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Lead like Jesus offers ideas to keep next generation

News  |  February 13, 2006

The Lead Like Jesus Celebration coming to Richmond on Friday, Feb. 3 at St. Paul’s Baptist Church, will bring together a diverse, challenging and motivating group of speakers.

Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager and co-founder of Lead Like Jesus, will share host responsibilities with Reggie McNeal, director of leadership development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. McNeal has written a number of challenging books. The most recent, The Present Future, reflects on the generational changes that the church must embrace if it is going “to hang on to the spiritual interests of the Gen Xers and the millennials.” These groups “don’t see themselves as church people” and so much of what happens in the local church is “church stuff for church people.” McNeal says this has enormous implications for worship, discipleship and fellowship.

“We’re going to have to do this thing exactly 180 degrees [opposite] from what we’ve done in the past, when we all worshiped in the big room and went off to our cells,” McNeal says. “In the new world we’re going to have much more targeted worship and we’re going to go be together for spiritual formation.”

This will also have an effect on evangelism. Since most postmoderns begin their thoughts with a connection to God, McNeal says churches will have to approach them much differently. Changing the culture of individual churches will take numerous conversations and missional studies. “If we keep asking the same questions, then we’re going to keep getting the same answers,” McNeal says. “I’m hoping to help them re-language the problem so we can get some different solutions. The only way you can do that is to change the conversation.”

Another speaker, Spencer Tillman, would agree because his life took a 180-degree turn in one day during a 26-mile walk. Several months following the death of his mother, Spencer began to sense God speaking to him. He realized that the more successful he became, the less he relied on God, to the point where he realized, he was pretty much relying on himself. Tillman said, “My number one source of wisdom and guidance was still myself.” He related his life to the story of Mary and Joseph when they left Jesus behind at the temple when he was a young boy. Tillman wondered where he had left Jesus behind and asked, “How will I find him again?”

During his 26-mile walk, Tillman encountered a train engineer and engaged him in conversation about the train. “Everything the engineer told me,” Tillman says, “had a spiritual parallel.” God was making one thing abundantly clear—he was calling Tillman to be a leader but it was not for him alone. He was to share it with family, peers and the world at large. He feels a special burden for other African-Americans. He feels a duty to be an example to those who would follow him, to make the most of all he has been given.

These two men from diverse backgrounds—one a denominational leader, the other a CBS sportscaster by way of an NFL career—will join a host of other nationally known speakers at St. Paul’s Baptist Church, 4247 Creighton Rd. in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 3 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. The $65 ticket price includes the Lead Like Jesus Celebration, the Friday evening worship service and a day of specialized training on Saturday, Feb. 4, all at St. Paul’s. It also includes all materials, breaks and meals.

Visit www.21-c.org or www.leadlikejesus.com for additional information or to purchase tickets. You may also call 1-800-255-2428.

Special to the Herald