How do we reach younger people?
By Stephen J. Hustedt, Director of Communications
As the summer comes to an end, students head back to school, and people finish up their vacations a full and exciting fall is just ahead of us. In the life of The Desert Southwest Conference this means it is time for meetings, events, ministry, and more meetings at all levels of the church. One of the topics that will be discussed at many of these meetings is the Rethink Church movement.
For a couple of years now the term Rethink Church has been thrown around a lot, but in the last six months to a year the movement has really started to take shape. At the heart of the movement is a belief that the United Methodist Church needs to return to its roots. The church must once again become outbound, unbound, and focused on making disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world. This is not a movement about saving our churches or even our denomination. It is a movement about changing the world!
However, when most people reference Rethink Church they are referencing the campaign primarily targeting 18-34 year olds with a secondary audience of 35-49 year olds. This focus was thrust even further into the spotlight when the Council of Bishops recently called for the church to lower the average age of its members by 10 years within 10 years. The Desert Southwest Conference has embraced both the call and the campaign with a fair amount of excitement, and, of course, some push back.
During a recent Rethink Church training session, I was asked why 18-34 year olds are the ones being targeted. Doesn’t that mean we are leaving some people out? My response was that this is the key demographic that is missing from our churches. We are targeting 18-34 year olds because they are the ones that need to hear our story more than anyone else.
This was the wrong answer. Quickly, the training session became a debate or perhaps a series of opportunities to grandstand (some of which were, of course, taken by me). In retrospect, questioning if I (or even the significant data mining and analysis that has gone into this campaign) have the right to say who needs to hear our story most desperately is fair. The problem is that we were talking about Rethink Church as defining what we do rather than who we are.
If we truly believe that it is our mission to make disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world that is an incredible responsibility. God is calling us, the people called United Methodists, to bring forth the people and talents to transform the world! It doesn’t seem like we can afford to fail at what we’ve been called to do. We have to do everything we can to make disciples, and targeting a particular demographic is not about feelings, fairness, or even justice. It is about finding the most fruitful ground to begin the harvest, and using that as a starting point to share our story with all the hungry and lonely people who desperately need to hear it. That is why 18-34 year olds are being targeted in the campaign element of Rethink Church, but what is important is the Rethink Church movement.
We are called to make disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world. This is something we should all be able to agree on. Even if one of those new disciples sits in your usual seat and their kids talk during worship, what is important is what God has called us to do.
So, if we can agree that we do need to take particular care to reach out to young people, how do we do it? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as weaving words like text and tweet into our sermons. Young people do not always think and act like the majority of United Methodists, but they are as a whole one of the most spiritually hungry demographics. This means we do have something to offer them, if we can just figure out how to tell them that without scaring them off.
There is an article out of United Methodist Communications that has been making the rounds and does a good job of describing what this demographic looks like. You can read that article here tinyurl.com/yjj4osa, but there are some short, if not easy, answers:
- Stop asking why young people can’t just be satisfied doing things the way we always do it
- Go to where young people are and ask young people what they are looking for in their spiritual journey
- Don’t try to be something you’re not
- Try new things
- Find your passion and share it with others
- Focus more on those who are not connected than on those who are connected (all those connected have been called by God for the same mission and should not lose track of that)
- Keep the focus on mission, ministry, and faith
- Most importantly, start to put making disciples of Jesus above everything else (get outside your walls, go outside your comfort zone, be the visible body of Christ on earth, and share your story)
After all, if we truly believe what we say we believe— If we truly believe that we are called to make disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world—then the details that we usually become focused on are the easy part. Following in the footsteps of Jesus so that we might fulfill our call is the hard part.
Editor’s note: A great way to begin to reach out to young people is to participate in the Relevance Sunday special offering that is being held across The Desert Southwest Conference on September 12. You can learn more about Relevance Sunday and young adult ministries in the article titled “It’s more than just another Sunday” in this issue of The Desert Connection.
(Left) The intense research that helped form the Rethink Church campaign showed that younger people were more interested in mission and ministry than in what kind of music or style of worship a church focused on. It is important for younger people to feel that they are positively impacting their world.
(Left, center) The Millennial Generation is generally very diverse, socially conscious, and spiritually hungry. They are looking for answers and to get involved, but they have a hard time trusting institutions and many have a negative view of the Church.
(Right, center) While there are some younger people serving as leaders in the church, the church is struggling greatly with how to reach young people in large numbers. Rethink Church is striving to reach the 18-34 year olds and share our story with this spiritually hungry demographic.
(Right) The United Methodist Church has something to offer younger people. It’s just a matter of learning how to share our story with this spiritually hungry and often lonely group.