Back To School And The Most Important Mission Field
Back. To. School.
It is only three words, but, they spark a lot of emotion in our teenagers.
Some students have been waiting for the return of school pretty much all Summer. Other students dread the start of a new school year.
And yet, a return to school is maybe the greatest opportunity for a generation to reach their peers with the gospel. We cannot let fear or a lack of training keep us from fulfilling the Great Commission in Mark 16.
Our silence could be the enemy of truth.
The generational loss of the biblical worldview has been well-documented. A major slide from the 65% of the Silent Generation who had a biblical worldview, to the 4% of Gen Z.
| While 65% of Gen Alpha identifies as Christian
| Only 16% display consistent Christian beliefs and habits
| Yet, 3 in 4 say faith is important to their identity
We must make a renewed commitment to evangelism. And what better place than the school campus? Where our Campus Missionaries have to be 5 days a week!
It is the responsibility of Next Gen ministries to teach our students how to be apologists. When a generation takes the Great Commission seriously, the result will be transformational.
Many of us have prayed for decades for what we may be seeing begin today. A revival in the church and an awakening and culture clearly could be happening right now. All of the signs are pointing to a moment that we have been praying for. Could it be that a back to school commitment from our young people is the beginnings of the Next Great Awakening?
The millennials, Gen Z, and Alpha Gen are the only generations in America who have not seen a spiritual awakening. The young people living today have never seen a national Spiritual Awakening. They have not seen a significant or remarkable revival.
There are always moments in every society that become 'tipping points'. In culture it might be called a shift or subculture or trend or movement. Sociology would say that a generation brought change with it every 80 years.
Then, during the information age, it was said that every 40 years we would see cultural shifts.
And over time, with the explosion of the entertainment and the social media age, our generational changes have come within a single decade.
The social media and information age have given us a moment. A viral moment that could assist our young people and equip them in their role as apologists and the Great Commission.
What America is missing is a true Spiritual Awakening like the First and Second Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries. The term Great Awakening referred to seasons of religious revival in America that brought a wave of increased religious enthusiasm and involvement.
When everything happening around us brings a shift in thinking and the spiritual fervor affects a nation.
What marked these great awakenings was the role of young people. There isn’t a revival or awakening in American history that happened without the influence of young people.
The Cultural Awakening Caused By Students Going Back To School
We need to give a generation its voice.
Could the back to school moment of upwards of 40 million Christian teenagers bring another Great Awakening to America?
Here are four practical things we can do to prepare our young people back to school:
1. Teach them how to share their faith
2. Host a back-to-school party at your home
3. Encourage your teenagers to get involved with para church clubs
4. Encourage young people to find other believers at school
5. Attend see you at the pole … More on that later
Back to school could be another wave that carries us to a significant moment in American history leading to another Spiritual Awakening.
The recent events such as the school shootings in Minneapolis and Colorado and the Charlie Kirk assassination should drive the young people of the church to two simple things:
First, to get upon our knees in repentance and humility as we intercede for God's s DDovereign move upon our nation.
And second, to get up from our knees in confidence that God has called us to be a voice to our nation.
Finally
Someone once said that the most courageous students in in America are the Christian teenagers who enter the campus mission field.
I believe the most courageous moments in a teenagers’s life of the first few days they go back to school.
So much of life can be missed if we fail to recognize the significance of millions of students going back into the public school. Students in the classroom, the hallway, the cafeteria, and the sports field.
If Silence Is The Enemy Of Truth, then words are the friend of Faith
For example, almost one year ago. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. We cannot allow the assassination of Charlie Kirk to place us into hiding and fear.
Our response must be swift and clear.
Just look at the 100 thousand plus chapters of Turning Point USA that are being requested across our country. That is a decisive response that could be the fuel to the Next Great Awakening in America.
Our silence is the enemy of truth. We must not fear. In the face of a killer and his loaded weapons, these brothers and sisters of ours modeled to each of us the kind of faith it takes to build the Kingdom of God.
Look at Mark 16 versus 16 to 20…
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with youalways, to the very end of the age.”
So, why is back to school so important? Because millions of Christian students will walk onto the campus mission field with an opportunity to share their faith with their friends
That just could be the Wave to the Next Great Awakening in America