By Erin Bowman

At the 2019 Clergy Retreat, I sat with the C4SO NextGen Leadership team and heard their passion for developing today’s youth into tomorrow’s leaders. They quoted staggering statistics regarding the rate at which young adults are leaving the church. I was most sobered by the statement that if we as a church don’t engage our youth now, in 20 years there will be no one left to lead. 

While I recognized the truth of this alarming statement, I was left wondering how my church could realistically do this. We are a small church, and numerous voices are speaking to leadership about the necessity of any number of things. NextGen Leadership seemed like just one more thing to add to that growing list of important needs we didn’t have the capacity to adequately serve. 

It was easy for me to feel overwhelmed until I realized that as a part of C4SO, we didn’t have to complete this task alone. Our church is situated in a large metropolitan area near several other C4SO churches, one of which has a large, thriving NextGen student ministry program. The student ministry leader there is not only welcoming of interactions with other churches, but eager to partner with us. 

After a couple of conversations, we are looking forward to having our youth participate in a winter retreat hosted by this larger church. We have also planned conversations to look at possible partnerships for missions work for our students over the summer. 

I am relieved, our rector is thrilled, and our vestry is impressed. But none of these things are the real win here. The truly exciting thing is that our youth now get to have opportunities for encounters with Christ that we, as a small church, couldn’t possibly provide for them if it were entirely up to us. 

Maybe with the help of these opportunities, our NextGen ministry will grow in 2020, and perhaps it won’t. What we do know is that our students are hungry for more. They are looking for ways to be challenged in their faith and step into roles of increasing responsibility. If we don’t accept the challenge to mentor and shepherd our youth, they will find a place that will—or worse, become discouraged and disengage from church altogether. By partnering with other churches, we are utilizing every resource at our disposal to meet the needs of the future leaders God has entrusted to us. 

As a larger church, are you willing to share resources with other churches who might benefit from your size and experience? As a smaller church, are you willing to partner with larger churches and offer an assist at larger events they are hosting? Maybe there are no large churches in your area. Have you looked at partnering with other smaller churches to jointly hold events to serve the NextGen in your area in 2020? 

The church leaders of tomorrow are in our congregations today. How is your church embracing the opportunity to shepherd them?

Erin Bowman is Director of Ministry of Redemption Anglican Church in Frisco, TX, an energetic church plant inviting people to live Kingdom first. Redemption’s youth will be participating in Winter Retreat: The Wild Goose, a student ministry offering of Christ Church Plano. If you are in the North Texas area and interested in sharing NextGen Ministry resources or coming on Winter Retreat, send the Rev. Aaron Buttery, C4SO’s NextGen Leadership Associate, a note. Aaron@c4so.org.