Bob's Blog

The past few weeks have been very busy and insightful for me. I've been traveling and meeting with many of you who are desiring to reach out to a new sub culture generation called Emerging Adults. This age group ranges from approximately 18-25 and has been written about by such magazines as Newsweek and Time and reported by TV news magazines on NBC and ABC. This group is fast becoming the next new youth group (Chuck Bomar, Cornerstone Church) transitioning from late adolescence into young adulthood (Jeffery Arnett, Emerging Adulthood). Here are just a few ways churches are successfully helping this group transition into the Church:

• A pastor or committed lay leaders to shepherd the group.
• Church leadership recognizing this age group as a transition period between late adolescence and young adulthood.
• Relationships is the key to connecting them to the church body.
• Older adults play a significant role in helping them transition into young adults.
• Churches that are service/evangelistic oriented draw and keep this group.
• They gravitate towards churches that teach relevant sound doctrine.

These are just a few ways churches are seeing their young people stay and not leave the church once they hit ages 18-25. Most churches are trying to assimilate young people into a morning service but this will not work. Most church services are geared towards Boomers at best and have little connection to the Emerging Adult world. Even if you do change the worship music and bring in candles, they still will leave. The reason is that it is not only about atmosphere (although you should see if you need to rethink how you present the Gospel to their generation) but it is about biblical community. Connecting them to the Body is what they long for rather than getting them to sit for a church service.

If you are looking for resources that will help your church to reach out to this age group (traditionally called the College Group), feel free to email me at calibobble@yahoo.com.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 8:18 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.