The Chinese Congress on World Evangelization was originally held every five years, but this gathering was different: a full decade had passed since the previous one. Ten years is long enough for one generation to shift. Those who once attended as “young people” have now become the middle generation, while children who were still in school then have grown into the new faces entering the congress today.
Did We Really Pass the Microphone?
This congress made a particular effort to include leaders under the age of thirty-five and encouraged intergenerational exchange. It also held a Youth Forum open to all participants. Both the moderator and the panelists were young leaders currently serving young people. As I watched them guide the entire conversation, I felt both moved and reassured: this was not the older generation sitting onstage discussing what the next generation should do. The microphone had truly been placed in the hands of the next generation, allowing them to speak, think, and respond for themselves. The forum allowed us to see how young leaders lead and shepherd the church, how they understand generational differences, and how the generations communicate with one another. Beyond the official program, an informal gathering of young people also took shape spontaneously. It began as an online group and later led to an in-person gathering. According to data provided by the congress, approximately two thousand people attended, about 15 percent of whom were under thirty-five. This group also took the initiative to find one another outside the formal sessions.
Seeing all this led me to ask a question: We often talk about serving alongside the next generation and giving them opportunities and a stage, but are we truly giving them opportunities?
We all want the young people we have raised up to put on the best gatherings, lead the best worship, and create the best designs. Without realizing it, we begin to demand more and more of them, even setting standards that determine whether they are allowed to participate or lead. On the surface, we are giving them opportunities. Underneath, however, our own vanity may be at work: through their performance, we prove how outstanding the young people we have nurtured are and how impressive the gatherings we lead can be. But what the next generation truly needs is not a single opportunity to perform perfectly. They need room to fail and to learn from setbacks. Disciples are not formed through one successful showcase, but by being allowed to stand again after falling, time after time.
Letting Go Is Not Losing
This question took on another dimension through a reflection shared by Pastor Peter Wan of The Hope Church during the Youth Forum. He pointed to David, now old, going into battle against the Philistines once more. David was no longer the warrior who could fight on the front lines by himself. Pastor Wan said:
There are some battles in life we must not avoid; we should bravely face our fears. But there are other battles from which we must learn to turn away, so that we can face our pride. . .. Only when we are willing to let go do we discover, ‘So, I can still be ______.’ That in itself is a gift of grace.
That statement stayed with me for a long time. When I was younger, I could plan and carry out a children’s summer camp for an entire denomination, lead worship, and take on many concrete ministry responsibilities. Now, however, I can no longer carry those responsibilities. Not because they are unimportant, but because in this season there are other roles I need to carry: a father, an organizational leader, and an advocate. I could, of course, insist on jumping back in to run those activities. But the more important question I need to ask is: Who else can I be? Can I be someone who runs alongside others? Someone who offers counsel from behind the scenes? Or am I, in fact, holding onto a position that prevents the next generation from truly taking over?
In this generational transition, none of us should, or needs to, become indispensable. We do not need to live in our past achievements. Instead, we need to seek God’s leading for the next season and turn back to strengthen and build up the brothers and sisters around us.
Behind this willingness to let go, however, lies a deeper question. Another message at the congress brought me a piercing reminder.
That message asked what the gospel truly is. The gospel is not only for non-Christians; Christians need it every day as well. From the gospel, we should receive the strength to live a life of mission. The speaker said that we are living in an age in which people worship God with their lips while their hearts are far from him. Many are so busy that they imagine they can choose both the world and God’s kingdom at the same time. What remains are rituals, forms, and service, but not a Christian life genuinely governed by God.
Sitting in the audience, I asked myself: If I had to lay down all my ministry tomorrow, would I still choose to follow him? Or am I only using him as a protective umbrella because I want to see my own ministry grow?
This also showed me that the struggle of the bridge generation is not merely about leadership styles or ministry succession. More deeply, it is a question of where we have rooted our identity. If my attachment to ministry comes from the way it gives me a sense of value and position, then of course I will cling to the stage. I will also unconsciously hold the next generation back by imposing high standards, because I need their performance to prove that I am still needed. But if I truly trust God rather than the ministry I have built, then letting go is not loss. It is a return to a more honest life of faith: living not by ritual or a sense of achievement, but simply under God’s rule.
Who Has Yet to Be Heard?
When we speak of “the next generation,” the first people we tend to picture are young leaders who can already stand at a Youth Forum and express themselves clearly. Beyond them, however, is another part of the next generation whose voices are heard even less: children.
If I were to name one shortcoming of this CCOWE Congress, it would be the absence of children’s ministry. Across the entire congress, conversations and exhibition booths related to children were few and far between. The congress slogan was “Listening to Our Times,” but if we truly want to listen to our times, children’s ministry should be an indispensable part of the conversation.
Childhood is an important season in which values, relationships of trust, and one’s imagination of faith gradually take shape. This does not mean adults cannot change. But beliefs, habits, and wounds formed in childhood often take longer to sort through and loosen their hold. Many adults around us need great patience, perseverance, and the Spirit’s long work before they can gradually learn to understand themselves, others, and God anew.
If the church does not plant godly values in children while they are young, what we may lose is not only the opportunity to pass faith on to one child, but also the opportunity to accompany an entire generation as it grows. I long to see the next CCOWE place children’s ministry on the agenda, so that parents, church leaders, and Sunday school teachers can all see that children are not an appendage to church ministry. They, too, are already participating in shaping the future of the church and society.
Declining birth rates are a reality that cannot be solved in the short term, but many children outside the church still do not know the gospel. What deserves even more reflection is this: when we say we want to raise up the next generation, we often fail to give them real platforms and opportunities. Even when we do, we remain accustomed to governing them through top-down authority rather than running alongside them. This is the other side of the question raised earlier: are we giving opportunities, or satisfying our own vanity? We say we are passing the baton, but our hands only grip it more tightly.
After the congress, I kept thinking: If CCOWE is truly about “Listening to Our Times,” then we should not listen only to what next-generation leaders think. We should also listen to the children who have not yet had the opportunity to be heard. The homes and environments they inhabit now are shaping the values they will carry throughout their lives.
Generational change will not wait for the congress cycle. Over these ten years, yesterday’s young people have become the middle generation, and yesterday’s children have entered the congress hall. By the next CCOWE, the young leaders speaking at today’s Youth Forum may already be standing on the main stage. And the children who are now in kindergarten, coloring pictures in Sunday school, will also be helping to shape the church of the next generation.
Becoming Those Who Stand in Between
I do not believe the answer to generational succession is for the older generation to leave the stage and hand it over to the next. What we truly need is a group willing to stand in between: a bridge generation. They know how to let go of their own stage, and they also know how to make room for children who still have no voice. They do not need to be the brightest or most visible. But they know what season they are in, and they know to whom the next season should be entrusted. God gives each person a different season; only God himself is irreplaceable. May we be faithful in our own season to become those who run alongside others.
