Articles . Keith Drury . Volume 06 | Issue 08

My Students Plan to Change Your Church

This week I opened each of my courses by handing out slips of paper asking students to answer one question:

What is the most important change you want to make in the church when you get on staff?
I did this before saying anything else. I just compiled their responses. Of course this is not fancy “research” but only a possible indicator of what one might do if they seriously did a research project—but it is still fun to read and might gave some hints on what the emerging generation values and how they intend to change the church

About half of the responses were from sophomores who are just starting out in their ministerial education and the other half were seniors who are just a few months from their first job. The only clear difference between the two groups was the sophomores were slightly more concerned with the lack of spiritual depth in the church than were the seniors.

Here is what they said their #1 priority was to change in the church:

  1. Lead the church to greater spiritual depth. (27%) More than a quarter of my students listed spiritual depth as their #1 priority for changing the church. They think today’s Christians are too shallow.
    Sample responses: More discipleship; make the Bible more central; less secular church; more serious approach to Christian living; more study of the word of God; more Scripture in worship; church is not serious enough; more meat; get Christians to really care about Christianity; more obedience to word of God; too many activities without a point; more practical Christian living, more study of God’s word; reverence for the word; importance of Scripture; serious discipleship; away with the self-help books—in with Scripture; more emphasis on prayer; greater attention to the spiritual disciplines.
  2. Get the church to do more serving. (22%)
    Sample responses: Get everyone attending serving the world; less focus on local church and more on the world; see needs of local community and DO something!; become a positive instead of a negative influence in the world; more “worldly” mission-minded; care about the whole world in serving; more focused on helping the community; reaching out to people not in the church; meeting social needs; more concerned with needs of people outside the church; becoming the bride of Christ outside the church building; missions trips to needy places to help; look to the needs of the community; seeing vision for serving the world’s needy; reaching out with sports ministries to those not attending church; more outwardly focused; less self-centered and more emphasis on the world’s needs; be more caring; less about performance and programs and more about caring for people and their needs;
  3. Lead the church to greater unity. (16%)
    Sample responses : Bring unity to people in a church and between people of other denominations; get people to work together for Christ regardless of denominations; unity inside the church so that a church has nothing but joy an happiness; help people appreciate others who are different; break down the walls between denominations; end stereotyping of youth and bring all ages together more; teach unity in Christ; eliminate attitudes of bitterness and hatred in the church; open up to working with other denominations; end fighting and gossiping about ministers, worship, and anything else; bring senior citizens and youth together
  4. Help Christians develop acceptance and tolerance. (16%)
    Sample responses : Help people love and not judge; Get Christians to stop condemning or using guilt or fear to get people in the kingdom; get people to accept others who are different; more about attitude and less about rules; get rid of saved and lost mentality and use and them mentality; enhance a more ecumenical dialogue; battle against the Christian sub-culture mentality; less divide between religious/secular; end isolationism and introduce acceptance, tolerance, un-judging love
  5. Teach Christians better theology. (11%)
    Sample responses: Teach Christians who the Godhead is; replace poor theology with good theology; correct wrong theology in the church; end emphasis on relativity and affirm biblical foundations and don’t sway from doctrine; give congregations knowledge of sanctification and help them understand its importance; teach Christian to think theologically; train the church in good theology.
  6. Other. (9%)
    Sample responses: Greater enthusiasm among lay people like the pastor’s have; [teach people] worship can be done in so many different ways; teach from the heart not a book; show more emotion with God at the center of hearts; diversified unified divine services which draw people’s hearts toward God VIA tangible acts of worship.

So what do you think? Does this fit with the concerns of those you know who are 18-25? Do any of these match your concerns? What did you want to change in the church when you were a college student? Did it change or is it still an emphasis of yours? What other insights about this emerging generation do you see in this modest little research project?

© Keith Drury, 2005.
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