Generation After Generation
Blog written by Kristen Hicks
I work two jobs. One of them is that I work as a discipleship pastor for Christian Campus Fellowship at UWG. It has been quite a challenge learning how to not only disciple, and what in the world that looks like but to also lead others in how to disciple. It has really been quite a trial and error, to say the least.
There has been such a beauty in the process though. Not just in the fruit I’ve seen grow in the sweet souls of college students, but in my own understanding of knowing the Father. Over and over again throughout Scripture, He is known as the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Generations. Promises passed down. The entire Bible is full of promises passed all the way to us, and to the generation after us, and to the generation after them. Not only promises, but wisdom, guidance, and knowledge. These things aren’t just good advice, they are the essence of the abundant life that Christ promised. They are pillars of holiness, the sustaining freedom, the all-encompassing love.
The longer I have been in this job the more my definition of discipleship has changed. It no longer looks like a bunch of people sitting around a table at a coffee shop, spending an hour talking about the ups and downs of trying to have a quiet time. Now, more than ever, I am convinced that discipleship is simply doing intentional life with someone.
The way that I see it from my end, is these amazing men and women of God I get to work with, need older men and women of God to teach them about cooking, changing the oil in their car, cleaning, wrapping presents, doing budgets, dating, marriage, parenting, work ethic, all of the everyday, gloriously mundane life stuff. They need a generation to teach them how to take care of the one very precious life God has given them.
What has moved in my heart is the way it moves God’s heart for one generation to teach and lead the next. I am just as guilty as the next person to want to see something happen in someone quick and fast, so I can move on to something different. But the Father has been teaching me that there is such a beauty in the process. Not just process but slow process. When I slow down and take time to actually run errands with a student, cook dinner with them, or whatever I can think of to invite them along to do, I realize that this is the joy the Father has with us when He is teaching us about how to appreciate something, how to be thankful for it, how to allow things to mark us and change us forever. How to see God in everything. How to believe and ask Him for something that you know you will never see come to fruition in this lifetime. This makes Him bigger than we thought. To trust Him beyond what you will ever see. To allow Him to have your whole heart, and your whole life.
The other job I get to do is, I help my Dad with some of his social media posts. Mostly pertaining to quotes, random questions, and events on our website.
Yesterday, I asked a question on Facebook that seemed to stir a little bit of tension, as if I were asking it to pull out all the negativity happening in the next generation. The question was, “What challenges do you think the next generation will face?” Plan and simple.
The question wasn’t asked to become a platform to bash the next generation. I asked the question because I wanted other perspectives to see what to speak into the hungry hearts of a generation that is actually dying to be led. They are so hungry to be seen and heard yes, but could it be because they feel lost and abandoned and expected to figure it out on their own?
So here is my challenge, for every challenge that you think the next generation will face, pick one student (college, high school, middle, elementary, they’re all gonna grow up one day) and decide to intentionally do life with them. Invite them into your home. Speak into the very challenges you see them facing. Lead them, teach them, be for them what someone was for you. Allow compassion to move you, the promises of God to overflow from within you, and all the wisdom of His Word to guide you. Then invite them to do the same with someone else. It isn’t about fixing a broken generation it’s about stewarding them.
“Generation after generation stands in awe of Your work; each one tells stories of your mighty acts.”
-Psalm 145:4