are we willing to make that space? I think this is such a powerful story. Eli created space for Samuel to learn how to listen to God. Eli helped give him the tools. And then Eli created space for Samuel to explore and find out what that message was and to hear it. And he calls him son and he resets the relationship. Instead of getting upset, he humbles himself. Even if that meant moving himself out of the way. Church. Are we willing to have that kind of trust? This is the way. They God knows best. They God's going to keep forming and shaping and moving us. What's beautiful? The church didn't end that day, did it? No, no, no. It kept going. That God has incredible work to be done. Church Can we live with the kind of humility that recognizes we want to empower the next generation? Are we willing to live that way? Remember back to David's David Kinnaman's. Challenging word about what? Millennials needed most. Let's hear echoes of this in the story of Samuel. Like they ripped this off from somewhere. Oh, yeah. It was first Samuel, chapter three. The mosaic. Believers need better, deeper relationships. You see church.

Millennials need older.

Christians who will love them and care for them and walk with them and journey with them and give them the tools to hear God's voice in their life and then allow them to explore it, even if it means they have to take a lesser role. To say this is the way they require a more holistic understanding of their vocation and calling in life. That's more than just showing up on Sundays and saying the right thing and making sure we get community and then we're out the door. But to say, no, no, no. How does this impact the way that I live every single day? And they need help discerning Jesus leading in their life. See church I think this is this is. Setting it up on a tee for us. I think we have people who love and serve and follow Jesus have been for decades. Like we're the perfect church to do this kind of work. Are we willing to jump in there and love and shepherd students because they need to know and to live the truth of scriptures? I want an amazing, amazing thing to be the kind of church that helps create space for everyone to find their place in the family of God. Lord, we do pray that we would become this kind of church.

That we would hear in the story of Eli and Samuel. That your desire is to have men and women who know and love and follow you and who continue to speak truth into the world just like Samuel did. Lord. We're thankful for the example of leaders like Eli. Who in the face of being confronted with his own failure. He was willing to to humbly accept. What it was you had to give. To create space and room for Samuel to step into a new role. I God, as we think about our own church and the amazing leaders that you have brought up in this place and how time and time again we have seen that example. A leaders who love and create space for for younger folks, folks who are launching into the world, who are getting married, who are starting to have kids, or they're just following your path for them as a single adult. We live in such a challenging time. And I pray for all of those in our church who are that age for your spirit of wisdom to be upon them, that you would help them learn to hear your voice. You got to pray that you would help us equip us as a church.

To serve the way that Eli did to become Equippers. Who can help young people learn how to hear God's voice in their life. You got to pray that you give us courage. Courage to be open and honest about what's really going on, to be authentic. To model a true faith. A faith that isn't just words that we say, but it's a lifestyle that we live. God. Most of all, I'm so thankful for the way of Jesus. Who modeled this very life to us. As he called around him, 12 disciples who were clueless. They were lost. I didn't know anything. He spent three years just pouring into and investing in them. And gab when the time came. He was willing to give his very life. That they might know and experience the truth of a real relationship with God and that it would change their lives and God it did. Lord. That's what we want to do here at Broadway. Those are the kind of leaders we want to be here at Broadway. So, God, would you help us? Would you help us be that? Lord, thank you for your courage that you have given to us. Thank you for your wisdom that you've given to us. Lord help us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.