Bob's Blog

I had the opportunity to meet with Doug Berry of RockHarbor, a church of over 6,000 with about half the attendees being thirty and younger. He's been with the church since its beginnings and for the past six years has overseen their growing small group ministry called Life Groups.

When they first started with Life Groups, Doug wanted the church to know that this wasn't going to be any ordinary small group program. As he shared with me, "I wanted to raise the bar with their commitment." At the first meeting for those wanting to be a part of the leadership team, around 80 showed up. "I just didn't want anyone leading our groups" exclaimed Doug, so they started off small, refining and tweaking until they looked like what he believed God wanted their groups to look like. "I don't read a lot," said Doug, "but I like to check out what others are doing, to observe their ministries". So, after a few years of experimenting ("I really didn't know what I was doing at the beginning"), Life Groups started to take off and now Doug oversees more than 350 leaders with over 2000 involved.

How did this happen? What are some of the keys that Doug believes made Life Groups successful at RockHarbor? Here are two essentials he shared.

• "First, your leadership needs to be on board. Life Groups are a part of our DNA, to the point that if you are not in a Life Group, you might not feel so connected with our church. For us, church is not on Saturday night or Sunday morning but is really through our Life Groups". As Doug went on to explain, "Our pastors support this by being involved in their own Life Groups and referring to LG's during their teaching time, outreaches, and through other ministries at RockHarbor".
• "Second, Life Groups are a part of RockHarbor's vision. If Todd's vision (Lead Pastor Todd Proctor) wasn't about Life Groups, then LG's would fold". As Doug emphasizes, "We are committed to grow through Life Groups".

Other observations about RockHarbor's small group ministry:

• LG's are normally no bigger than 12 in a group. This works best for discussion.
• Their leaders are facilitators and not teachers.
• Training is huge for LG's. "Nuggets" is an on going training track that every LG leaders must attend.
• "4321" is another training model they use. Each LG leader has a pastor that they meet with 4 times a year. They must attend at least 3 Nuggets, 2 spiritual "experience" (retreat, etc...), and 1 leadership seminar.
• There are no "Age-stage" ministries. Everything they do is as a Body. All LG's are mixed generational.

If you'd like to know more about Life Groups or about RockHarbor, just click onto their link that is posted on this blog page.

I came across an article about how teens view having a job to a means of gaining security in their life. John Page, a manager for a market research firm called Youth Insights at Yankelvoich, states, "Teens have a strong sense that they are going to be able to accomplish things in their lifetimes that other generations didn't" (USA Weekend, June 8-10, 2007). Millennials have a positive outlook for their future, which includes the type of career they will have and how that career will bring them wealth and security.

According to a Yankelvoich study:

• 60% of teens believe that they'll be rich someday. They believe that their job (at the present) will be a stepping-stone to a path of success for tomorrow.
• Nearly 70% of 16- to 19- year olds say they work hard to come on top in every situation, vs. 54% of 30- to 39- year olds.
• Of teens ages 16 to 19, over 4 million work part time, almost 2 million work full time, and a little over one million are still looking for work.

How does this affect the Church? Many young Christians need good counseling about how to use what God is providing for them. A study by the VNU Business Media & Harrison Group shows that teens spend most of their cash on clothes, food, cars, movies, and cell phones. One of the things I discovered as a college Resident Director at a Christian school was how uninformed most college students were about finances. Many, and I do mean many, had loans for college but had no idea how much they had to pay back or what the cost for living would be once they left school. So, with the help of some college students, we developed seminars for our senior class. We brought in financial advisers to answer questions about loans. We tapped into our career advisor center to share about the "real world" and what costs were out there. Churches can do the same thing to help young adults in their community. Here are a few ideas:

• Provide financial seminars at your church. You can advertise on your local college campus. You would be amazed at who will come when free financial help is offered.
• Bring a financial advisor into your Sunday school class. Maybe you have someone in your church who is willing to share their expertise with young adults. Many loan companies are more than willing to give their time to help in this area. It's a great contact for them and it meets a need for your people.
• If you have a mentorship program going, do not neglect the area of finances. Mentor relationships are not only for spiritual guidance but also for practical mentoring.

These are just a few ideas, and I'm sure you can come up with more. Remember that Millennials are very focused on their future, and when the Church takes an interest in them, they see the Church as an ally to help them to navigate through life.

Churches across denominational lines are asking the same questions: how do you draw young adults into the Church? Many churches are finding that merely changing the look of Sunday morning services or adding Emergent-style programs is not getting the results they are looking for, which is reaching the 18-31 age demographic. So, what does draw young adults into the Church?

Mission & Service
According to Howe & Strauss, young adults are highly motivated by just causes and service. Last February, Wheaton College hosted an AIDS Benefit through their Student Global AIDS Campaign chapter. The evening helped to fund a maternity ward in Uganda as well as to serve Ugandan women and children affected by HIV/AIDS. Wheaton is noted for its strong involvement in bringing awareness to social issues. Many church college groups are involved in their community or take overseas mission trips, but most serve through the church's college ministries and are segregated from the rest of the churches missions or outreach programs. But when a church gathers all ages together to build shelter for the homeless or serve in other ways, young adults feel more connected to the Body. They begin to build relationships with older & younger Christians, which they truly desire to have. That's what happened at Los Altos Grace Brethren Church.


The college group decided to build a home in Mexico through an organization called Hands of Mercy. They needed to raise money for materials and volunteers for the construction. So, they made an announcement in the church. "We just invited the church," shared Jenna Helfer, one of the college students who oversaw the project. "Most things are separated in the church," added Shanna Mason, another of the organizers, "but the church was excited that the college group wanted to do this." Others who helped were Aryn Negron and Kim Kertz, who managed the fundraising. By the time the they were finished, they had raised nearly $15,000, enough to build three houses and a deck for the missionaries.


But the best part was seeing how many from the church volunteered. "We had a work day that Saturday before we left to construct some of the frames, and we had whole families helping out, "said Jenna. Even Ayrn's 90 year old neighbor pitched in and gave a hand. I asked them if they would do it again. "We'll, maybe once we get some rest," said Shanna, "but we would love to do it again." People from the church have gone down since then and visited those they helped, but just as important was what it did for the church. "I think we feel closer to the college students," shared Miles Fischer, a long time attendee at Los Altos. "We got to know some of them, and they got to know us, and I think it's helped our church."


If you want to hear more about their story, you can contact pastor Phil Helfer at office@lagbc.org or 562.596.3358.

Do you ever think about the future of the Church, especially here in America? I do. I always think about it. Lately, I've been thinking and talking with others about what we see happening in our churches. We seem to be churches that are segregating ourselves, and I'm not talking about from the world but from each other. We divide our Sunday morning teaching times by age. We have classes for elementary, youth, college, and adults. We even separate our adults. Usually, the older adult classes were the young adult classes a few years back. We just move the class along through the years. It's sort of a "continuous graduation," the same people moving with you from one decade to the next.

The problem I see is that we are slowly losing something very vital for us, and that is the multi-generational church. Now, you can have many ages represented in your church, but that doesn't mean your church is multi-generational. To know if your church is multi-generational is to answer these questions. Are the people in your church interwoven with each other? Do young adults feel that they belong? Do older Christians take an interest in those younger than them? Do the kids have contact with adults other than an hour on Sunday morning? In other words, is it a Body that looks like a body or are its parts scattered around the floor?

I feel we lose something when generations stop interacting with each other. I'm not sure if God intended it to be that way. I see so many examples of generational mentoring going on in Scripture (Paul with Timothy & Titus, Silas & Mark, Titus exhorting the church in Crete, etc...). I love the thought of Paul taking under his wings younger men like Timothy and Titus, showing them the ropes of their faith. Isolated age-stage ministry can result in seeing churches divide. We saw this in the 80's where Boomers wanted a church that connected with their generation, so they developed their own with their style of music, sound, lighting, and worship that met their needs. The ironic part about it is that now their kids are in their twenties and are leaving mom and dad's Boomer churches because these Millennials find them irrelevant to their generation. They want real, relevant, and vintage style churches, and so the cycle continues.

I'm not saying that there is no need for the Church to be culturally relevant or that some churches were meant for a time, but we lose depth of maturity when our church is mostly populated by twentysomethings. We miss the energy and legacy of the church if it is lead only by older adults. But most important is this: we miss the opportunity to experience the diversity that God has created from one generation to the next. We lose the lesson of sacrificing our "needs" for the joy of serving others outside our world. I need those older and younger around me to make me the person Christ desires me to be. I need other insights from different vantage points in life to do that. I need a multi-generational church, and I think you do as well.