Leonard Sweet is glad to tell people “what makes him tick” –
that he is crazy in love with Jesus.
“And I think its your job and mine to help a whole
new generation to say the same thing,” Sweet reminded a group of preschool
and childrens workers at a recent Southern Baptist conference.
Leonard Sweet is glad to tell people “what makes him tick” –
that he is crazy in love with Jesus.
“And I think its your job and mine to help a whole
new generation to say the same thing,” Sweet reminded a group of preschool
and childrens workers at a recent Southern Baptist conference.
The task will not be easy, noted Sweet, an author and E. Stanley
Jones professor at Drew University in New York.
Indeed, Sweet compared the challenge of adults born prior to
1962 sharing Christ with people born after that year to immigrants trying to
communicate with natives.
People born after 1962 are”A.C.” (after computers
and natives to todays culture, Sweet explained. Those born before 1962
are “B.C.” (before computers) and represent immigrants, he said.
“Its time we went native,” Sweet emphasized.
“How can we reach them without imposing our immigrant ways?”
Emphasizing the content of the gospel must remain the same,
he challenged ministers to step outside traditional thinking to consider new
containers for the message.
Sweet outlined a four-step transformation process to enable
the B.C. generation to communicate with A.C. natives.
First, older adults must move beyond rational thinking about
faith to focus on a relationship with Christ, Sweet counseled.
“Immigrants have made Christianity a set of principles.
(But) The essence of the Christian life is introducing people to a relationship.
This culture is not looking for something to believe in. Their hunger is for
the experience of a relationship with God.”
The second step requires older adults to move from a performance-based
mode of thinking and doing to a participatory, interactive model, Sweet related.
Media outlets that understand this process are incorporating
call-in segments and Internet dialogue into news programming, he noted. “Ministry
in the 21st century is more like ministry in the first century than ministry
in the 20th century,” he said.
Third, older adults must remember that natives respond more
to images than words, Sweet explained.
“How exciting to present Jesus, who is the image of God,
to an image-based culture. These natives live and die by image. We must give
them the right image through which to prepare for eternity.”
Finally, older adults must move from an individual to a connective
approach to reach younger generations, Sweet maintained.
“The essence of connectivity is, I cant be
me without we,” he said.
A former college president, Sweet said he experienced a major
turnaround in 1987 when he moved from being a learned academic talking to other
academics to become a learner. “Stop being learned people and become learners
together,” he urged.
Sweet cited three changes in civilization for younger generations
that set them apart and create challenges for older adults in bridging the communications
gap.
For one thing, today, “one person can have the power that
one government or general could have in the past,” Sweet noted. “The
power of one has never been greater.
“How can you not believe me after 9/11? Osama bin Laden
understood this almost before anyone,” he said.
Also, with the Internet, “we now have generations who
do not need authority figures to access information,” Sweet said.
“(However) I could argue these generations, more than
ever, need authority figures to process and assess information.”
Finally, adults need to understand and accept that todays
younger generations are authority figures in some areas, Sweet reminded persons.
He cited computer technology as one example. “Our kids
have the skills and some of the savvy we are going to need to survive in the
future,” Sweet said.
“We have a whole new generation with a whole different learning style,
and it is time for us to change our teaching methods to fit their learning style,”
he concluded. (BP)