Following up on yesterday’s post, “Church Planting and Church Health”:

One Croatian pastor recently described an attitude that he sees in the Croatian churches, a cultural characteristic that could affect how church planting is seen in the broader church community.

His perception is that older Christians in Croatia are fearful of change, and younger Christians are frustrated with the slow pace of change. This leads to conflict, obviously.

“What happens,” he said, “is that every generation has to start over again from zero, because we reject everything the previous generation built.”

Bear in mind that these are the thoughts of one man, one pastor, from one evangelical group. And I know there are exceptions; I don’t see this among all the groups in Zagreb or the country.

Still, his thought matches some of the things I see, and potentially explains some of the difficulty many Croatian evangelical churches have had with establishing healthy church cultures.

Healthy church culture develops over several generations, as one group entrusts the faith to the next generation.  The older trusts that the younger has the same Holy Spirit that they themselves have, and that the Spirit will guide the younger group as they guard & grow the church.

And the younger generation receives this deposit with respect, trusting that the forebears have the Spirit, not encasing the tradition in cement so that it never changes or adapts, but trusting that the same Holy Spirit will guide them as they face new challenges.

Healthy church culture is a multigenerational thing.