BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — This week, Lifeway’s Next Gen team equipped Next Gen leaders from across the nation to refocus their ministries. The annual ministry conference — ETCH (Equipping the Church and Home) — took place at Brentwood Baptist Church Sep. 30-Oct. 2.

This year’s ETCH Conference theme, ReFocus, emphasized the need for Next Gen leaders to sharpen their vision in an era of change, challenging leaders to keep their eyes on what matters. At ETCH, 900 preschool, kids, students, Next Gen and family ministry leaders gathered to reset their focus to be ready to lead others through change. In main sessions and breakouts, ministry leaders unpacked research and discussed opportunities to adapt and refocus to keep vision sharp and clear — not just for short-term needs but for long-term strategy as well.

Chuck Peters, director of Next Gen ministry at Lifeway, acknowledged the difficulties of leading with vision in ministry, noting that it’s common for leaders to either lead with no vision, use a vision made by someone else and for someone else or use a vision that’s out of date.

“If you’re still doing what you did before 2020, it’s time for a check-up,” Peters said, inviting leaders to use ETCH as an opportunity to check their vision in four places — culture, community, church and core (individual kids or students). “My hope is that as you leave, you will have new eyes so you can have a new vision for your ministry.”

Refocusing on the church and the core

Shane Pruitt, national Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board (NAMB), guided Next Gen leaders in refocusing on the church by investing in Gen Z and Gen Alpha — generations he has dubbed the revival generation. “The next generation is the right now church,” Pruitt said, drawing from Acts 1 to call leaders to refocus on the gospel, on who makes up the church and on urgency.

Encouraging leaders with stats indicating Gen Z’s receptiveness to the gospel, Pruitt rallied leaders with the truth that no young person is too sinful for Jesus to save and challenged them to take the gospel to a generation starving for truth. “Whatever their walk may be,” Pruitt said, “may they realize Jesus is worth following.”

Calling leaders to refocus on the core — individual kids and students in a particular ministry — speaker, author, marriage and leadership coach and podcast co-host Josh Straub zoomed in on the social and emotional needs of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Straub said that to refocus and reach the next generation today, leaders must move out of their old ways of doing things. “We have to enter into their world as opposed to imposing our world on them.”

Straub said the next generations need the church to give the entire gospel. Emphasizing building and bringing the kingdom of God everywhere Christ followers go, Straub suggested three strategies for showing up for the next generation — redeeming the home, investing in relationships and living with joy. “Start asking the Father to instill in you redeeming, relational joy for the next generation.”

Refocusing on the culture and the community

Author and speaker Alisa Childers challenged leaders to refocus on the culture, helping leaders understand the postmodern culture the next generation is growing up in. She explained that moral relativism is the dominant worldview among Gen Z, and this idea that morals are subjective undermines Christianity. But Childers believes the Christian faith has the answers the next generations are looking for. “Christianity is a grand metanarrative that explains reality,” she said.

Childers expressed the hope she has for Gen Z and offered six strategies for refocusing the next generations in this culture — teach critical thinking, give good teaching and apologetics, teach the real gospel, offer a holistic approach to faith, confront issues of sex and gender and teach discernment.

Lifeway President and CEO Ben Mandrell closed the conference calling leaders to refocus on community by evaluating their own faith. “In order to create dramatic change, the leader has to believe,” Mandrell said, pointing to the need for leaders to have more faith than those they are leading. Citing Hebrews 11:1-2, Mandrell challenged leaders to lead with fierce optimism. “Whatever you focus on gets bigger,” Mandrell said as he appealed to leaders to focus on the movement of God in their ministries. “Is it possible you are the reason your ministry is not reaching people — because you gave up believing in what God could do?”

Mandrell empathized with Next Gen leaders that the stats about the next generations can be daunting and discouraging but reminded leaders that the trends are not an indicator of what God is going to do. Calling leaders to greater faith, faith that is pleasing to God, Mandrell encouraged them not to allow negative statistics or narratives to determine their level of faith.

Investing in ministry leaders

ETCH main sessions served as a time to inspire and encourage Next Gen ministry leaders. Event organizers acknowledged the reality that ministry demands often prevent leaders from regularly worshiping in their local churches, so each main session included worship led by Isaac Pittman. Attendees expressed their gratitude not only for focused time to worship but also for the ability to be with others who are also committed to investing in and discipling the next generations to know and love God.

Lifeway’s investment in leaders at ETCH stretched beyond main sessions and into breakout sessions and the “Solution Zone,” where church leaders could interact with ministry experts at Lifeway and explore resources to equip their ministries.

This year’s ETCH Conference provided several pre-conference events. New2Ministry was a one-day intensive for new preschool, kids and student ministers. Other pre-conference sessions included “What We Need to Know About Reaching, Discipling and Mobilizing the Alpha Generation,” “Beyond Behavior: A Trauma-Sensitive Approach for Church Leaders and Volunteers” and “Intro to AI: Learning to Repurpose Content While Saving Time, Increasing Creativity and Scaling the Impact of Your Work.”

Breakout sessions during the main conference included:

• Ministering to the Unique Families of Today
• Not if, but When: Preparing Your Church to Prevent and Respond to Abuse
• 10 AI Tools That Will Change How Next Gen Leaders Do Their Work
• Apologetics 101 for Elementary Kids
• Special Needs Ministry in Real Life
• What are Learning Centers and Why Should Every Classroom Have Them?

The ETCH 2024 digital pass, with access to watch main sessions and listen to audio recordings of more than 60 breakouts, will be available for purchase at Lifeway.com on Nov. 1, 2024. Details about ETCH 2025, to be held in Nashville, Tennessee, next fall will be at etchconference.com, with early bird pricing available for a limited time.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Aaron Earls is a writer for LifeWay Christian Resources.)