Passing ‘God’ to the next generations

(Ps 25:7 & 71:18) 

I'm at that place in life where I ponder the mechanics of transfer in leadership in the church.  

My deliberation isn't strictly confined to the local church here, but that definitely is my most personal concern, and probably the only place where my sphere of influence might make any difference.

The future of the church, universal, is of real concern to me. The transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament was from the focus on the nationalism of Israel - to the universality of Christianity...from tribalism to the global Church of Jesus Christ.

The threat to the message of Jesus Christ hasn't changed much over the past couple of millennia, whether in the days of the Apostles when Paul went 'toe-to-toe' with Peter over the role of Zionism in the Church; or in the Spanish empire expansions of the 16th and 17th Century where conversions were made by sword-point; or in Twentieth Century Germany when the church became a doctrinal tool and voice of nationalism for the far 'right;' or currently as we listen to the radicalized voices within the 'western' church again drawing nationalism into the dogma of the church voice and vision.

Where is the hope and future of the church? It sounds too much like a cliché to say that the hope and future of the church is in its young people...but I know of no other way to state it.

The imperative is to bring our young people into a way of appraising the world, apart from the sociological forms and norms that so naturally blind us to the spiritual dimension of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The place to start is helping them live with the understanding that

and some day each of us will stand before Him as He judges our deeds and motivations.

I first must help each young person to understand my favorite verse, because it levels the playing field:

Psalms 25:7 Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord.

Next, I must help each of the rest of us to understand another verse that is my prayer and cry:

Psalms 71:18 Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.

If I fail to hold next to my heart the first of these verses, then I will not have the message to fulfill the second of these verses.