Preaching to Young Adults-The Interview Project #1

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.

Initial Criteria

In order to limit biases in church and ministry selection, several well-respected people in the Penn-Del District Office of the Assemblies of God were emailed. Their recommendations of churches were sought since it is my current District and ministry context. The initial selection criteria for the paper included 1) a recommendation from someone within the District hierarchy since it might be assumed that they would have a greater knowledge of ministries in the region 2) the home church of the one making the recommendation was not considered 3) any recommendations of churches or ministries led by or staffed by family members of those making recommendations were not eligible 4) since the long term effectiveness of proclamation should be the goal of any ministry, ministries must have been in existence and reaching young adults for more than a year. Churches meeting these criteria were selected, reviewed and contacted about the possibility of interviews with a member of the preaching team.

Criteria Changes

On our first trip, we encountered two twenty-something female baristas at a Starbucks before we visited Mercy Hill Church with Keith Davis. Tom, my videographer, asked them if they had heard about the church. We talked about the project and what we were doing. Before leaving for the next interview, we stopped at the same Starbucks and both baristas asked how it went. During the process of talking about the church and the project, one of them asked one of the most profound questions of the trip, “Where do you find churches like that?” Her question haunted me all the way to our next interview. This is a perfect example of a twenty-something who is interested in the kind of spiritual communities we’re visiting, but would have trouble finding one even though she works a few miles from where one meets. At the next interview, I related this story to the interviewee and he offered the same answer we did–it’s a network of people who know other people. While no easy solution to this dilemma exists, it did cause me to rethink my criteria and include Valley Church in Allentown. Although it did not receive a recommendation from any District official surveyed, I personally know the staff and some core volunteers. Since I would recommend the church to a twenty-something, the church was included in the church list.

Methodology

The websites of the selected churches were then used to get a rough idea of how the ministry is done. An interview with either the lead pastor or another member of the preaching team was conducted after an onsite evaluation of a sermon delivered by the person to be interviewed. When possible, the interviews were filmed the day of the sermon. In some cases, it was impossible to schedule an interview on the same day as the sermon. Also, due to scheduling difficulties, one sermon evaluation, Heather Zempel of National Community Church, was performed through a video podcast instead of part of an onsite evaluation.

Roadtrips are more fun when you bring along friends. In each of the onsite interviews, I invited along one twenty-something to be the cameraperson. Additionally, I invited a small group of twenty-somethings along for the journey, asking each to do a sermon evaluation as well. Since I am no longer a twenty-something, this provides another dimension to the evaluation. Citing each person’s evaluation would be a cumbersome task. Therefore, the observations of the twenty-somethings are incorporated into the general sermon evaluation.

More than Preaching

Preaching is not done in isolation from other parts of the church. A church’s philosophy of ministry affects the preaching as well as how they “do church” in other areas. Churches that retain young adults preach a specific way that attracts or retains young adults. But their other structures complement and reinforce the message they proclaim. This interconnection requires that preaching and practice of ministry be discussed together. While the interviews were conducted to discuss the preaching, other aspects of the churches were discussed in order to get a fuller picture of what connects with young adults. This series of blogs will tell their stories as it discusses their preaching.

While there was an initial list of questions posed to the interviewees, they were encouraged to tell their story, not just quickly answer. So as to get a fuller picture of how each church approaches preaching, subsequent questions were posed after their initial answers. Although difficult to quantify, perhaps the greatest measure of the effectiveness of a ministry is the lives it changes. At the conclusion of each interview, we simply asked, “What are some God Stories? What is going on here as a result of the preaching ministry?”

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 [↩]