Bob's Blog

One of my favorite times of the year is coming up. I'll be heading to the beach this Monday for our Focus Retreat. If you don't know what a "Focus" retreat is then let me share. Once a year, leadership from the Grace Brethren Fellowship come together in regional gatherings for mutual encouragement and vision casting. I really enjoy the short time we have together as we share, pray, sing, and rejoice in what the Lord is doing through the ministries He has given us.

This year, I'm especially anticipating what He will share with us as we look into 2 Timothy. I believe God has a significant work for our Fellowship and that the future lies with young leadership. What a great book to study in seeing how we can disciple young people in our churches. Please pray for us as we start this Monday, January 26 and conclude on Wednesday, January 28th. I'll post pictures and a report of the retreat next week.

For many young people, church is no longer essential in their lives, and churches are either unaware of this growing problem or are not equipped to stop the exodus of twenty-somethings from their congregation. Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resource and author of the national bestseller Simple Church, and his son Sam Rainer, a senior pastor and contributor to Outreach Magazine, have written a book filled with valuable research and insightful evaluation in why our churches are losing their young adults and how we can reclaim them for Christ.

Much of the ground work is done by LifeWay Research, connected with the Southern Baptist group, and can be followed up by going to their website. The book is a straightforward critique on the churches short-comings in discipling their own young people of Generation X and Millennials, and has done their work to substantiate their findings. The Rainers main focus is on young people (starting from around age 16 to early twenties), who have grown up in a local church, and who left once they reached the age of seventeen. They also have concentrated on those who have stayed through their teen years and into young adulthood. You'll have to buy their book in order to see the reasons why.

Their book has been a great help to me. I've even used their questions they asked college-age people with students out here (California) and found their answers reflecting much of what Thom and Sam Rainer have discovered. If your church is struggling with keeping your young people once they start reaching their college years or if twenty-somethings are a small minority in your church, then grab this book and sit down with your leadership. Make it a small group study and see if you need to reclaim a younger generation in your church.