By Daniel Im: William Wallace, Melinda Gates, Hitler, Elvis Presley, Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, Bono, and Jeff Bezos.

What’s your off-the-cuff reaction when you hear those names? Do you think of similarities or differences? If you could group them together with one word, which one would you use? Would the word “leader” come to mind?

Now you may or may not agree on how effective each one of those individuals were (or are) as leaders, but it’s clear that when they acted, people followed. They led and history is different because of it.

While William Wallace led with passion to secure Scottish freedom from the English, Melinda Gates has led with compassion to give away more money than most people can even begin to fathom. While Hitler led the Germans with an authoritarian grip, Elvis Presley led with his charisma and rolling tunes.

Haven’t you ever noticed that as quickly as you can name leaders, you are able to name different attributes that make each of them uniquely effective? This is because there is no silver bullet to leadership. There is no common set of characteristics that—when put together—produce the end result of a leader.

In fact, just consider the weight of these words from Donald Clifton, the father of Strengths-Based Psychology, the grandfather of Positive Psychology, and the creator of the StrengthsFinder assessment. He was asked, just a few months before his death in 2003, what his greatest discovery was from three decades of leadership research. Here was his response…

By Daniel Im: We need to be teaching younger generations the truths that will last. Research studies show that teenagers are enjoying church and like the traditions of church but are unable to explain basic teachings of the Bible. Their belief system is “moral therapeutic deism.” Younger generations grasp the basic concepts but not the teachings. 

Church is an emotional journey for this demographic, and they go in order to feel good about themselves. Possibly most disheartening, their view of God is similar to a belief in Santa Claus. They know something is out there but only pray to God when they need something. These beliefs are far from orthodox truths of Christianity. In order to realign these views to build a next generation team, here is a five-step process to help your transition. 

1. Conviction and Dissatisfaction

You can’t continue to attract young people to your church events and opportunities without going back to the principle truths. God placed the church and the home in a strategic way to work together. These two institutions are to be conduits for the gospel. We want church and home to reinforce and strengthen each other, so that they become strong entities in the lives of young people. 

2. The Challenges the Church Leadership Gave Us

The journey to next generation ministry can start in student ministry and challenge adults to be involved in the lives of young people. It’s important to invest and mentor younger generations to help them identify their gifts and grow their relationships with God. 

A few challenges occur in most churches. You must get out of our individual ministry silos and start together working on the same team. You also must equip and engage parents in discipleship in the home. Church members, on average only get one to two hours of spiritual instruction at the church. However, we have 3,000 hours in the home. There is a huge opportunity to disciple and develop younger generations.

To read the remainder of this article, and to watch the entire video training with Jay Strother, click here for the full video and post.

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