Graduates of the program will be equipped with a fresh approach to ministry which can be used to help organizations plan for the future and raise up the next generation of passionate, Christ-following leaders.  They will bring an understanding of generational differences so that organizations can relate to Millennials thereby creating onramps for engagement in ministry.  Graduates will be able to educate others about the uniqueness of the millennial generation, including their particular cohort characteristics and the broader contexts of the changing ecclesiological landscape and the turn to postmodernism.

They will be able to incorporate technology into their churches, ministries, organizations, and companies in a way that will attract and retain younger generations.  Armed with the understanding that Millennials have a different concept of “space,” graduates will be able to help organizations think outside the box about how to minister using technology.  Graduates will be able to guide organizations about the utility of third place settings as an integral part of missional thinking and how technology can help reach millennials where they are.

They will understand the turn to postmodernism so they can bridge the epistemological gap that currently exists, especially in the church.  Millennials are the first fully postmodern generation, and this vastly affects their views of institutions, relational dynamics, and learning.  Graduates of this program will have a firm grip on this idea and can help organizations transition from Enlightenment based programs in a way that retains Christian orthodoxy while innovating practices and techniques.  Graduates will understand the importance of narratives and personal testimonies as postmodern “sermons” to which Millennials can relate.

They will be able to think missionally about millennials. They will be able to help organizations construct a missional-incarnational approach to ministry. Issues related to contextualization of the gospel will be an area of expertise of the graduate so that he or she may join in the missio Dei. From an ecclesiological standpoint, the graduate will have expertise on how to create an “inside out” church, one that takes a missional-incarnational stance toward the culture (taking church to people and contextualizing it) rather than an attractional-extractional stance (attracting people to church and extracting them from their culture). In addition to this geographical contextualization, the graduate will have a thorough understanding about how Christians can be philosophical missionaries by entering into the mission field of postmodernism and ministering to Millennials using their own philosophical language.

They will be able to reverse the attrition rate of young people from their churches and ministries. As graduates bring their expertise as a subject matter expert in the area of the millennial generation, they will be able to advise and help execute programs and practices that will resonate with millennials, the most unchurched and de-churched generational cohort among us. They will be able to help ministries create outposts of evangelism and discipleship outside the four walls of the church building in order to reach Millennials, who have been called the church’s “most pressing mission field.” Graduates will be able to aid organizations as they view Millennials as an indigenous people group just like in the foreign mission field, with their own language, cultural symbols, and value system. We need to “translate” the church into a form they can understand. 

Graduates will have a biblical understanding about the replication aspect of discipleship which they can apply to their work with millennials. Young adults figure prominently the biblical underpinnings of the program. For example, when God transitioned Israel from being slaves to Bedouins to conquerors, it was a young man named Joshua who led the way. Jeremiah was only twenty when he became a prophet to God’s people. And as Paul ministered healing to the church at Corinth, young Timothy was by his side “carrying on the work of the Lord” as his protégé. It seems that it is very important to God for ministry to be a multi-generational undertaking. 

Last but not least, graduates will be able to enhance their organizations because they will know themselves better. They will know their strengths as ministry practitioners, their leadership style, and their spiritual giftedness in a way that will instill confidence as they carry out their callings. They will be able to relate to Millennials out of their strengths and by maximizing their potential, and will be able to teach others to do the same.