By Patriot Academy Alumnus – Ethan Nunn
I’ve been contemplating an intriguing question that seems to come up, time and again, in churches today and in generations past. Since churches still seem to be seeking an answer, I’m going to attempt to answer this question.
I will try to address this problem that has plagued the church for years, I would like to share with you, my thoughts, on how to reach my generation for Christ.
Now, to explain this issue a bit deeper. My generation is that generation of youth. The youth that will become the church leaders of tomorrow, husbands, wives, parents… you get the idea.
The youth, who will soon come of age and go out into  the world making decisions about how they will live their lives for Christ… or not. The church, today and in years past, have all had this generation of youth and have seemed to feel as though they can’t quite reach them.
That with every generation that comes of age, something is lost. Why does the church struggle with this question? It’s simple. You see, with every generation that passes through the church, more and more youth are leaving behind their faith and walking away from God. The statistics don’t look good, but we’ll see those later.
There have been many church leaders, parents, pastors and students who have tried to solve this problem, answer this question. It seems nothing has been a good solution. The creation of youth groups didn’t fix the problem. Contemporary Christian music didn’t fix the problem. Entertainment doesn’t seem to be the answer, food, games, technology.
None of these things have effectively raised up generations of youth who know what they believe, can defend their faith or whose faith can even keep them in church once they are on their own.
My generation doesn’t need allot of of parties or entertainment. In fact, to say that a young person is too shallow to understand who God is without all that extra stuff could be considered insulting.
I don’t mean to say that all these efforts of generations of church leaders, before me and now, were not filled with good intentions. I believe they were. But all I think my generation needs is this, a straight-forward gospel and someone who will preach the hard truth to them.
What is the hard, inconvenient truth? It’s telling them there’s a place called Hell and that’s where their going if they don’t know Jesus. Jesus talked about Hell just as much as he talked about Heaven. This wasn’t because He was a party-pooper. It was because He people enough to tell them the truth.
Hell is where they were headed if they didn’t know Him! We need to care about people that much. My generation needs to hear about Hell. This is not a new idea. The late evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham, hit the mark when he said,
You see Billy Graham understood that man’s heart has not changed, so the words that Jesus spoke over 2,000 years ago will still touch the heart of man, and yes, the heart of my generation.
