The church has left the building
as a youth pastor the last eight years
at some of the largest churches in
america
i’ve learned some key lessons in
connecting with and leading
gen z students and not to sound arrogant
but i know some things for instance i
know that teenage girls fall in love
about
five times a semester i also know that
for junior hires
fortnite is not just a video game it’s a
lifestyle
i also know that the social media app
tick tock is the universal language for
students
everywhere however one thing i didn’t
know was
how to lead young people through a
pandemic
the covet 19 crisis took the modern
world to a space that
we had never been not only did it shut
down businesses
close schools and demand that people
stay inside their homes
but it also forced churches temples and
synagogues all over the country
to close their doors on their members
the sacred spaces where millions
gathered each week to
pray worship learn teachings
were suddenly no longer available to
them
so during the first global pandemic of
the 21st century
one that instilled fear and panic into
an entire nation
people in the faith community were
seemingly left with no place to go to
find hope
the church had essentially left the
building
however as a result of this mass exodus
of physical congregants a new wave of
creativity and connection was
ushered into the evangelical church
through the utilization of
live stream technology an enhanced focus
on social media
and with more pastors preaching
ted-style sermons
the reach of the local church spread far
beyond its four walls
and instead became a global community
and
while some churches struggled to adapt
to the new normal of
online only services a research study
done by the barna group found that 44
of churches that went fully online as a
result of covid
saw a significant increase in attendance
and with no large gatherings to prepare
for many churches focused even more on
providing much needed essentials for
their communities
whether by converting buildings into
food banks
or by providing much needed counseling
to the drastic influx of people who are
struggling with
depression addiction and abuse the
church readily responded
with hundreds of students from my youth
ministry stuck at home during quarantine
i needed to find a creative way to
create engagement
and community so i launched a virtual
youth conference
on instagram called wait for it
quarantine con we brought in
musical artists movie producers and
speakers from all over the country
and it was a massive success over two
thousand people
from eight different states and five
different countries
all logged in it was as if the crisis
had forced us to reach a new level of
creativity
and we had finally found our footing in
the midst of the chaos
however coven 19 was just part of the
story of 2020
because america was about to face the
darker side of its proud history
and the church would be needed to shine
brighter than ever before
during memorial day weekend 2020
the video that shook the world was
released
a white minnesota police officer was
recorded killing an unarmed black man
who was already lying face down and in
handcuffs
the outrage was unparalleled and started
a global response of
protests and reactions from all over the
world
as a black youth pastor who leads at a
predominantly white church
i felt a strong sense of responsibility
to utilize my voice and platform
to bring awareness and change so when
our church was able to safely regather
the first message i shared was on how
christians should respond
to racial injustice i played the
horrifying video of the murder of george
floyd to my students and
i challenged them to not just see a
stranger or random black man lying in
the pavement
but to see me to see a husband
to see a father to see a community
leader
because the truth is every time i see
another black man killed by a police
officer
i see myself i shared my story with them
and explained how racial injustice is a
sad reality that i had personally
experienced multiple times
even within the church
i shared that the reason i needed them
to envision me
lying in that pavement being slowly
suffocated by
someone sworn to protect me is because
you will not
show a passion for those you have no
compassion for
and then something happened that i’ll
never forget
i give everyone a moment to just pray
and self-reflect
and during that time a young white woman
came up to me she was shaking
uncontrollably with
tears filling her eyes she said
justin all my life i’ve been raised in a
very conservative family and we totally
support the police
but i never knew what it was like to be
you
i’m so sorry for everything you’ve been
through
i’m so sorry for everything she then
hugged me while sobbing for
several minutes and it was in that
moment that
my faith in humanity and the church was
renewed
because i realized that even in the
midst of chaos the church could still
bring hope
even in the midst of outrage the church
could still show love
and even with millions suffering from
unjust systems
and practices the church could still
fight for justice
covet 19 proved that people in a healthy
community will always find ways to grow
regardless of the environmental
restrictions
and the racial justice movement gave the
church an opportunity to not just
talk about jesus but to walk like him
how ironic is it that through a global
pandemic and
racial justice movement the church would
discover a deeper understanding of the
message that
jesus christ had communicated over and
over again in his teachings
that the church was never designed to be
a religious organization
but rather a relational organism
because even when people can no longer
come to church they can then
become the church because the church has
left
the building
you