Over the past days, I have received mails around how can the teens Church be grown numerically in times like this amidst other related questions and I will be answering using a strategy that I have tried over and over.
A teenager listened to me in a birthday party some years back and told me – sir I would have left my Church to attend yours if you have a Church. I was surprised and asked why? She said, it’s been long I heard someone speak with so much passion and content. In order words, she was saying she lacked that in her Church.
The teens Church is a place where you deal with life intentionally to achieve an objective at a younger phase and these teenagers know a lot of things especially if you have life or not. This statement is very crucial to this article because if you don’t have life how do you give?
Jesus also used this strategy I am about to share with you to get answers and wild spread growth within a short period of his public expression.
The strategy is MMM which deals with everything about you and the way you respond to this would determine the growth you get.
The first M is your Mentality. You can’t grow bigger than your mindset. I have been in some Gen Z churches that you would know that; where they were was a function of, they were doing things anyhow. The mindset they were operating was a mindset of continuity – lets continue to do things as they are hoping to get to a destination tomorrow,. It doesn’t happen that way.
If you are praying for growth, you must also have the mindset of growth – as a man thinketh in his heart so is he is not just for scriptural allusion, it should be a reality both subconsciously and consciously. You must have the mentality of growth – where you see growth and work towards the seen. The mentality to manage a 50 member congregation is different from that of leading 100 likewise 200 and other number groups. You must have a positive growth mentality or else you would continue to crawl as a Church.
You must also have the mentality of management. Management of human, material, tangible, intangible and other resources is an essential mentality a leader who is passionate of growth. You can’t grow if you can’t manage well the resources at your disposal because what you don’t have is never the issue but what you do with what you have. Management is the first responsibility God gave man in the garden and anyone that can’t manage well the resources at their disposal might never matter in the hall of greatness.
Another mentality needed for growth is that of personal development. Growth is development and before there could be public development, there must be a personal development. You can’t desire growth and not crave for personal development. Growth is development and for you to have personal growth, you must have personal development – desire for knowledge, desire for capacity development, pursuit of secrets that makes Churches grow and many others.
You must not joke with your mentality because you are a product of your mentality and not your locality.
The second M of the MMM strategy is your Message. Why will people listen to you when you don’t have anything to say? Why should people come and listen to you? When people come to your Church, what should they be expecting? You must never sublet your primary duty of preaching the message of hope to another.
Your message connects you to the age you ought to be speaking to. Your message shows how deep your walk with God is, your message is a reflection of your study life, your message is a reflection how much templates you have for the generation you lead are.
Your message must be one that connects people to God and one that is relevant to the people.
The last M of the MMM strategy is Money. Anyone that says ministry doesn’t need money for this period deceives not only himself or herself but also those they lead. The Gen Z Church needs money even the scripture says money answereth all things. The present day demands monetary allocations into the teens Church. There must be a budget that the Church runs with. Let me just say this – in this times anointing without money would eventually lead to annoyance. Enough said!!!!
Jesus used this model – His mentality was far above – his message was generational, trans-generational and heavenly and he had money to move about.
Don’t kill those children because you lack the basics to raise wholesome teenagers – it’s better to close the Teens church than it becoming a place where children are raised to hate Christ.
Tope Adebayo (The Clarity Coach) is the President of Teens Affairs Int’l – an organization that helps teenagers and enabling systems round teenagers get better.
