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#146 Special Report with David Thomas (The Great Opportunity Unveiled) · The OneCry Podcast

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  Any Christian leader who is not paying tremendous focus to Gen Z just has their
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  head stuck in the sand. They're simply not paying attention.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Music.
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  Well, hello again. This is the OneCry podcast. So grateful that I get to share
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  with you and you get to share with us some valuable content as it relates to even why OneCry exists,
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  a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  And we long just to let God use this little ministry here in Southwest Michigan
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  to inspire you and others to seek the Lord for revival, to resource you as you do.
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  And as you unite with others, mobilize your heart, your passion,
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  your calling maybe, and others in your community towards another outpouring
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  of God's spirit, even to the extent that we'd see another great awakening.
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  And so I thought it would be really helpful to all of us today if we were to
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  have another discussion with David Thomas,
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  who is the director of New Room, a ministry that really believes God wants to
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  do something new today and to make room for him to do it.
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  I can't imagine a title that has more significance, David, than what that does.
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  Thank you so much for being with us again on the podcast today.
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  Great to be back with you, Byron. Thank you so much for what you're doing with
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  OneCry. We love and appreciate you and your work.
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  Well, we love the partnership, and I'm excited about how God's going to use
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  that in the future. But also, in a sense, we're partnering with every listener out there today.
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  Because you listeners, you're intercessors, but you're also catalysts because
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  you're a voice that raised the hope today in the hearts of millions,
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  really, really, that need to know God is on his throne.
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  And as a founder of the ministry I was associated with for almost four and a
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  half decades, he would say, as long as God is on his throne,
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  revival is as possible as the sun rising tomorrow morning.
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  I love it because nothing is too difficult for our God.
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  But I want to zero in today on a topic that I think is burning,
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  I know, in my heart and many of yours, what is God doing with Gen Z today?
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  We hear these campus stirrings and there are some, I think, and David,
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  I want you to talk about this.
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  Because you're so connected to the Gen Z there at Asbury University and elsewhere,
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  I just want us to, what is it about the Gen Z today that's causing them maybe
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  to be more responsive than even my generation and some subsequent ones,
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  and maybe a little bit a taste of what's going on in some of these campuses.
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  So let's talk Gen Z and let's talk about stirrings and maybe the hope that's
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  in your heart for that generation.
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  Yeah, thank you, Byron. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing some focus to this. We need to.
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  You probably have heard of this piece of research called The Great Opportunity.
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  It's a study put out by the Pine Tops Foundation.
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  You can Google those words, The Great Opportunity. You'll get the free PDF download.
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  The best piece of research on the American church I've ever read.
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  Three and a half year project, took a year to write it up. It's outstanding.
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  Lots of conclusions drawn from this.
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  But the big takeaway, the big net conclusion, the study went out to 2050,
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  50, kind of the arc of a generation.
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  They said, if we stay on trend, unless the Lord returns or there is an awakening,
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  if we stay on trend, we will lose about a million millennials,
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  Gen Z, Gen Alpha every year for that period up till 2050.
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  A total of about 40 to 42 million
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  young people people who today would have any kind
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  of cursory nominal association with
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  christian will at over that
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  span of time will no longer say that they will just completely check
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  out we may not feel that for another 8 to
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  12 years but it won't be long before our youth groups our christian colleges
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  universities these are things that are just going to start to dry up it'll start
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  to look more like the spiritual sahara of the continent of europe where there's
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  just such so little but they said That if we could slow the rate of decay from now,
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  from where it is today, back to the decline we were experiencing with Gen X
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  back in the late 90s, if we could just not have an awakening,
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  but if we could just bleed more slowly, hemorrhage less,
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  that we would retain...
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  20 of that 40 million, 20 million who would still be in the Christian movement.
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  And that 20 million is more than all who came to faith in the first great awakening,
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  the second great awakening, everything that came out of the Azusa street revival
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  and every Billy Graham crusade combined.
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  That's why they call it the great opportunity.
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  That's our cultural moment, Byron. We are in the make or break moment, Gen Z.
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  That's why it's just any Christian leader who is not paying tremendous focus
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  to Gen Z just has their head stuck in the sand. They're simply not paying attention.
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  If anyone is within any kind of a drive to any college campus,
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  a little community college, trade school, anything, we need to be prayer walking that campus.
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  We need to be moving in any way we can in a step of faith for this generation.
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  This is just the moment that we're living in. And Jesus has signaled to us in
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  the Asbury outpouring and everything since that he is hearing us and he wants
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  to rescue this generation. He does.
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  This is what we've, this is a big takeaway from the outpouring.
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  And we're so, we're so grateful for the encouragement we have,
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  you know, we have had, We were hopeful from revival history and from reading scripture.
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  We've been hopeful for a new work of God's grace.
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  But now we have a concrete hope because
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  we have laid eyes on an historic outpouring of the presence of God.
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  And it was led by and it was oriented to God.
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  Gen Z. It's not, it's no mistake that it happened on a college campus.
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  And then we've been watching these movements on so many large secular campuses
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  where students are responding to the call to repentance, the call to new life in Jesus.
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  And, you know, the way I see it is there have been, there have been people who
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  have prayed in closets and at altars for years and years and years.
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  And I believe we are really seeing some of the fruit of that praying.
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  Everything that happened in Hughes Auditorium in February 23 was the fruit of prayer.
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  And that's the way Jesus responds to prayer. I have never been so motivated to pray.
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  And so, David, I know in Asbury, it's unique in this sense.
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  It has a history of movements and outpourings.
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  And certainly that gives, to remember him and his ways, there was some backdrop for that.
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  But do you feel like, because I'm sensing this, that what happened at Asbury
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  this time is not just for Asbury's future benefit,
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  but as you alluded to, campus after campus after campus right now,
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  they're looking at Asbury perhaps and saying, what can we learn?
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  And the simple thing they're learning is, let's get together and pray.
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  Let's get together and worship. Let's get together and seek the Lord.
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  So you know the names of some of the campuses that I know were since Asbury in the last year.
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  There has been gatherings, and I know you've had a conversation recently with
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  one of the leaders that keeps being used of God at these gatherings.
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  So what is it that you sense is happening, I guess, at Auburn?
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  Was it Florida State University maybe and Alabama and Georgia and elsewhere?
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  Talk to us specifically about those. and what is your descript on those?
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  I believe Byron is,
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  There is something unique about Gen Z, and that's not to in any way neglect
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  the millennials or the boomers or anybody.
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  It's not like, oh, well, we're done with them. We're just going to give it all
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  and focus on this one generation. No, it's not that at all.
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  But I do think, you know, this is the first generation to come of age on a smartphone.
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  Phone, if you have survived that and COVID in high school, and then if you've
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  grown up with a little 24-7 porn store in your pocket,
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  if you've grown up feeling plugged in 24-7 to a little shame factory all your
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  life, reminding you growing up who you were not and what you didn't have and
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  who you weren't with and what you weren't doing, and you're still,
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  after all of that, still chasing Jesus.
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  There is something different about young Christians today.
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  They have a courage and a clarity. I don't think I had at 20.
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  I listened to them. Like I tend to listen to the Old Testament prophets.
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  They have a piercing word for us to hear.
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  And they are also just initiating. They are catalytic.
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  You're right about all these fellowships and moves. This is student initiative.
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  We're watching. They see these years as more than just years of preparation.
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  These are years of origination, which is only true of awakening history.
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  First Great Awakening, you know, the great paragon of prayer in the First Great
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  Awakening was David Brainerd, college student.
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  You know, Jonathan Edwards published so much.
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  The only thing that's never gone out of print of all that he ever published
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  is that his editing of the diary of David Brainerd, this college student who
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  he believed prayed in the way that would really lead.
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  You know, the Methodist thing, the whole, the Methodist revival was birthed on the campus of Oxford.
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  The student volunteer movement all rolled out of the second grade of making.
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  This was the big, huge surge of missionary advance. We can go on and on.
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  The young have always played such a, the Jesus movement today,
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  has played such a crucial role.
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  And I believe that we may be seeing that kind of rising, kind of surging move.
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  We pray that's the case. We believe that it could be, that this is a time when
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  we're seeing a new caliber, a new vanguard of leadership emerging among the young.
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  And I just think, you know, we just want to do anything we can.
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  I don't want to make any move except beside and behind an emerging leader.
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  We just want to, our generation, Byron, I just want to be shade over their boldness,
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  care for their soul, encourage them to go ahead and follow Jesus' calling on their life.
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  Well, and it feels like to me, the
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  Gen Z is really open, maybe longing for mentorship from older generation.
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  When I was their age, I wasn't looking to older fathers or older anybody to coach me.
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  But it seems like there's an interest
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  in really partnering with an older believer and learning from them.
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  In addition, we hear about authenticity with that generation.
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  So how do you analyze that?
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  Yeah, I think, you know, the final prophecy of the Old Testament was the call
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  in Malachi 4 for generations to turn to one another.
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  And that multi-generational community is something I do believe that God is
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  looking for and loves to indwell.
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  And I often organize it around emerging middles and elders that,
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  yes, these emerging adults, they have potential. They are carrying it.
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  But then the middles, they have settled their vocation.
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  Many of them have settled whether they're single or married.
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  They know where they're living, what they're doing. And yet they're still learning and growing.
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  They're starting to step into leadership, but they still are wanting to grow
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  and learn from those who've gone before them.
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  And then you have elders who have had the kind of the big stretch of their experience,
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  and they're just eager to give it away. way.
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  And as elders can invest in the middles and the middles can receive it,
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  but then give it to the young and in those generations turn toward one another.
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  I think we are seeing a kind of community, you know, denominationalism to a great extent.
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  Is just about over. Emerging adults, they're just done with that.
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  All the trophies and metrics and all the structures and things,
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  they just say, if it's not real, I'm out.
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  So to think of denominations covering and supporting the initiative of the young
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  is not something I think the young are really that receptive to.
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  But the care of middles and elders, supporters, support, just saying, I got your back.
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  Go ahead and give it a shot. If you mess up, I probably made the same mistake.
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  I'll come by. We'll help you get back on your feet, that kind of thing.
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  That sort of posture is the one that I believe is altogether is what God is
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  going to be using more and more for the advance of His church.
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  So yeah, I do think that we're trying to think through the generational dynamics
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  in new ways rather than them being generation gaps,
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  generational divides, I think we're really longing to find one another again
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  and actually come back into relationship in ways that are healthy and life-giving
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  and supportive over time.
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  You know, I was a little surprised we were together there in Waco,
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  Texas, but at least three of the larger local churches there,
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  I mean, they'll have up to a thousand students from Baylor University attending
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  on Sunday morning in their worship services.
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  I'm here nearby Notre Dame, and I was blown away when I went to a new members
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  class and discovered there were 10 or 15 Notre Dame students as freshmen attending a new member.
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  I can't remember a season when that, yeah, freshmen in college,
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  they're looking for a local church to connect to and relate to.
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  So I don't know. I just find that very intriguing, interesting, and encouraging.
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  It's very encouraging. And we just want to look for every way to support their initiative.
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  One thing that I think Asbury taught us is it doesn't have to be polished. It can be clunky.
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  It's okay. Just let them give it a shot.
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  Let them bump around and and kingdom work, and get their legs under them,
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  and then just step back and let them go.
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  And I think if we're able to just begin to open up that way and invite them
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  in, not just observe and prepare, but not go, you go do it. You just try. You go ahead.
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  And let them, that we're going to see, I think we'll see the blessing of God on that.
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  And the young respond to that. And I think we all need each other.
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  So that's beautiful what you're seeing there locally, Byron,
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  there near Notre Dame. That's amazing.
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  So in closing this podcast, David, I wonder if you would just pray for the pastors,
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  others out there who are really longing to have an impact on Gen Z.
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  But more than that, as you shared, that they are willing to be impacted by Gen Z.
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  And let's just pray that God will give us the heart of receptivity and the eagerness
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  to learn and just be available to him. Let's bow our hearts.
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  Yes, Father God, we know how you love your family.
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  And you, like any father, loves to see his children and all the generations relating well.
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  I know that you long for that in yours.
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  And we thank you, Lord, for the ways in which you are causing reconciling love
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  to flourish and to flow among the emerging,
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  the middle, and the elder in our day. We pray, Lord, for that to increase.
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  And I do come with Byron in agreement, Lord, that you would help us to just really open up.
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  The truth of it is we need the passion and zeal and idealism of the young to
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  goad us and to provoke us and to stir us, Lord, to answer their hard questions,
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  to dignify their uncertainties and to live with them and listen to them.
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  That will grow us and keep us fresh.
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  And we thank you, Lord, that they too seem open to learning and living in the
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  experiences of those that have gone ahead of them. And we bless that too.
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  So Lord, we want to repent of the ways in which we have sequestered each other
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  and split our churches into age levels and age groups and just sort of divided
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  and moved and separated.
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  Lord, we pray that you would teach us this new wineskin of how we can, together,
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  we can really cultivate a culture
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  of openness to the fullness of your love across all the lines of age.
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  We believe you're doing that in our day. We ask you to cause it to increase
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  in us. In Jesus' name, amen.
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  Amen. And thank you so much again, David. Pleasure.
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  It's a joy to just partner together in all that God is doing.
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  And as you, OneCry family, as you're out there and you're going forward and
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  you want us to just pray for you, OneCry has an intercessory team.
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  Just send us a quick email, OneCry.com, and just connect with us.
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  And we want to pray for whatever it is that God's putting on your heart.
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  So thank you so much for joining us again on the OneCry podcast. Thank you.
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  Music.