We sit with a conference of disintegrated leadership where every elder built his own ivory tower and become an owner of a church and join an elite group of church owners who acts as a self-instituted “conference leadership” with the real conference leadership and through whispers and gossip, hire and fire retired pastors as if it is fashion.

There is a visible generation gap. It is the gap between twenty year olds on the one side and the “rest” on the other. When the professors of theology from the George Knight School of Theology at Sahmyook preach the seminars to learn about the Bible, the younger generation is absent. They only walk in to adjust the cameras of the filming but then disappear again. However, when the girl with the blond hair, their age, also around twenty years old, sings her “Presbyterian Church borrowed song” with syncopation (which was taught to me by professor Wilhelmina Dunbar of the Music Department of the Sahmyook of South Africa, at Helderberg College in 1976 as “non-biblical” style) then the cameraman phases in and out and she walks almost as a ghost from nothing to something. Actually, a very impressive camera technic. He is interested in beautifying the video task for the young girl but not for the Word of God interpreters of the Spoken Word. Of course the Spoken Word interpreters are also off at times since they are from the Knightean School of Theology in Adventism, which is itself a parachute of from true Adventism, but despite that, when a born-again video technician will use all his talents to “beautify” all aspects of God’s event with His people, my thinking is that he will not discriminate against his parental age style preachers and his own peer-age style of worship.

True seekers for God are “age-blind” in faith. The young generation wants to bring their pop-ballad to church not because it is needed there or because they want to worship God in their own way, but just because they have a shortage of image-expression in public, the audience. They have a psychological hunger to be the same as their pop-idol on TV template. Spotlightning, audio boosters and equalizers, kinetic movements, audience responses of shouting, clapping, swinging and electronic music with of course, rhythm and syncopation.

Let us get this clear. The younger generation will not come to church because there is a pop-ballad presented. They will drop out completely. They are in essence in “transition”. They are in “transit”. Pop-ballad Presbyterian style gospel with drum, shouting, swinging, guitar, syncopation, electronic music, is just another way to say that their doctrinal concept is either empty, absent, or switched-off and in absence of these aspects, they are leaving sooner or later.

They will marry whomever they want to. They will leave the church and stop coming to church. Will show-up only at Christmas to see father and mother and either do not want to go to church or feel very uncomfortable sitting in it. The pop-ballad craze is just a transit phase.

How should a serious Christian react to this?

Here is maybe a backdoor or pony to ride the problem out.

Unless there is a mission-schooling accompanying this transit-phase, unless they learn to participate in other activities for the church, like pamphlet distribution, witnessing in schools, witnessing at senior citizens homes; hospitals; jails; witnessing for non-SDA’s; beaches; parks; streetwork; travelling with no money from city to city relying only on God’s miracle to provide sustenance; living for one week with no income but prayer; learning total dependence on God and see Him working in their lives; they will join all the transit and lost young people of the church.

What is absent in the church is a mission program for twenty year olds for one year where they can be trained what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.

The “Abundant Life” style mission program of South Africa is a youth vitalizing program in which electronic music is used but only to attract the transit youth but lead them to commitment through appeal and evangelism. Pop-ballad is only used by them as a magnet for the non-SDA youth and SDA new converts to God. It is to lead them into the church not separately to the outside to their own ghetto away from grandmother, father and mother and the older people. They do not shelve the hymnbooks of the church. They do not separate from the older generation or the kindergarten age generation but adapt, accommodate, embrace, encourage, live in and through all generations.

If the focus is on self with the pop-ballad presentation then that person is on their way out by transit.

If the focus is by pop-ballad used by such a group of trained mission volunteer youth for one year, it is effective for all and it unify all generations into one mission and vision.

The mission training program should be young people themselves and not the local church and old elders training them.

Instruments of such a vocational training center or place should be created as a tool of participation for them to be motivated in God, by God and for God. Then the pop-ballad will make more sense.

Dear God

All You ask from us, is to save, save and help save all ages and all generations. Music are tools to such an objective that we want to use for You, not to offend others, not to drive them away from Your Spoken Word but bringing all to the throne of grace. Amen