Continuing the Conversation

A lot of people have spoken to me about the pastor's column in this week's newsletter. (Read it online here.) It deals with the critical issue of the absence of young adults in our churches. To continue the conversation, I wanted to repost a comments that was posted in response to a follow up I wrote (Still Thinking about Young People.)

peter said...

have you read the cover story of the (i think) most recent interpreter on youth/ young adults and the UMC? it is a pretty interesting read, but they seem to think that the trends and ideas hold true everywhere, when i know that some aren't true for myself or some of my fellow young adults on track for ordination or a larger role in the church...but i guess that it is aimed at drawing them into the church not continuing ministry to those of us who have been active for years. it is well worth the read though.

peace,

peter

Peter makes a really important point. Although we group young adults together statistically as we look at who is missing from our churches, we have to be carefully about thinking that all young adults are the same and need the same sort of ministry.

With the risk of continuing to oversimplify, I want to offer at least five different situations young adults may be in in relation to the church. This is not to say that all young adults fall neatly into any of these groupings, this is just an attempt to see the complexity of the situation. Here are the five groups:

1. Unchurched - Young adults with little or no contact with the church. Possibly the children of unchurched parents or parents who never took their kids to church.

2. Formerly Churched - Young adults who were involved and possibly even active younger in life but have fallen away from the church for one reason of another.

3. New Christians - People who have become active in the Christian faith as young adults.

4. Continual Christians - (If I ever publish something on this, I may need a new title) - This may be the smallest group. These are young adults like Peter who grew up in the church and stayed. In my experience, a number of these people are considering a call to ministry or leadership in the church.

5. On the Edgers - These are people who may have grown up in the church but, in their young adults years, are living on the edge of church. They haven't abandoned it yet, but they are less and less active and may eventually leave. This is the group that parents talk to me the most about.

This list came to me this morning and at the time only had three groups. It may be a helpful model to think about who were are trying to reach with ministries. Ministries that reach out to the "Unchurched" group may do nothing for "On the Edgers" who have all that church experience (good and bad) that they bring to the table. I have noticed in many conversations that "Continual Christians" are often annoyed by ministries targeting to the "Unchurched" group are even more annoyed when people expect them to like it because they are young.

That's all I am going to write because I would love to hear your thoughts.

peace,

will