Intuitively church folks know that their churches must empower younger leaders. Simply stated, if a church fails to engage new generations, the church will eventually die. Yet while people know a church must empower younger leaders, some churches struggle to do so. They struggle to hand significant responsibility to younger leaders, to empower younger leaders to launch new initiatives, and to joyfully allow themselves to be led by a new generation. In churches that struggle to empower younger leaders, these three cultural realities exist:
3 Reasons Churches Struggle to Empower Younger Leaders
1. The familiar trumps the unknown.
To empower younger leaders may mean that things will look and feel different. Younger leaders may make different decisions and approach things differently. So empowering younger leaders introduces some unknown variables, and in churches that struggle to empower younger leaders, the unknown is too risky. What if we don’t like it? So the familiar, even if it is a familiar that fails to engage new leaders, is preferred.
