Nurture young adults in your church

Reflections on the church

Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending the first-ever meeting of the newly mandated Council on Young Adult Ministries. Having voted for this change at the 2004 General Conference, I was excited to be part of this historic meeting. After all, I had just heard these words spoken at the charge conference of First UMC, Corpus Christi, only a couple of nights before: “Young adult ministry is the black hole in our churches.” I am well aware that through this new council I have an opportunity and a responsibility to make a difference in addressing that black hole.
The true privilege that morning was the experience of listening to a set of young adults active in local churches. I want to frame for you some of what I learned by listening as well as contributing to the conversation we had.
From local churches I hear a lot of helplessness and hopelessness expressed about ministry to young adults. The same is true for youth ministry in some locales, but most churches know there are resources for youth ministry, and they find ways to get serious about serving people in middle and high schools.
After youths graduate from high school, however, their local churches suddenly go helpless about ministries to them. Because the set of young adults to which any church can minister may be small and yet diverse, hopelessness sets in about how to develop ministries for a critical mass that take into account diverse life situations.
I want to challenge you to do three things at your local church.
1. Identify the gap. Instead of acting helpless and hopeless about young adult ministries, discover what your actual situation is in relationship to the 18-to-30 age group. Do you have young adults in worship? Do you have young adults on the roles and resident who don’t worship? Do you have college students who reside elsewhere most of the year? Do you have families with young children in your neighborhood? The answers may surprise you.
2. Stand in the gap. Listen, listen, listen to those young adults. What you hear from them may surprise you, too. Some young adults will tell you how lonely they feel coming into services at the “family church” you love so much because they don’t seem like a fit. Some young adults may tell you church is boring. Some young adults may tell you they are exploring their faith and don’t know what they believe about God and church and all related subjects. Some young adults may tell you they are sick and tired of being overworked just because they are young. Some young adults may tell you that they are not actually interested in working with youths, which is the only ministry they are asked to participate in.
As a young adult, I experienced all of the above. As the mother of two young adults, I have heard all of the above expressed by my daughters. As a member of the Young Adult Council, I heard all the same experiences expressed again.
Stand in the gap on behalf of young adults and listen to them without judgment.
3. Close the gap. Empower young adults to create the ministries they want. No matter how few young adults you identify, pay attention to them without overworking them and provide the resources they need and the love they deserve as disciples of Christ.
Some day, I hope we’ll be saying, “What gap in young adult ministries are you talking about?”