I have it said before that, “the youth are our future leaders”. I stand to defer. The youth need to be encouraged to develop the “NOW” mentality to step into their potential and destiny.
It is very important that the youth are encouraged in their leadership opportunities and position. They need to be empowered and motivated to make positive contributions to the church, society and community they found themselves in regardless of what knowledge they have.
Every youth are wired and destined to be great in whatever they do. However, they need to be inspired to use their talents especially in the church so as to maximise their potentials to add value to the world in the right perspective. This can be done by creating opportunities for our youth to lead and have a positive experience and confidence in doing so.
I suggest the youth as emerging leaders in our churches know they are not only called into the pulpit, but to the world. So they shouldn’t limit themselves to church pulpit and begin to step out to impact their world with the talents and gifts embedded within them.
Many young people have been made to believe that they can only be relevant in the church, yet they do not have the opportunity to use their talents and gifts in the church. I mean, the church is not helping to sharpen their talents in order to win souls for the Kingdom of God. This has made a lot of the youth in our churches to be dominant and stagnant with their potentials and talents.
Looking critically, iPad, YouTube, Facebook, among other inventions were all created outside the box of the church building. It is not enough to box the youth in our churches to prayer, praise and worship. We as church leaders need to inspire, motivate, encourage, empower and help transform our youth into inventors of things using their creativity, energy and power.
The world is waiting to celebrate every youth in your church. We should not let them bury their talents in the church where the only limited spaces for them to use their talents is reserved for leader, pastor and the wife, and possibly for the son and daughter of the leader.
The next inventors are the youth in the church. The next Steve Job, Richard Blankson, Mother Theresa, Thomas Edison, Alexander Fleming, Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday are the youth in the pew waiting to be empowered and released into their territories.
It is about high time the youth are given the necessary tools to use to collaborate and become problem-solvers. We should provide them with adequate information and resources to empower them to become useful, relevant and change agents in their communities.
The youth are full of energy and passion, which need to be converted or transformed into productive measures to encourage them to be useful and creative. They are supposed to be given the platform to share their voice, their ideas and not meant to be left to rot just warming the church pew or benches.
It is our duties as church leaders to inspire or empower every youth in our churches to believe in themselves and to understand that, their voice, talents, gifting are asset to the world and not only the church.
They need to understand that their lives or existence is to make a huge difference in this world and those ideas are worth exploring. This is how we get them to think creatively and productively as it fuel them to develop their self-esteem.
The youth need to be guided to appreciate themselves, believe in their talents and to celebrate their uniqueness in the society as we as the church. They are the light and salt of the earth. Their talents and gift must be celebrated worldwide to bring glory to God.
A gift not celebrated is a gift not used.
We need to develop measures or platforms for the youth within the church so that they can always feel the need to embrace change and transformation so as to step out into their own world to make positive impact and change lives. No one wants to be stagnated in life. So, the youth are not different from that. They don’t want to be boxed in with nothing to do with their lives.
The youth need to be encouraged to step out with their talents to add value to the world. They should not be discouraged from using their talents outside the church and they need to know that their talents are unique and special regardless of what others say about them or even if they fail at using their talents.
The world is short of great entrepreneurs, yet the youth have been made to sit or spend a lot of time in the pew listening to message on wealth creations. When we lecture them, we should also give them the opportunity to practice.
Our youth must be motivated beyond clapping and singing in churches. They need to be empowered to chisel themselves out into purpose, not just discovering themselves.
I challenge pastor and church leaders to do more to inspire the youth to be creative and industrious with their time. It is not enough to organise deliverance and financial summit without empowering the youth to be engaging with their talents. It will however be enough to provide some form of support to young entrepreneurs within the church to make positive impact globally.
This can take the shape of mentorship, training and collaborative work with other youth from other churches to create business instead of polluting the mind of the youth with demonic activities and false teaching about wealth creations.
Let’s make no mistake — the youth are the greatest asset in every church, and if we can get it right with them, then our communities, societies, villages, cities and countries will be in the better hand by the year 2030. By empowering young person, we are empowering a whole world.
We should not discriminate against the youth. We should not only focus our church activities on adults but extend it across the youth ministries as well. By this, we are able to build a cohesive society and strong future for ourselves.
Failure is part of life and they must be taught to understand that failing is not a bad thing to happen as long as they can learn some vital lesson from their mistakes or failure; they will be on their way into greatness. Platforms should be created for them to testify or share their success from schools, universities, colleges etc. This creates platforms for them in media houses, social and world level to share and showcase their success to inspire other youth positively.
Most of the youth in the churches are very tired, bored and fed up with nothing to do with their lives. This is one of the main reasons why they are not interested anymore in church. In other words, the church has failed to sharpen, and they are looking elsewhere for that shelter and sharpening.
To change this across the churches, the youth need to be supported spiritually, physically and emotionally. Church leaders must begin to invest in youth program that will engage them to lead, officiate, play role and time and financial investment too must be given towards events organised by the youth.
Finally, the youth must be allowed to use their initiatives and ideas that they deem importance to their development and empowerment. This in the long term allows them to carry, embrace, run and project the vision of Christ to the world and become relevant, significant and useful to mankind.
Let us not glue the youth to sit and rot on the benches or pew. Rather, let’s all provide support, encouragement, motivation, and inspiration for the youth and young leaders of our time. If there is any time to be more supportive to the youth of our time; then the time is now. Together we stand to rebuild and reinvent our youth to become the world changers, not pew warmers.