To Whom Pass the Keys?

As a 15 year-old kid (a year before I got my license), my parents gave me the keys to the El Camino truck. I had already learned to drive around in empty parking lots and had plenty of practice on the streets since I had my permit. Back then it helped that I looked older than I was. So one day my parents said, "Here take the truck, drive, just be careful."

With that kind of trust in me, I knew what a privilege I was given. I drove.

Lately, I've been mulling over the kind of trust we give to our next generation ministers. To whom do we give the keys to the church of the future? Certainly God calls entire communities to be the body of Christ, with each individual a necessary and vital part of the whole. But I've been reflecting on the unique contribution that can emerge from two specific kinds of people.

One is youth pastors. Because the church is not an institution, but a community, it is inherently relational, not corporate. Youth pastors intuitively get this in the manner in which they minister to youth. Youth pastors know it's all about relationship. They know that what matters most with kids is taking an interest in them, getting to know them, so they do a lot of hanging around with them. From what I gather from the gospel accounts, this is what Jesus apparently did a lot of too. Jesus told us that the means and ends is always love - that it's all about investing in people through relationship. In this way, youth pastors may be uniquely positioned to lead organic and relationally-functioning faith communities of the future.

An added plus is that youth pastors also know how to communicate with an often distracted and disinterested audience. By necessity, the messages given by youth ministers often have just one point, are usually interactive, and many times have some kind of object-lesson component. Their teaching style is not a didactic lecture, but an communal experience of give and take, with a call to wrestle. Again, looking at the 'now' while peering into the future, I see this as the direction of communication in churches that will move away from a performance mentality to a shared conversation.

That's why I've been telling youth pastors that the future of the church, at least in part, belongs to them. That hanging with people and communicating through conversation is not something they should ever 'graduate' from, but may be exactly what is needed in developing future congregations. The temptation for youth pastors is to believe that doing ministry in 'big' church and graduating from 'jr.' to 'senior' pastor means taking a more 'grown-up' approach (because that's all they see). But maybe today's youth pastors are inherently well equipped to help the church find its core reality in relational discipleship.

Certainly becoming a faithful, competent, and effective pastor takes more than this, but I wonder if God isn't preparing young leaders for something beyond their current vision for it?

The other group to consider handing the keys are our missionaries. Again, I understand we are all missionaries really, whether across the street or around the world. And to that end, it applies to all who follow Christ. But I want to single out those who are doing the work of ministry in challenging contexts, particularly in urban settings and among the poor around the world. In these contexts, missionaries are key to the church of the future with regard to creating new and fresh theology.

Both Moses and Paul were the first missionaries, and coincidentally, the primary theologians of the Old and New Testaments, respectively. Each reflected on God's work before it became God's word, informing them and their faith communities as to who God was and what he was up to. As missionaries attempting to understand God's presence and preferences from among and within different cultures, their theological reflections became the basis for understanding mission in those contexts.

Missionaries are on the front lines, and thus by vocation, should be our most valued theologians. As professor Ray Anderson would say, "Ministry is not just where you apply theology, it's where you get theology!" The temptation is to believe that all the thinking about the church has already been done. But what the church needs most are not missionaries equipped merely with a theology learned in the classroom from some by-gone era, but missionaries who also will reflect on the new thing God is doing in their midst, as new cultures and people groups respond to Christ. We shouldn't delude missionaries into thinking that there is a bullet-proof theology to master, but rather encourage them to master the skill of thinking theologically. What they learn in their contexts, I imagine, would burn our ears! How much richer and more robust would the church be from these gleanings?!

At one time, not long ago, I too was a young seminarian and pastor trying to find my own voice and way in the often rigid and sometimes unwelcome terrain of pastoral ministry. I was fortunate, however, to be given the keys to drive. I helped start two churches by the age of 33. Now on occasion, I have the privilege of meeting young men and women training for the pastorate and the mission field from among the ranks of youth ministry - and can't help but think the church rests with them. I want to encourage them not to bend to the force of 'how it was' or 'how it's supposed to be,' thinking all the answers lie somewhere 'out there' in the 'grown-up' world. Instead bow to the God who speaks from the future into the present and courageously create with Him, new and vibrant communities of faith where Jesus stands at the core, but whose communities may look, think, and love like nothing that's come before.