Archive for: interviews

Preaching to Young Adults-The Interview Project Conclusions

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | Comments (0)

After the first trip, including the visit to Frontline, I performed a wedding for a friend who lives in Washington D.C. and works as a lawyer. His former law professor and current employer was seated with me at the reception. In making conversation, we talked about the “Interview Project” and my recent visit to the Washington D.C. suburbs. Very interested in the project, the older gentleman asked if it was necessary to be younger to reach the younger generations. Most American churches interested in attracting and retaining significant populations of twenty-somethings either explicitly or implicitly respond to that question. Many churches do not seem to notice the missing 18-35 year olds in the church or dismiss it as a temporary situation. The churches that do notice and take action mostly respond by hiring a young, cool, hip guy to reach twenty-somethings, thereby implying that it is a job best accomplished by a younger generation. While hiring a younger person often means there will be a common culture, Read More→

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Preaching to Young Adults-the Interview Project #6

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | Comments (0)

ADVENTURE # 5: NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH (WASHINGTON D.C.)

Although popular today for churches to open or begin new services in movie theaters, National Community Church (NCC) adopted this approach to ministry out of necessity, before  the widespread acceptance of the idea. Real estate prices in Washington D.C. caused them to open up in a theater in a subway station. However, they continued to be innovative by purchasing their first piece of property, an old rundown building, to create a creative, high quality community coffeehouse, Ebenezers. AOL City Guide recently named Ebenezers the number one coffeehouse in Washington D.C.

As mentioned before in the discussion of Mercy Hill, there is an obvious cool factor about meeting in a movie theater-especially in a subway station. There is no “churchy” feel to the building and many young adults find it less intimidating to enter a movie theater or coffeehouse than a church. For the purpose of this project, timing made it impossible to do an onsite evaluation. So, Heather Zempel‘s sermon was evaluated through their podcast. However, previous visits with young adults to both the Union Station and Ebenezers Coffeehouse venues received extremely positive feedback. Read More→

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Preaching to Young Adults-The Interview Project #5

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Comments (0)

ADVENTURE #4: VALLEY CHURCH (ALLENTOWN, PA)

Located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Valley Church originally existed as Christian Life Community Church. Under Eric Miller’s leadership, the church transformed into Valley Church. Eric’s brother Craig served on staff at a large Assemblies of God church near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After leaving staff, Craig relocated to Allentown to work alongside his brother at Valley Church. When Craig relocated, a group of young adults decided to move as well. Quitting their jobs, they moved across the state to find new employment and serve as volunteers at Valley Church. While not technically a church plant, this variation of the Team Planting model demonstrates the commitment to community and mission, which affects the nature of the church.  When asked about the change in dynamics, Eric notes that the contingent from Harrisburg brings servanthood and loyalty to the table—but to others it can appear to be Craig’s posse. The addition of Craig to the staff frees Eric from being solo pastor and having to have a hand in everything. Craig’s unstructured and creative nature balances Eric’s structured and academic personality. Their chemistry and complementary relationship creates a unique dynamic that others notice and appreciate.1 Read More→

  1. Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 64-69. [↩]
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Preaching to Young Adults-The Interview Project #1

Posted by Jeff on Friday, April 24th, 2009 | Comments (2)

The Beginning of the Journey

“What type of preaching reaches young adults?” is a question I ask myself repeatedly as I attempt to speak and preach about faith in Christ in a way that connects with twenty-somethings.1  With a variety of styles and values available to a speaker, how and what they choose reflects their own beliefs and values and also influences how the message is heard. The message the majority of American churches preach is not connecting with young adults. Church attendance among the youngest generations continues to decline. Reggie McNeal cites a study by Dawson McAlister, a nationally known youth specialist, on persons actively involved in high school youth groups as teenagers. Ninety percent of those actively participating as teenagers no longer attend church by their sophomore year in college. One third of those never return to church as they mature.2 Using statistics by David Barrett, Stephen Lim notes that globally, the number of committed Christians continues to grow two times faster than the world population. In the United States, however, younger generations decreasingly identify themselves as Christians.3 Thom Rainer surveyed 1300 people in each of the four generational groups. Rainer found that sixty-five percent of Builders (born before 1946), thirty-five percent of Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), fifteen percent of Generation X (born between 1965 and 1976) and only four percent of Generation Y (born between 1976 and 1994) responded to survey questions in such a way as to be identified as born again.4  There is an obvious disconnection between the church and younger generations. This series of blogs is about a journey to observe, experience, evaluate and reflect on ministries and churches that are attracting young adults. Read More→

  1. Although variously defined, young adult normally refers to people approximately 18-35 years old. This term is often used interchangeably with twenty-somethings. However, for the purpose of this series of blogs, twenty-somethings shall refer to the subset of young adults approximately 18-29. [↩]
  2. Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 4. [↩]
  3. Lim, Stephen. “Leading Missional Ministry.” Class notes for Core 2 Course at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, Springfield, MO, June 11-14, 2007. [↩]
  4. Reggie McNeal, The Present Future, 4 [↩]
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