NAE Webinar on Engaging Youth and Young Adults
On January 18, 2017, the National Association of Evangelicals’ President, Leith Anderson, hosted a webinar with speaker Kara Powel regarding the result of research concerning ministries to youth and young adults. These are notes from that meeting, provided as thought-starters for your church and ministry.
-Your friends at the FMC-USA
American churches are losing youth and young adults. Youth and young adults represent less than 10% of churchgoers.
They researched over 250 congregations for this webinar.
Caleb, age 15, “The only time I think about God is when I’m at church.”
One in two young people will drift away from God after they graduate from high school.
Max DePree – “The first job of leaders is to define reality.”
No major Christian tradition is growing in the U.S. today. Religious “nones” [non-denominational] are on the rise from 16% to 22%. While 15 to 29 year olds make up 17% of the U.S. population yetthey only makeup 10% of our church denominations. Churches are shrinking and the congregations are growing older.
Growing Young Churches
Churches that are successful in recruiting and retaining youth/young adults (ages 15 to 29) are not shrinking and aging but exhibit overall vitality to the whole church.
The nomination Process for the congregations that would be researched for this webinar went through three stages.
Stage 1 – Online surveys of 259 churches
Stage 2 – 535 phone interviews with 41 churches
Stage 3 – 12 site visits
Overall they had 1,300 interviews, they logged at least 10,000 research hours, had over 10,000 pages of transcripts and ½ of the churches researched were not predominantly white.
St. John’s was one of the churches that was researched. They prioritized in young people and 10 years ago, they would have had to close their doors. Since prioritizing the youth/young adults, their congregation is over 1500 members with 1000 members being between 15 and 29 years of age.
10 Qualities your church doesn’t need to grow young
- Size
- Location/region
- Church age
- Denomination
- Cool quotient
- Modern building
- Big budget
- Contemporary worship
- Watered-down teaching
- Hyper-entertaining program
The Six Core Commitments that were most common, even essential, in engaging young people included:
- Keychain Leadership
- Empathy Today
- Jesus’ Message
- Warm Relationships
- Prioritize Everywhere
- Best Neighbors
Keychain Leadership
Churches working with youth/young adults have found that 25 is the new 15 – things are happening five years later for youth, i.e. moving out five years later, getting married five years later, going to grad school five years later. Young people need the church to journey with them through the highs and lows of becoming an adult. Youth/young adults tend to describe churches as self-entitled and judgmental.
Empathy
Identity – Who am I? (Grace)
Belonging – Where do I fit? (Love)
Purpose – What difference do I make? (God’s mission)
Jesus’ Message – How would people define Christianity? Christianity can be awkward but Jesus is always compelling.
How do we best communicate the message of Jesus to 15 to 29 year olds?
- We are good because we are created in God’s image.
- Guilt separates us from God.
- By God’s grace he sent us Jesus.
- We then become part of God’s people and are meant to live in a community.
- We have gratitude for all that God has done for us so we obey the word of God.
- By obeying the word of God, we become part of God’s vision.
How and what are our churches doing to communicate the top six topics to youth/young adults?
Warm Relationships
Churches that have a large youth/young adult percentage in their congregation describe their church, “like family.” Warm is the new cool – Warm is welcoming, accepting, belonging, authentic, hospitable, and caring. Some of the churches are recruiting older members to attend youth events in order to mentor the youth
There is a hinge point between Warm Relationships and Prioritize Everywhere. This hinge point is where churches with older congregations do not reprioritize to attract youth/young adults.
Prioritize Young People Everywhere
Sometimes a larger portion of the budget or the number of staffing was aimed more towards young people.
Churches hoping increase the number of youth/young adults need to intentionally pay attention to young people.
One of the churches included in their research, a Latino church, was aimed at older members of the congregation. Most of their services were in Spanish as that is was the language spoken by the older congregation. The younger members of the church mostly spoke English and the church pastors learned English to be able to offer sermons in English to attract younger members.
One of the churches said that everyone rises when the church focuses on young people.
Young people may not be great tithers, but their parents or grandparents may be.
Best Neighbors
Teenagers want to be involved locally, nationally and globally. The churches that had larger groups of youth, were hospitable and focused on hospitality. They were patient neighbors. Young people do not want to be told what to think, they want to learn about the process. Engage young adults in open conversation even in the midst of tough issues facing the world today, i.e. same sex marriage.
Churches that appealed to youth and young adults were seen as courageous and embraced ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. Young people are living in a diverse world that they appreciate and value and they are looking for that at their church.
Churches were seeking out the youth/young adults rather than waiting for the youth/young adults to come to their church or church camps. Church members were visiting dorms, bars, and community centers to contact prospective members of their church.