This is a response to a blog posted by Dustan Bell, one of the pastors at Kings Christian Church. Dusty was posing the question about young adults ministries and what would make a successful ministry to the age group of the 20 - 30 something.
My thought is that the best way to find out what a young adult needs is to ask them. As I fall into that category my thoughts on the idea of setting up a ministry for the young adults is this.
I think one of the worst mistakes in the setting up of a youth ministry is to try to put us into a demographic and bracket that doesn't need to be there so stop calling us young adults.
Sure we don't have the life experience of a 40 or 50 year old, but we're adults. We don't need another night out during the week because some of us have kids, quite a lot of us have demanding jobs and are having trouble finding the time to balance the commitments we already have. We don't need a dumbed down message that's specially sculpted to our short attention spans, we need something hard hitting, challenging and something we can get our teeth into. We get our spiritual food from the message on Sunday and we worship together on Sundays too, just like all the other adults in the church. We don't need an organised meeting to spend time with our christian friends, or to drag our unsaved mates along to. We're probably just going to go down to the pizzeria and spend time with our mates anyways at a time that works for us and fits into our busy schedules.
I know what I need from a ministry is mentoring, not another night out. I need a guy who's been there before me, been through the stuff that I've been through and come out the other side. A guy who can come alongside me and relate to where I'm standing and give me the perspective, the camera 4 view (thanks phil), and let me know there is a way to get through what I'm facing, and that God has got it all under control. Could you imagine what it would be like if we did all have people around us, praying for us and with us, giving us a pat on the back and a clip over the head when we need it? Judging from the reaction I got from my brother and my best mate to the suggestion of a mentoring ministry there is something to this form of ministry.
My thoughts on how to design a ministry for young adults would be this. Go buy a marketing text book, not a ministry text, and pull out the four P's of marketing or factors that will influence someone toward buying into something.
The first P is product. What are you trying to sell? What are the specifics about this service? and the big question is, does the service meet the needs of those people who you are targeting? If you dont the answer to this question then it's uncertain the service or ministry will work. The other thing is do you even know what those needs are? How are you going to be able to build a ministry that meets a need if you don't know what it is!
The second P is price and this isn't necessarily money. In terms of a ministry this can be the amount of time and effort it requires of the people involved. Will it be another night out in an already stretched week, or will it be travel to many different places? Door charge? If the cost is something that people aren't willing to pay then it'll flop. Although if the product is deemed worthy then people will pay to get it. Get the product right and the audience will meet the price.
The third P is promotion. If people don't know about something then it'll flop, the other side of this is if you tell them about it in the wrong way then they won't buy into it either. Do you spread the word via word of mouth or some other creative method or another dinky ad on church news which no-one pays attention to?
The fourth P is placement or how the product gets to the target market. If the targeted person can't get to it for many factors like shifting schedules, busy diaries and lack of money or petrol then it'll flop. Structure the ministry so that it's flexible in time and place and for a young adult, you've got a winner.
That's just my opinion on young adult ministrys. Thanks for asking Dusty!
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4 comments:
I notice that the original post by Dusty has been canned. I have a copy saved though if anyone wants to read it... hehe. Possibly it was too controversial. It's a big job to appeal to a demographic that are also being screamed at by the mass advertising of the world. They have a lot of expendable income, but are also the target the consumerist society we live in.
I for one don't want to go to a 'program'. I don't want to be at another scheduled social gathering and I definitely don't have time to go to another meeting. A coaching/mentoring idea based around relevant issues would be fantastic. I want to know how I can live the best life in God that I possibly can. Going to a 'youth/young adults' meeting as they are currently being run will not help me to do that!
If the church had enough nouse to just ask a lot of 'young adults' what they wanted, rather than foisting upon them their idea what they think this demographic should have, I daresay the results would speak for themselves.
Here's the original article:
Church & Young Adultsfrom dustan bell by dustan bell
I am increasingly convinced that the church (in general) must take seriously the challenge of providing a relevant and effective ministry for young adults (or "20 somethings"). My increasing thought toward this age bracket is probably due to the fact that I'm now no longer involved with weekly youth ministry and am in the "20 something" age bracket!
In an article titled "Twentysomethings Struggle to Find Their Place in Christian Churches" - http://www.barna.org/flexpage.aspx?page=barnaupdate&barnaupdateID=149 - from September 2003, The Barna Research Group wrote the following from their studies of the church in America:
"From age 20 to 29, most individuals face many life-shaping decisions: whether to finish college; what career to pursue; where to live; whether or not to get married; who to marry; if and when to have children – among many other crucial choices. In our culture of hyper-individualism, those decisions are being increasingly shaped by people’s desire to determine their own personal fulfillment and purpose in life. For many twentysomethings, allegiance to Christian churches is a casualty of their efforts to "create their own version of fulfillment.
"...Many twentysomethings are reversing course after having been active church attenders during their teenage years. As teenagers, more than half attended church each week and more than 4 out of 5 (81%) had ever gone to a Christian church. That means that from high school graduation to age 25 there is a 42% drop in weekly church attendance and a 58% decline from age 18 to age 29. That represents about 8,000,000 twentysomethings alive today who were active church-goers as teenagers but who will no longer be active in a church by their 30th birthday."
Thoughts?
In the real world you have to give people a reason why they want what you have to offer. The art of marketing is effectively communicating in an interesting way, the reason they need what you have to offer.
I remember those P's from my uni days!
Amen to that! A mentoring program is such a good idea. My old church back in California had one and it was really effective, it's so important to go deeper than just the superficial get-togethers that are the norm in 20-something ministries.
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