What responsibilities does the church have in relation to technology and reaching the current and next generations?
I know this chart is difficult to read-basically the younger one is the more life happens online. From education to entertainment, from announcements to authentic community and transparent communication, younger generations live online. Facebook, Twitter and other social media communities are not only providing community and interaction they are shaping relationships and defining how and what community is within our digital era.
While it’s true, older generations do interact with the internet, we are seeing trends showing the internet morph into a social community. Email is no longer the young person’s tool.
It’s true: email is for old people – at least it is now. Today, 74% of internet users age 64 and older send and receive email, making it the most popular activity in this group. Meanwhile, email usage among teens is dropping. In 2004, 89% of teens said they used email. Now that number is 73%(Sarah Perez).
Younger generations connect via text messaging, quicker than email. They Facebook, less intrusive and time-consuming than face to face. They Twitter for exponential connection.
Again, what must the church do to engage this generation and culture? watch this video before commenting
January 30, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I spend a lot of time on Christian forums so I can always have an accurate knowledge of what this and the next generation knows about the Bible…God’s ways of dealing with those who receive blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience…whether they’ve ever had Jesus wash away their past sins or not. They don’t know a bit of truth…I’ve probed Park West youth kids too. The Word of God certainly does offend. You’ll show all generations the plainly state literal passages from the Bible and it’s not that they even try to give “the accurate” truth since they don’t believe what they read… they just follow a god that suits their own human philosophies despite what Scripture says. You want to reach the younger generation? Well obviously the older generation has failed too. No one has the fear of God in them that has ever prayed the magic one time prayer. Christians don’t fear God (Eccl.12:13; 1 Pt.1:17) because our pastors are failing in telling them that sin still condemns all man w/o respect to person (2 Sam.14:14; 2 Chr.19:7; Acts 10:34; Rom.2:11; Eph.6:9; Col.3:25; 1 Pt.1:17), lest God be found a sinner in transgression and guilty of His own law (Jas.2:9-10). The answer to reaching any generation for Christ is to make sure they have the fear of God in them. Few will find the narrow road that leads to the narrow gate (Mat.7:13-14; Lk.13:24-27), and fewer still is the amount of righteous that remain on that road because they are not taught that sin will still condemn them (1 Pt.4:17-19). They are destryed for a lack of knowledge (Hos.4:6). Most only learn from their pastor, b/c most never crack their Bible to actually show themselves approved (Phil.2:12; 2 Tim.2:15). If the pastors teach that this is the year for all their wildest desires to be fulfilled every year instead of teaching that those who follow the flesh reap damnation insteads of eternal life (Gal.6:7-8), then how can they know the fear of God? Without knowing the fear of God, how will they ever be reached, even if they attend church 3 times a week? It’s a sincere answer to a sincere question…I hope it is received and understood.
February 3, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Brian, I can tell you from being the youth pastors at PW for 6 years that we never taught the doctrin of praying one magic prayer, certainly not! PW is the only church I have ever known and I have never got that from any message spoken there. You do make some really good points, but you come across as arrogant as if by your own righteousness you shall be saved. That is VERY scary ground! I have seen at leat 3 people try living like that and the result each time has been devastating! Don’t forget that you don’t know the deepest cries of a man’s heart. You don’t know how many times he cries out to God. I am totally into teaching on fearing God and parting from evil. I tremble at the Word of God and it grieves me too when I see others who don’t seem to tremble at His Word, however I understand God knows their heart! God is love and love is patient and slow to anger. “Love (God) suffers long and is kind” I’m not offended, just wanted to correct you if you are saying that PW teaches the one magic prayer thing. Maybe this isn’t related to PW, because the people are encouraged every week to live a life worthy of the call, to go and share their story everywhere they go, to “discover their destiny” in Christ and to not live a life of complacency.