September 20, 2024
INDIANAPOLIS — Shane Pruitt said God can reach a person at any age He wants to. Pruitt said he knew of a baptism recently of someone who came to faith in his 80s.
But the numbers speak, he said — 77% of Christ followers find their faith before age 18, and 95% find it before age 30.
“Practically speaking, if we don’t reach a generation before they turn 18 or 25, we lose a generation,” said Pruitt, national next gen director for the North American Mission Board, during the Monday morning session of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors Conference in Indianapolis on Monday (June 10).
He said oftentimes people think that you have to be creative and innovative and think outside the box to reach young people.
“I want you to know I’m all for creativity, but I think if we’re not careful, we’ll overthink it so much we lose the basics,” said Pruitt, pointing to the power of God’s Word. “Let’s stick to what has worked for 2,000 years.”
He said Paul gives Christ-followers a great example of what it means to be faithful to the next generation in Acts 17.
As Paul walked in Athens, he saw all the rocks stacked up for the gods, Pruitt said. “It was a Golden Corral of gods; it was a buffet.”
The culture there was very tolerant, but at the end of the day, there’s no participation trophy for honoring false gods, he said.
“When Paul sees this idol worship, he can’t stay silent — he has to speak up,” Pruitt said.
That should still hold true for the church today, he said.
“When the culture is screaming and the church stays silent, an entire generation only hears one worldview,” Pruitt said. “We can no longer stay silent — the Bible speaks.”
He said teens are faced with two big cultural hurdles with LGBTQIA+ tolerance and the self-help movement that tells them they should believe in themselves and they’ll be OK. Those are spaces where the church should speak, he said.
“Often teens want to talk about it — it’s adults who are scared,” Pruitt said. “Speak where the Bible speaks, and do it with boldness and kindness.”
“The same gospel that has saved young people for 2,000 years still works today,” Pruitt said.
And reaching them might be easier than some think, he said, because young people living in the world today tend to hit spiritual rock bottom sooner.
“They realize the world is broken, and they have no hope at a much younger age,” Pruitt said. “Hope has a name — it’s Jesus — and we get to tell a whole generation of young people that. We get to tell them that … no young person is too wounded for Jesus to fix, too far gone for Jesus to reach and no young person is too sinful for Jesus to save.”
“You live where you live because a sovereign, on-purpose God said so,” Pruitt said. “God has strategically placed each one of you as a missionary exactly where you are to know Jesus and to make Jesus known.”
Discipling the next generation isn’t for superhero Christians, he said — it’s for all Christians with a supernatural God living inside them.
“He’s not looking for all-stars — He’s already got an all-star in Jesus,” Pruitt said. “He’s just looking for ordinary people who will go all in on following the all-star, Jesus.”
The next generation is cause oriented, and “we get to help them understand the greatest cause there is — the Great Commission,” he said.
Live for the glory of God, Pruitt said, and help the next generation do the same.
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This story first appeared in The Baptist Paper.
