Mostly Minority: How the Church Must Adapt

I don’t know if you saw, but last week, new Census data showed that more minority births were reported than non-hispanic white births. It’s the first time ever that over 50% of births have been minorities.

First off, I love this.

I love that we’re becoming more diverse ethnically as a society. I think it leads to new experiences, steps our of our comfort zones, and new ways to connect with each other.

Reading this story, though, I couldn’t help but think about the local church.

If the local church is going to reach the world (which we MUST), we’re gonna have to do it with people that don’t look like us and often don’t act like us either.

We’re going to have to reach people that we’re not used to having relationships with…

We’re gonna have to get comfortable being uncomfortable until it’s no longer uncomfortable.

It’s the only way.

You see, when something like this is brought to light, we have a choice as Christians in the Church…

We can let it educate us and leverage it,
or we can ignore it.

We have to recognize and be intentional about reaching the WORLD.

Is the local church you go to ‘diverse’? What steps does the Church as a whole need to take toward reaching a more diverse crowd and generation? 

[You can read the story about the Census data here.]

What Young People Think About the Bible

Thom Rainer posted this on twitter a few weeks ago…

Just 6% of Millennials believe the Bible is the written word of God…

Wow!

Just 6%!

I don’t know what kind of poll was taken by Rainer and his organization, but regardles this is alarming.

It’s alarming for me as a young person to think how few of my peers really believe that the words of God are real.
It’s alarming to older generations because it means they haven’t done the best job of teaching the importance of scripture.

Of course, my number one question about this stat is ‘WHY?’

Why is it that so few of us believe in the Word?

I’m not saying I have the entire answer or all of the answer comes down to this, but I do believe that,
we’ve done a bad job of showing the power of scripture.

We haven’t lived it out and displayed its beauty and life changing truth.

You see, I know this about my generation. I know that we want to see to believe. We want to know that what we’re doing matters and is making a difference. We want the truth, but we want it verified.

After all, if it really is the word of the Almighty, it should change lives and countries and generations.

But,

I think we’ve dropped the ball on verifying the truth of scripture.

The love.
The Grace.
The Beauty.
The Power.
The Mercy.

of God… of Christ.

What do you think? Why do only 6% of young people (millennials) believe scripture to be the Word of God? Would love to hear your thoughts. 

[I wrote 3 tips for reaching young people here.]

Know the Culture. Use the Culture. Reach the Culture.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were at the mall and walked by the Ghost Armor kiosk. I had heard of Ghost Armor and heard some pretty good reviews from people that had used it, so I stopped by the kiosk. I walked up to the guy working and asked a few questions and told him I’d think about it and let him know. He gave me his card and said something really brilliant (at least I thought it was). He said…

“here’s my card, if you have any questions, you can call or just text me and I’ll be happy to answer em.”

The part that I thought was so great about that sentence?

He said I could text him with questions.

Being a retailer of something that specifically deals with mobile devices (tablets, laptops, cell phones, etc…), I thought it was a brilliant way to serve their customers.

It’s a great example of knowing the culture and using the culture to accomplish the goal.

The guy at the kiosk, his goal was to cell me a $40 film for my iPhone, your goal may be much different, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use what’s familiar to your target audience to reach them with your product/service/message.

It could be that you wanna…

• stay in touch with your children.
• reach your city for Christ.
• teach your students something you believe is important.
• train volunteers.
• train employees.
• lead a group of seniors.
• sell a product.

We’ve gotta…

Know the culture.
Know what’s familiar.
Use the culture.
Reach the culture.

In what ways do you currently leverage the culture you’re in to reach the culture you target?

[For more on reaching your culture, see my post here.]

3 Reasons the Church Will NOT Lose My Generation

Last week, I wrote a post about how the church is losing a generation…
the millennial generation…
my generation.

Today, I thought I’d change the tone a little bit and give 3 reasons the church WILL NOT lose my generation…

1. Leaders will adapt.

I really believe that the Church is made up of great leaders with great vision that are willing to change if it means seeing lives and eternities change. I believe that these leaders will change method, programming, philosophy, etc to see that my generation hears the Gospel. It’s going to take us seeking God and begging God to give us wisdom, knowledge, and strength, but I believe we will… we must!

2. Christians will relate.

Christians will learn to relate to a generation that is different from every other. Christians will learn to relate to a group of people that have been raised on MTV, Disney Channel, and iPhones. They’ll learn that ultimately, my generation wants to be stimulated and wants real relationship. I really believe that Christians will grasp this and begin using it to reach a generation that so despeerately needs to hear about Jesus.

3. Jesus is King.

Ultimately, I hang on the fact that when Jesus is lifted up, He draws men to Himself. Ultimately, Jesus is King regardless and reigns forever. He promised that the gates of hell would never prevail. He is the king.

What are your thoughts?

[You can read last week's post here.]

Why the Church is Losing a Generation & What We Can Do About It

As I visit with and am around churches and church leaders of all different denominations and locations, I see a trend…

We’re losing the next generation… my generation.

I don’t know where it started or how it happened, but somehow, my generation isn’t interested in what the church is doing.

• We’re interested in ‘spiritual’ matters,
• we’re interested in working together,
• we’re interested in relationships,
• we’re interested in making an impact,
• we’re interested in helping others,

but we’re not interested in what the majority of churches are doing. 

Youth ministry doesn’t seem to be working as we’ve always done it,
college ministry is declining in attendance and therefore, in churches willing to do it,
the average age at most churches is getting higher,

and the church is losing a generation.

While some churches are far behind and don’t seem to care (they refuse to take the smallest step away from ‘the usual’),
others are fighting and beating the air as to what to do.

I don’t write this to say that I have the answer, I definitely don’t, I write this to say that it’s alarming me that my peers don’t care about our church… about our Christ.

I don’t have ‘the’ answer, but here are some thoughts about what church has to look like in order to get back my generation…

1. Relationship. – The attractional church model worked… it can still. Not without relationship, though. When I say relationship, I don’t mean we sit people in circles, take prayer requests, and read a Psalm, I mean real, organic relationship.

2. Realism. – Genuine care about my generation. Real faith displayed in daily life. My generation is looking for something that’s more real than the rest of what’s fed to us… your people need to live out their faith for the world to see.

3. Responsibility. – My generation wants responsibility, we want the real truth. For the most part, we’re starving for direction and something that works and is absolute. We don’t mind owning something and being challenged with it.

Now, I know these aren’t processes or programming ideas, but they’re just things that I’ve noticed about the millennial generation. In fact, I’m not sure the answer for getting this generation back into church lies in a program or process,

I think it’s lost in those…
We have to do some much more…
we have to build relationships and earn trust…
we have to do the hard work and ask God to give us our young people in our city…

before it’s too late.

Okay pastor, youth pastor, parent, teacher, or youth… let’s put our heads together…

What do you think it’ll take to turn the young generation back on to the local church?

[For more about reaching millennials, see this post & my free ebook.]