I was reading a post over at Arjay’s Weblog (if you had trackback, I would have trackbacked) about a letter he wrote to a pastor of an emerging church that is on the rise. One particular paragraph in this post really got my attention when the author talked about the ‘worship wars’ and stated this statement:
…and I believe it’s a cleverly planned strategy of the enemy, is to separate older, seasoned saints with a breadth of knowledge in life and Christianity from younger, inexperienced people who have not yet found their way in this world or in the Kingdom of God. The way most cultures transmit their beliefs is from the older to the younger. Instead, what we have in so many churches today… and other hip gathering places are legions of young people who seem to feel they need to completely reinvent the wheel that is Christianity, and this is not surprising. If we turned the elementary schools over to the students and let them re-invent or re-paint the portrait which is basic education, confusion would undoubtedly reign. Children are rebellious from their infancy and without guidance from mature adults, all manner of evil enters into that child’s life, not the least being massive confusion and misdirection. The postmodern church movement seems to be allowing the lunatics to first reinvent and ultimately run the asylum.
To this I say ‘amen. Even though it appears that this author was specifically dealing with the topic of worship, I believe that this mentality is also transcending into other areas within the church spectrum and especially into the realm of eldership.
I do not know who was the preacher that ever convinced the church about the ‘Joshua Generation’ but that mentality has influenced many a congregation to turn away from the patience, perserverance, pentecost, and power and trade it in for pride, purpose, politicians, pop-culture prophets, and pragmatism.
This Joshua Generation teaching has been used by many a full-gospel, charismatic, and pentecostal fellowship to justify a ‘out with the old, in with the new’ mentality at the expense of correct biblical teaching. From worship, to embracing a ‘new move’ (that years later was wrong or caused more hurt than helps), to changing the name of the church to ‘worship center and ’sunday service’ to ‘celebration time’, this mentality has been practiced over and over again and justified when the members, manpower, and money rolled in and the disciples, doctrine, and discernment was buried and eulogized for minutes later to implement Joshua’s ways.
I need to remind the ‘JoShUa X-TrEme GeNeRaTiOn’ something here:
- When the past generation was in their prime of life, they were proclaimed to be ‘the Joshua generation’ and the past generation’s grandparents was ‘the Moses generation’. If this was the case and to view this in logistical senses, then at what time in the journey of life did the name of the ‘Joshua’ generation have it’s spiritual name changed to Moses?
- If you look at the Scriptures, Moses was named Moses from his birth to his death and Joshua was named Joshua from his birth until his death. But based on this Joshua generation teaching, there would have to be a changing of the name of the generation at some point in the life journey from the Joshua Generation to the Moses Generation when the new generation grew up and was ready to ’stake their claim’. Who determines when that name change takes place? The good news is that the name never changes.
Therefore, there is no such thing as a Moses / Joshua Generation. Just young and zealoused people ready to rule and old and experienced people who fear what will happen when ‘JoShUa X-TrEmE’ takes over and eventually, it happens.
There definitely is a war against us old folks in the church. This absolutely is cyclic as both you and Arjay have pointed out. The Baby Boomers did it to their parents (remember “Don’t trust anyone over 30?”), and now their chidlren are doing it to them. And, what this current generation sows, just like the Boomers, it will reap from their children.
Great article. I’m glad someone is noticing the generational gap.
One thought though is that what was notable about the “Joshua Generation” in the Bible is that they didn’t raise up successors. As much as this “emergent church” movement is at fault in wanting to ditch the wisdom of their predecessors, I feel that in some ways that the older folks bear responsibility for not adequately raising up leaders.
I don’t think its so easy to reduce the current generational gap as just simple rebellion. I’ve heard it said that this current younger generation is a “fatherless” generation. I believe this is true not just in the natural, but in the spiritual sense. I know for myself as well as many of my peers…though it seems like rebellion, we long for spiritual fathers (and mothers) that are willing to mentor us in the midst of our immaturity.
An interesting theory I heard was that this move has been an outgrowth of the “compartmentalization” of ministry in the last 50 years or so. We have our youth ministry, high school, junior high, college, post-grad, young adult, young married, young singles…so many “individualized” ministries. Is it a surprise that when these folks grow older that they only think about themselves? :)
I definitely agree though, until we see Malachi 4:6
, its going to be the same mistakes…just in a different form.
I can’t say I’ve ever heard the scriptures being used in quite this way, to justify the “Joshua generation” stuff. Hmmh. I must have lived a very sheltered life. Or maybe what was going on came under different terminology.
But there is a great place for older xtians, who are now retired, who are well-off enough to afford it: they can pay for their way on short-term missions trips. But if you got no dough, then you no go (but you’re welcome to bake cookies instead).