We’re Excited About Equipping the Next Generation

September 1, 2009


Here’s the sixth important fact you need to know about KBM . . .

6. We’re excited about equipping the next generation.


With the Pastors at Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles.

That means we want to do whatever we can to help train the next generation of rising Christian leaders in America and around the world.

The future always belongs to the young. Once you reach the ripe old age of 56 (57 in less than a month), you can’t kid yourself about being young. You’re not. The future belongs to my sons and to their friends.

Youth must be served.

That’s why I was so pleased to receive the following email yesterday from a young woman just beginning her seminary training:

Just wanted to say thanks for the resources page on the KBM website!

I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but I use it weekly during my devotional time. I’m in the middle of doing my first official seminary assignment for class and where do I go for great resources? The KBM resource page of course!

We’re not a seminary, but by making our Resource Page available, we’re helping train a rising Christian leader.


Teaching Galatians at Word of Life Bible Institute, New York.

And that’s why I teach Galatians and Daniel each year at the Word of Life Bible Institute. It’s why we have gone several times to New Brunswick Bible Institute and why I’m glad to speak at leadership events for Word of Life. It’s why we traveled to the Czech Republic last year to speak to the young men and women serving with Josiah Venture. And it’s why we traveled to the Philippines in April to speak at Bukidnon Baptist Seminary.

On September 15 I’ll be speaking to the Ministers Class at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, FL. I did the same thing several years ago for young pastors at Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. And that’s why I’ve taught at the Global Proclamation Academy in Dallas and also at the Stephen Olford Center in Memphis.

And earlier this summer I spoke to 700 very enthusiastic leadership-minded teens and their counselors at Word of Life Florida. Here’s a note I received from a grateful grandmother:

we were at wol camp fla with grandson who was unchurched…now he goes with us with his new Bible in his hand…and uses it! when we went to Church today he said, as we pulled up…"just like going to hear Ray Pritchard”…you made quite an impression on him..thanks

With testimonies like that, it’s not hard to be excited about equipping the next generation. Everywhere I go I sense a rising generation of young people who are tired of playing church. They want to make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ. They are eager, hunger, committed, enthusiastic, and sold out for Christ. They don’t want glitz or entertainment. They want the real thing.


Teaching Daniel at Word of Life Bible Institute, Florida.

Last weekend in Chicago someone teased me about my gray hair. I laughed because it’s true. And if I grew my beard, it would be almost totally gray. I’m perfectly happy being almost 57 years old with more gray hair all the time. If I can pass along whatever wisdom I have to the generation rising beneath me, that seems like a good way to spend my days.

As our sweet daughter-in-law Vanessa likes to say, “Are you excited?” Yes, I am. I’m excited about her and her generation, which I believe will become the next “greatest generation” for the cause of Christ in the world.

Do you have any thoughts or questions about this post?