What Does a 28-Year-Old Say to a Room Full of Pastors?

Last month, I had the opportunity to speak for seven minutes to a room full of pastors and ministers—many of whom are genuinely my heroes.

Which raises a fairly obvious question:

What does a 28-year-old say to a room full of people who have been faithfully doing ministry longer than he’s been alive?

I felt the weight of that question.

I was deeply honoured to be asked, but if I’m being truthful, I was also pretty daunted by it. These are men and women I respect deeply. People who have preached the Gospel, built churches, served people, endured difficult seasons, and remained faithful to Jesus for decades.

I wasn't interested in standing up as the young guy with a microphone and telling a room full of experienced ministers what I thought they needed to hear.

So putting those seven minutes together involved a lot of prayer—and more than a little fear and trembling.

But there was something that had been stirring in my heart that I felt I needed to be obedient to share: something about my generation, the world that is forming us, and the incredible opportunity I believe the Church has in front of us.

So I prayed, tried to honour the room, and said what I felt I was supposed to say.

Here it is.

---

A Revolution Worth Fighting For

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were in Athens.

Our Airbnb had this rooftop terrace overlooking the Acropolis—and just below it, Mars Hill.

I remember standing there thinking about Acts 17.

Paul walks into Athens carrying an unchanging Gospel—but he understands the world he's preaching into.

He sees their idols. He understands the worldview shaping them. And then he proclaims Jesus directly into it.

Standing there, I couldn't shake this question:

Do we understand the Athens that's forming the people we're preaching to?

I ask that humbly.

I look around this room at my heroes, people I deeply honor, who have faithfully preached Jesus and served His Church for years.

I've had the privilege of growing up in that Church—but I've also grown up inside this younger generation.

And I think there is an incredible opportunity in front of us ministers.

Because our culture is discipling our imagination.

It's teaching us what power is, what success is, what the good life is.

And one of the ideas capturing my generation is revolution, maybe not in such drastic terms, but the architecture is all there.

We're sceptical of institutions.

We're learning to ask:

Who has power?

What's broken?

What needs to be torn down?

But eventually every revolution has to answer a harder question:

What are we building toward?

Chesterton has this picture in Orthodoxy.

If you paint a post white and leave it alone, eventually the weather changes it. To keep it white, you have to keep repainting it.

The standard stays fixed. The post drifts.

And that's why formation matters.

The world never stops discipling our imagination, so we never stop bringing it back under Jesus.

Because we can sincerely love Jesus while still allowing the world around us to supply our definitions.

That's exactly what happens in Mark 10.

James and John are following Jesus.

They believe in Jesus.

They've left everything for Jesus.

And they're still thinking about power like everybody else.

They want the important seats.

So Jesus says:

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them…”

And then:

“Not so with you.”

Those words have been gripping me.

Not so with you.

Jesus doesn't merely give them the right answer.

He gives them a new way of seeing.

The world says power means getting people beneath you.

Jesus says greatness means becoming a servant.

And then He points to Himself:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…”

And I think what Jesus does here, that's our opportunity.

We're introducing a generation to Jesus in a world that is already discipling them.

We're not introducing them to someone who can simply be added to the worldview they already have.

We're introducing them to a King whose Lordship demands an entirely new way of thinking.

And that challenges us too.

I can follow Jesus while still letting my culture define success, influence, even ministry.

Jesus says:

Not so with you.

That's formation.

We don't merely come to Jesus.

We abide and learn to see the world through Jesus.

And when our imagination is shaped by the One through whom all things were made, we discover that Jesus has answers to questions we didn't even know to ask.

And I think my generation desperately needs that.

Because I've seen both passion without direction and comfort without purpose.

I've seen people desperate to change the world but unsure what we're building toward.

And I've seen people unsure there's anything worth giving our lives to.

But Jesus speaks to both.

To misdirected passion:

Here is Truth worthy of our zeal.

To comfortable apathy:

Here is a King worthy of our sacrifice.

Which makes me wonder about a question many of us ask in ministry:

Where are the young ministers?

Where are the young people willing to sacrifice?

There are many answers.

But could part of our sacrifice problem be—

a vision problem?

People don't give their lives to something they believe is small.

Before the cross, Jesus was already preaching good news:

“The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.”

The cross and resurrection are central to that good news.

But the Gospel was never merely eternal-destination insurance.

It is the announcement of a King.

A King who saves us—

and lays claim to the whole of us.

Jesus didn't lower the cost.

He revealed a Kingdom worth the cost.

Maybe my generation doesn't need a Christianity that asks less of us.

Maybe we need a vision of Jesus so magnificent that we want to give Him more.

Not Jesus as a comforting addition to the lives we've already chosen.

Jesus as King.

The Jesus who welcomes sinners and says, “Follow Me.”

The Jesus who washes feet and before whom every knee will bow.

A Jesus who awakens awe, wonder, and submission.

Not a smaller call.

A bigger Christ.

And maybe that's the revolution worth fighting for.

Not a generation angry enough to tear the world down—

but a generation whose imagination has been captured by another King.

A generation that hears the world's definition of power, success, and the good life—

and hears Jesus say:

“Not so with you.”

And maybe that's our opportunity as ministers:

To help form people who don't merely know what Christians believe—

but who increasingly see the whole world through Jesus.

Acts 17 says the early Christians were accused of turning the world upside down.

Their offense?

“They are saying that there is another king—Jesus.”

Church, there is a revolution worth fighting for.

There is another King.

His name is Jesus.