Building Multi-generational Church #107
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Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels
Building Multi-Generational Churches
We want to be a multigenerational church.
I believe that the vision for this has to come
from the heart of the senior pastor.
If the senior pastor mainly
wants to talk to old people,
everyone will get the signal.
If the senior pastor mainly
wants to be a hipster
and wear his pants too tight
and freak his hair out,
and he wants to reach that generation,
many people will say,
"Ok, we know what
you are trying to do."
If a pastor really loves
all the generations
and the congregation can tell
by the demeanor, the illustrations,
and the way of the heart of the pastor,
then all the generations will say,
"I think he is on my team.
I think he or she is rooting for me."
I think it starts in the heart
of the pastor.
Second, it continues with
whom you put on stage.
If you say you are concerned
about the 20-somethings
and there is no one
under 60 on your stage,
the message is too loud.
I do not care what you say.
Music style, decor around church,
all of those things speak into
is my generation valued?
One thrill that I have
in ministry these days is
both my children are quite
involved in the church
and they are talking to me
about generational stuff consistently.
They have younger friends who talk
to me about their generation.
We had a Human Resources
consultant in recently.
I really admire him.
He presented data to our Executive Team
and that validated the fact
that millenneals and younger generations
basically want the same things
and management at work
than people of other generations.
In other words, you say,
"These people are so different they
want to bring their cats to work.
They want to play ping pong."
Our younger staff are fired up.
We have to talk more
about work-family balance
than we do about ping pong in the office.
When they believe in a cause,
our younger staff are totally devoted
and will work alongside
the boomer or buster generation.
To have that validated through
hard data was encouraging.