This is the last part of a two part discussion on age relations in the church.  The first part was Elder Not Old.

If young people continue the way they are we are all going to end up like Icarus, our potential melting away as we crash land and smash our lives to pieces.  In Elder Not Old I examined how older folks need to step up and become elders, and not just fade away in grumbling and apathy.  The same needs to happen for the young folks who are part of many congregations: after college they are going to church because they want to be there, and not because of any societal or cultural obligations, which do not exist anymore. 

It is crucial for the young folks in the church today to stay young, to change, to move with the Spirit, but all to often that is interpreted as being the perpetual follower.  Follow the new leader from sermon to sermon, follow the new praise songs from service to service, follow the new programs from day to day, follow the cool people from church to church.  I have not seen a lot of old folks church-hopping, but I see middle-aged persons on down doing it consistently within Protestant circles. 

Movement needs to stop being about from place to place but from apprentice to disciple.  The making of a disciple is achieved through its word-cousin, discipline.  Change can only advance the kingdom of God when it is grounded in a community bound together in discipline.  Youth and vitality means that we can burn a lot of energy trying to make something happen really fast, but what pays dividends for the kingdom is not viral marketing or making Youtube sermons but making disciples, and this takes time, pacience, and discipline.

Discipline in this context is spiritual discipline.  This is not the hollow ring of "devotions" or "quiet time" which are so vague and unfulfilling no one seems to do them, which is why most people spend time praying earnestly to do them more often.  Discipline needs to be grounded in something community forming, which means being part of something bigger than individual Scripture reading.

Youth is the greatest asset to disciple-making, because in it is the desire for positive change with lasting results.  Disciple-making should harness this asset and move it toward the development of young leaders for the church, not young followers.  The purpose of a disciple is so he in turn can make disciples, yet what often happens is that un-discipled young folks are not brought into an earnest and fertile environment of discipline, so they just float around from church to church and small group to small group until one day they give up their spiritual orbit and settle into mediocrity.  There are far too many cases of a spiritual mid-life crisis!

Discipleship breaks the orbit and centers a young person.  This does not mean that they should just hole up in the church they are in and spend the rest of their life there---but young persons do need to look at the bigger picture and start serving instead of floating the winds of "Christian" culture and marketing.

Part of becoming a disciple is realiving that we cannot fix everything and sometimes "doing church" just plain sucks.  We need to live with a kingdom that is still "coming" and not already here.  The Church has issues, every local church has politics and issues. We need to deal with them in patience, discipline, and grace.