Why does the third generation sell the farm? This phenomenon is well documented and well researched. It is sometimes called the third generation curse. This happens whether you are talking about the family farm or a family business or even a local church.
To sum it up it goes like this. The founders build it, the second generation maintains what the founders built, and the third generation squanders it all away.
I have an idea that I have been thinking about concerning churches. The founding pastor built it, the next generation tries to maintain the pattern, and the following generation lacks the drive and the vision of the founder so they let it all fade away.
Another problem has to do with evolving market conditions. What worked then might not work now. But the founders set the pattern so that we are unwilling to change anything or to overhaul anything. There is a growing lack of innovation. And fresh ideas of how to do what we do are rarely discussed.
Sometimes the generation is people, but sometimes the generation is just the passing of time. We have not been around long enough to see a widespread passing of the torch to a new generation. But the world today is vastly different from the world when your church was first planted.
One more thing. Sometimes the second generation is so dogmatic on following the pattern that they set unattainable standards for everyone else. They make the demands so tough to follow that some will give up and fade away. They are so focused on one thing that they fail to see anything else.
We traffic in ancient truths. It is our job to find out what God is doing today and to do that. We need to make ancient truth relevant to the modern world.
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