Raising Up a New Generation from the 4/14 Window to Transform the World

At the end of the last century I wrote a pamphlet entitled The 10/40 Window: Getting to the Core of the Core.2 In the first years of this new century, I am urging a new missional focus: The 4/14 Window. Although in a different sense, it too can be called “the core of the core.” The 10/40 Window referenced a geographic frame; the 4/14 Window describes a demographic frame—a life season comprising the ten years between the ages of 4 and 14.

This booklet is an urgent appeal to consider the strategic importance and potential of the 1.2 billion children and youth in the 4/14 Window. It is a plea to open your heart and mind to the idea of reaching and raising up a new generation from within that vast group—a generation that can experience personal transformation and can be mobilized as agents for transformation throughout the world. Our vision and hope is to maximize their transformational impact while they are young, and to mobilize them for continuing impact for the rest of their lives. I invite you to join with many others who are making a commitment to fulfill this vision and realize this hope.

To maximize the transformational impact of children and youth in the 4/14 Window we must address the spiritual, mental, physical, relational, economic, and social issues they face. We must also confront their “ministerial poverty”—the scarcity of opportunities for them to exercise their gifts and achieve their potential in ways that honor God and advance His Kingdom.

It is crucial that mission efforts be re-prioritized and re-directed toward the 4/14 age group world- wide. This requires that we become acutely aware of what is taking place in their lives. We must also endeavor to understand their nature and the essential means to nurture them. Only with this kind of in- formed awareness will we be able to reach them, shape them, and raise them up to transform the world.

This booklet presents an overview of the needs, nature and potential of children and youth in the 4/14 Window. It also addresses the very real opposition and obstacles to raising them up as a transformational generation. We must not be defeated by the opposition or deterred by the obstacles; and as we engage in strategic global thinking and answer God’s call to catalytic action, we must do so within a biblical framework.