What are they looking for?

Today I attended a meeting of pastors in my district. The topic of discussion for the meeting was concerning what young adults are looking for and how the church can reach out to them. At least, that was the general theme.

Some interesting discussions took place. I'm not so sure what the pastors took home with them as far as insight goes but I think that there was plenty of insight there to take home.

For some of the churches represented at the meeting, it would be safe to say that there aren't many young adults that are attending nor are there many living in the area of the church to draw from. This certainly creates a sense of frustration for a pastor as he sees his congregation consisting mostly of older adults who are ready to "step down" from the positions but there's nobody there to "step up" and take over. Plus, it can be a discouraging thing to a church when you feel that there are no young people to draw into the church. They are there, maybe not in great numbers like in the suburbs but there around.

One of the things that came up in our discussions led me to wonder, what are we doing in our churches to attract young adults? What are we doing to keep our youth?

One pastor brought out the point that quality is very important in attracting people in general, especially middle and young adults. If a church doesn't strive to have quality, in their building appearance, in their Sunday school programs, in their children's ministries, and especially in their worship, then those people aren't going to come back.

In response to that, another pastor expressed their concern about the consumer mentality that young adults have (and middle adults). He expressed his frustration about their lack of commitment, their pick and choosing approach to the church. I'm not sure that mentality is limited to only the young adult, however. They're just more honest about it.

I'm soon to be 50. By most standards I would be considered part of the upper middle age group. I don't think of myself in those terms. I don't want to. And I don't want to be "set apart" from those that are younger than me, especially young adults. I try to stay relevant to the culture, to what's in and what's not (though according to my 13 year old, I'm not doing a very good job of it). I believe that helps me to be able to still, even at this ripe old age, to be able to connect with people younger than me.

It seems to me that the church must, MUST, strive to stay relevant in our times, which, by the way, is the 21st century, not the mid to late 20th. That means that we must be relevant in our worship, in our way of teaching the Bible, in our liturgy and preaching. As one of our speakers mentioned today, it even includes using current illustrations that people born after 1970 are going to connect with.

We can't keep doing the same things over again hoping that the results will be different. They won't. That's called being irrelevant.