- April 9th, 2021, 10:33 am
#624666
I honestly have no opinion on Jonathan as a speaker. I haven't listened to him in probably a decade. I know as a pastor, I've heard nothing but good things about him.
The pendulum in church is always swinging. In the early/mid 2000s we started the swing to a "cool church" model (ie stage designs, flashy lights, 'relevant' teaching, etc). That peaked around 2012/2013 and you've seen a move back towards a more stripped down, "honest" approach. Things can still be done well, but if it's too produced or too slick, the younger generations are checking out. They've seen too many flashy church leaders revealed as frauds that they don't trust that style.
All that said - I think one of the absolute worst things we could do is implement a church requirement. Our students already have convo, prayer groups, and mandatory theology classes. To add yet another spiritual requirement would result in more negative than positive.
Our students need a safe place to explore their faith. Liberty should be the place they're encouraged to ask every question they have about Christianity to truly work out their faith. That can't happen when you're requiring kids to go to church on Sunday, especially in light of all the other things they already have to do.
stokesjokes wrote: ↑April 9th, 2021, 10:12 am Yeah, let us young folks handle this oneI added a couple words there.
There’s two things I think zoomers crave from a speaker:
1. Authenticity
2. Depth
Jonathan’s style is borne out of an older generation. It’s smooth and rehearsed. You can even hear it in his cadence when he’s preaching. For the younger folks, this can come across as inauthentic (please hear me, I’m not saying it is inauthentic).
On the 2nd point, it’s hard to say. I know there’s a sense in which when you’re preaching to a room of a few thousand, you have to go lowest common denominator to make sure no one’s left out, so grain of salt on this, but I’ve never been particularly challenged by Jonathan’s sermons nor have I found them to be particularly theologically rich. That’s something a room full of zoomers , especially college students at a Christian college, are going to crave.
I honestly have no opinion on Jonathan as a speaker. I haven't listened to him in probably a decade. I know as a pastor, I've heard nothing but good things about him.
The pendulum in church is always swinging. In the early/mid 2000s we started the swing to a "cool church" model (ie stage designs, flashy lights, 'relevant' teaching, etc). That peaked around 2012/2013 and you've seen a move back towards a more stripped down, "honest" approach. Things can still be done well, but if it's too produced or too slick, the younger generations are checking out. They've seen too many flashy church leaders revealed as frauds that they don't trust that style.
All that said - I think one of the absolute worst things we could do is implement a church requirement. Our students already have convo, prayer groups, and mandatory theology classes. To add yet another spiritual requirement would result in more negative than positive.
Our students need a safe place to explore their faith. Liberty should be the place they're encouraged to ask every question they have about Christianity to truly work out their faith. That can't happen when you're requiring kids to go to church on Sunday, especially in light of all the other things they already have to do.
stokesjokes liked this