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To the previous generation of disciples:

I received a comment about a reference to the next generation in Lines in the Sand, so I decided to expand upon it here. Keep in mind that I am working from memories, so any corrupt, weird, ICC style thinking is my own remembrances. I want to be honest with my own history despite how embarassed I am about some of my ways of thinking at that time. I believe that I will spend a lifetime undoing a lot of weird thought patterns, and not just those I received at the ICC. In any case, I present these thoughts to you, the members of the Crossroads Movement and the early days of Boston with a sincere heart.

My Generation
I remember when I became a believer that I wanted nothing more than to help people. I looked at a world map and found Ulaan Baator in Mongolia. I figured that I was part of the right group when we would plant a church there, because there had been no significant missionary activity there since the third century. I also remember thinking that it may not happen with me, but those that came after me. You can imagine my surprise when the ICC planted a church there three years later in 1994. (It may have been earlier or later, I’ll check my records.) The Evangelization Procolomation hadn’t been made yet, but by then I had already figured out that the ICC was a one-generation-all-or-nothing effort. It seems that no concern was given to the future at all until I saw an important element appear on the church history timeline:

Olivia McKean baptized – First second-generation disciple born, raised, and baptized in the Movement.

It happened in 1991, the same year that the church in Moscow was planted, but I was never really one to pay attention to upcyberdown. Being a southerner, I pretty much lived by the axiom, “We don’t care HOW you do it up North.” Despite my heritage, though, reading this gave me pause. However, I quicjly dismissed it as not a big deal. Again, if Boston or LA wants to make a production of it, then let them go. I was busy with my own dreams.

I remember being with my campus friends and thinking about the guy we were studying with as the next generation. One time, Constable and I were studying with guys on a different campus where we had no members. He and I talked endlessly about one particular person we hoped would be the guy to build a campus ministry there. I dreamed of being an elder, but I also dreamed of the person I was studying with to do great things. I just wanted to be a background figure. I had made many mistakes in college (including flunking out twice) and I was much older than the others around me. I assumed my time had come and gone for campus, so I looked ahead to the future. I assumed that I was the second generation at NC State (Mark Rushing, Carvel Baus and Joe Bridger being the first) and that I was looking at the third. My generation had grown to so many people, I felt like it was time to move on to something else.

Through all of this, however, I noticed that this term ‘second-generation disciple’ was appearing in KNN and LA Story. Even the evangelists in my church had used the term to refer to their children being baptized. More than that, Olivia was speaking to huge crowds at teen events. Sam Laing’s daughter eventually wrote a book about being a teen, Mitch’s son went on the lead NC State’s campus ministry while Sam’s two sons were given teen and campus leadership roles of their own. Even now, Eric McKean has been hired as an intern in Portland and other leaders’ children have leadership roles as if it was the divine right of “Movement-Born” children. All of this is done in the name of raising up ‘second generation disciples’. I believe you will find that even after our counter-revolution, children of the lead evangelist become leaders, whether they want to or not. This thinking even appears on DisciplesToday.Com in the section about “next generation disciples”.

Divine Birthright of Kings
I tried to think of why a leader would want their children to be thrust into leadership. My own parents let me travel a very different and difficult road that has no similarities to theirs. My father encouraged me to play sports, my mother encouraged me to play the piano. Although I thought my father was disappointed in me because I didn’t enjoy playing sports (and consequently didn’t play well), it turns out he was proud of me because I was strong enough to go my own way. Maybe my experiences are unique, I don’t know. But I do know that being in leadership is not a glamorous job, especially under the old heirarchy system where you had to think for so many people.

Then it occurred to me that the greatest honor in the old ICC was to be named an evangelist. The second greatest honor was to be asked to be on a mission tem. Public speaking was the Excalibur of a ‘would-be disciple’: it signified the divine right to lead. What father wouldn’t want the so-called kingdom’s greatest honor bestowed on their children? (If I was a father, I wouldn’t have thought of my younger friends as the next generation, I also would have looked to my children.) Thus the seeds of succession were planted in all our minds. A great evangelist was bound to have children that were great evangelists and evangelists’ wives. The heroes of the faith were destined to spawn more heores of the faith, and so on and so on until the return of our King, Jesus of Nazareth.

It seems obvious now that all of that thinking is wrong. No one is born into a position within a church. Even the world knows that leaders are not born but made. The New Testament speaks over and over about the refining of our character. It is refined by own faith, or our failures, but usually both. The greatest leaders I have known (church and otherwise) rarely passed it on to their offspring. It is amazing that with all the encouragement we gave each other to persevere and have faith and endure trials of all kinds as discipline, that we went along with putting people in leadership that had been sheltered, spoiled, and lacked experience. They had youth, energy and ego. Most importantly, many of them had the blood of an evangelist or elder within them.

Lost Generation(s)
It’s easy to get self-centered when writing about this, especially because I believe that my friends and I were really the so-called second-generation disciples. I know that Boston started in ’79, so I figured that being in a campus ministry from 1979 to 1989 was one generation, 1990 to 2000 was another generation and that those in campus now are a third generation. The children of leaders belong mostly to the third generation, so that leads me to believe that the middle generation has dropped below the radar.

Granted, my generation has produced its share of leaders, so it hasn’t been enitrely ignored. I consider the minister at my church a member of this lost generation, as well as the ministers of the churches in Virginia. There are even members of my generation that strive to be teachers and shepherds even now. However, I believe that there is a tremendous untapped resource of ideas and talents and heart all over the US that continues to be ignored. How do I know? These are usually the first to leave when signs of change are slow in coming (if they come at all). When Thomas came to Portland, only the younger ones remained. When large churches like Chiacgo and New York moved glacially, it was the members with 10 -15 years of membership that left first. I believe that my generation has been marginalized our entire Christian lives. It doesn’t surprise me that many have said ‘enough’ and just moved on with their lives.

We were promised that we could do anything if we had enough faith, but those promises of greatness didn’t come for many of us. So if you look in your own congregation for these souls, you may find them a bit defeated or jaded if you find them at all. We preached against being cynical, but produced cynicism in our own church. My generation figured out a long time ago that it didn’t matter how much faith or talent or heart we had: just like the business world, it was who you knew. In some places, it was as simple as asking “Who’s your Daddy?”

Now, there is a chance to help my generation heal from the sins of the previous one. Just ask them what they think and listen to them. We may be cynical and jaded, but we’re not mean, just hurt. You will hear stories of pain and grief, but also stories of simple faith and triumph. God has worked in their lives for at least a decade, so you should know that they have much to offer. Listen to their stories, God has created them with the tapestry of their lives. Let some of these folks teach others, if they are qualified. Let them take care of others unfettered, but stop taking them for granted. Find reasons to share about their faith and love and service. Don’t share like the old way of bombastic, hyped, over-produced awards, instead respond with sincerity and love. All the cynic needs is one sincere heart and enough time to trust again. It’s about time that we bound up the wounds of this lost generation and used the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to them.

But what of the third generation? They need to heal from the sins of my generation. In some instances, we hated them. In other instances, we were jealous of them for the attention they received. More importantly, though, they get to live in a time where new ways are tolerated and even encouraged. They don’t have the rules my generation had and they can be free to love God in ways that would have put my generation in the doghouse. Our cyncism is only going to be a stumbling block to them, so we can’t ignore them as a consequence of caring for others. I have a friend that is 20 and a part of this third generation. I hope that his dreams can be fulfilled without my cynicism getting in the way.

Epilogue
I dreamed of being an elder when being an elder meant being unpaid and having no authority within the church. Like many who join any church, I just want to help people. Now that I am older, I don’t dream of eldership much – it means the opposite of my inital thoughts to be an elder now. I already serve on a leadership group that determines the direction of the church and I would not enjoy doing that full-time. What I do enjoy, is teaching. I don’t mean the studies, I mean teaching any subject matter. Computers, Literature, History, etc, but I also enjoy teaching books of the Bible. I get to live out that dream because someone asked me what I want to do and empowered me to do it.

I hope that others in the lost generation get the same opportunity that I have gotten.

Yours truly,
Lost in the Middle