What is Encouraging About This Generation of Young People?

In God’s goodness to me, I had the opportunity of being a campus pastor at Jackson State for the previous nine years. Now,  I’m the senior pastor at Redeemer Church, a multi-ethnic church here in Jackson, and our congregation is a young congregation. We have a thriving young adults ministry right now that I have loved and that I enjoyed watching the Lord shape and mold that their belief in the church gathered.

It is important to them when the Bible is preached, and the Gospel is preached, and Jesus is exalted, and the Gospel is applied to real issues and things that are going on in their lives. They are there. They are committed. We have a nursery problem right now because so many of our young people are here that we don’t have room for their children.

What I love about this generation is that they also believe in the church scattered. They believe in their faith intersecting their work and intersecting where they live and how they live and what they get involved in outside of the walls of the local church.

I’m very encouraged. I’m encouraged by their desire to be a part of something bigger than them. I’m encouraged by the sobriety in approaching the faith. I’m encouraged by the way that they want their faith to intersect their lives. They want to be discipled. They want the Titus 2 type of ministry where they want to come into a church and have community. They also want to come in the church to serve and to know and to be known and to have relationships with people who have been walking with Jesus longer than they’ve been alive. So, I’m encouraged as a pastor to lead this next generation of God’s people.