One of the questions almost every church leader I know is asking is “How do we reach Millennials?”—that demographic of young adults now in their late teens to mid-30s.
It’s a great question.
One of the primary missions of every generation of church leaders is to hand the faith and the church over to the next generation. Practically speaking, churches that fail to reach young adults will struggle far more a decade from now than churches that don’t.
Often the conversation goes quickly to what you need to do in the church to reach the next generation.
But is that actually the right question to ask?
The penny dropped for me recently in (yet another) conversation I had with young adults about the church and the future.
Maybe Millennials are asking a very different question.
And the question they’re asking is good news for almost every church leader, because it’s not only about what you do, how many resources you have or even your model of ministry. It’s bigger than that.
In fact, Millennials might be looking for something bigger than all of that. The good news? It’s something almost every church leader can offer regardless of church size, budget or staffing.
The Dinner Party Where No One Agreed…Until
I had a free ranging dinner conversation recently with eight young adult church leaders (ranging in age from the mid-20s to early 30s) and I simply asked them, “If you could design a church for your generation, what would it look like?”
The conversation actually turned out quite similar to a number of conversations I’ve had with young church leaders. No one actually agreed with each other.
One young leader thought messages should be 20 minutes long. Others thought messages should be ‘deep’ and biblical and length wasn’t that important.
When I drilled down, no one could really agree on what deep or biblical meant.
Some thought worship should be longer while others thought this could be an impediment to inviting their friends.
When it came to community groups or outreach, there were mixed opinions on what to do.
After 45 minutes, no real consensus emerged.
This is quite typical among the many conversations I’ve had with churched and unchurched Millennials.
I’d preached at their church earlier that day and so I asked them for some honest no-holds-barred feedback. They told me the message really resonated, so I pushed deeper (come on, you can tell me the truth) and asked them why. My message was more like 40 minutes, after all (not 20), and I’m old enough to be the dad of some of the people around the table. I was really anxious for their feedback.
