Bring Back the Young Adults and 20-Somethings (The Holy Hiatus)
What if church were like the Colbert Report?
Posted on: 06/08/2008
by John Carlisle
Imagine a typical Sunday morning in the house of four single, unrelated roommates in their 20s. All four grew up in Christian homes, attending church every Sunday with their families. All four graduated from college and have respectable jobs that keep them busy 45-50 hours per week, Monday through Friday. On this morning, the four find themselves doing quite different things. Dizzied and stumbling around, one of them wakes up and begins to nurse a hangover after a night of binge partying. Another leaves to go to his second job, in retail, because his 9-to-5 isn’t quite enough for him to pay off his college debt and pay the rent. The third begins thumbing on an Xbox controller, zoning into a virtual world. The fourth – only the fourth – gets dressed and leaves to go to church. Almost everyone in ministry will agree that there’s something wrong with this picture.
This troubling vignette illustrates a problem that churches have been trying to reverse for decades. LifeWay Research found that of Christians between the ages of 23 and 30, 70 percent “drop out” of going to church for at least a year between the ages of 18-22. A sizable number spend more than a year away. Common reasons for the temporary, if not permanent, departure from the Church include lifestyle changes and frequent moving; pastoral disdain or disagreement; and political, ideological and theological disagreement with church positions.
Justin Anderson, lead pastor at Praxis Church in Tempe, Ariz., makes a startlingly sharp claim: “Overall, the Church is declining and my guess would be that the decline crosses age groups.” Anderson says that most churches have failed to provide the relevancy in the Gospel to keep people, regardless of age, connected to it. But an emphasis on people in their 20s exists at Praxis Church. It’s a church plant of the rapidly growing Acts 29 Network, a group of churches that puts 20-somethings at the crux of their evangelism because they’re the toughest group to reach, says Jonathan Herron, lead pastor at Catalyst Church in Kent, Ohio. Herron and other Acts 29 pastors figure if they can reach this group, they can reach anyone – which leads to a logical conclusion that the 20-somethings are the toughest to reel in. ..........
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Would love to get some feedback and conversation about this article! Feel free to get the conversation going in the comments section. Also, Justin Anderson, who was quoted in the last paragraph copied above, is the speaker at the next Men's Fuel Breakfast on September 13.
~ Steve W.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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1 comment:
"With that last point, Stevens challenges the old “youth group” model, which he says separates teenagers from forging connections with other ages. “We in student ministry have been so focused on meeting the developmental needs of adolescents that we have separated teens from the rest of the church body to do ‘youth stuff.’ This has resulted in thousands of teens who have joined a ‘youth group,’ but have never been integrated into the full life of the church. No wonder they leave the church after high school; they don’t feel like there is anything for them until they get married and have children of their own.”
I think this is a great point! Shane Claiborne, in his book Irrisistable Revolution, echos the same thoughts (will quote him later)
“I firmly believe you don’t have to be cool to reach young people,” Anderson offers. “I believe they are just looking for someone to be honest with them. They are looking for people that they can trust because the world is full of people they can’t.”
AMEN!
Speaking from my own point of view.... there are just a few things that drew John and I into the FG community (and thus BBC) instantly:
1. a real sense of community. We all long to belong somewhere... real community, committed community is hard to come by in this day and age.
2. authenticity. we "young people" are pretty adept at judging true authenticity. I would rather be around an authentic person who is struggling in his/her walk with God but is real about it than someone trying to portray their "walk" as something that isn't near reality.
3. walking more than talking. i have had a lot of people "talk the talk" in my lifetime and communities growing up (church, school, homeschool, etc..) but I can only name less than a handful of names of people who I am so drawn to that are truly WALKING with God in such an attractive and God-glorifying way... and they aren't the ones talking saying "do this or do that" but rather just living a real relationship with their God... and that speaks louder than anything!
4. service. I think young people want to contribute more and will rise to the challenge if given half the chance. back to Shane Claiborne - he recalls how in middle school he had a conversion experience in youth group.... and he did every year after that. He recalls how they were told over and over "don't drink, don't smoke, don't sleep around" and all of them were wondering "ok, what do i do now then? where are the do's" He says, "I came to realize that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross, and weren't giving me anything to pick up.... people had taught me what christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live."
I think our generation has come to the point of being able to look at "the american dream" and deep down inside knows it will not fulfill. period. so this is where we, young adult christians, can really walk out a different path that is attractive, inviting, fulfilling and accessible to others as we openly, authentically, and lovingly share our lives together first (remember "they will know them by their love") and then with our neighbors.
Just my two cents. :)
~Chelsea
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