This is one of the most common questions I am asked from the churches I serve and from those who attend my conferences. Although I have answered this question many times, this morning the answer became even more clear to me as I was working on a paper for my upcoming DMin class. In fact, I immediately came to this blog to share it with you while it was still fresh on my mind.
The primary reason many of our existing churches are not reaching younger people is because our structures, our ministries, and our programs are not designed to reach them. The current structures, ministries, and programs in many of our existing churches were designed to reach the parents and grandparents of the young people we are not reaching today. In fact, in many cases these structures, ministries, and programs were designed to reach those older generations and replaced even older systems that were not reaching them. It seems odd to me that we are so resistant to make the changes necessary today to reach the current young people when changes were made many years ago to reach out to us.
I encourage you to closely look at your current church structure, your current programming, and your current ministries and try to determine if any of that would be appealing to young people today. Ask your own teenagers what they would change if the could, but be ready for an honest answer that you may not appreciate! If you don't have teens, borrow some and ask for their input. Ask young families in your neighborhood what they would look for in a church.
Unless we are willing to change the current way we do church we will see more and more young people abandon our churches. If we're lucky they will go to the Community church down the road that doesn't have some of the hang-ups we have about our traditions. If we're not so lucky our young people will abandon the church altogether.
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