Who’s pulling in the young adults? Which churches are bucking the trends by actually attracting the absent generation to church? What are their secrets of success?
On a recent visit to the Big Apple, I determined to visit a Presbyterian church widely known for bucking the trends. As a part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), it is affiliated with a denomination that bucks us. That’s unfortunate. But so many New York friends have raved incessantly about the very un-PCA Redeemer Church that I had to visit.
They did not meet my expectations.
I expected to see a lily white crowd. I found a diverse mix of folks, many Euro-Americans, but nearly as many Asian-Americans, plus a sampling of African-Americans and Latinos.
I expected a male-dominated leadership. Sure, their pastors and ruling elders are estrogen-challenged, but women fill many senior staff positions. It was mostly deaconesses who offered healing prayer after worship.
I expected rockin’ music and emergent-style candles. They had neither. Two movements from a Bach sonata provided prelude and postlude. A quartet of young opera singers sang a piece by Brahms. Congregational hymns mostly came from an earlier century, that is, the 19th. No chants. No candles. By the way, the three afternoon and evening services do feature jazz. But both morning services utilize classical music.
I expected to hear a smooth, polished, pizzazz-y sermon, replete with Gen-X and Gen-Y buzzwords, all being delivered by an edgy-looking, cool 30-something behind the pulpit. The sermon was more of a teaching, like something from a seminary theology class. Pastor Tim Keller’s delivery wasn’t provocative. The sermon wasn’t memorized. He actually used notes. In fact, he was scribbling a few lines earlier in the service. What’s more, he is older than I am. A balding guy well into his 50s. Pretty vanilla.
Folks in the PCA aren’t supposed to respect mainline scholarship. Tim mentioned that he was tapping the research of Walter Brueggemann, and then quoted him at length.
So this un-PCA church was really quite normal, quite average, quite typical of traditional Presbyterian churches — except for the fact that youth and young adults dominated the crowd.
What’s their secret then? And, what’s the secret of those other churches pulling in young adults? What are the common denominators? Two answers stand out.
First, young-adult-friendly churches are visitor-friendly churches. They have determined in clear terms that they exist for those outside their doors. Redeemer Church’s visitor’s information brochure reminds us, “Most organizations exist to serve their members. The church of Christ is a completely different community — one in which members seek to serve others.” They then add, “At Redeemer, we take seriously that we are a church not for ourselves but for others.”
Many mainline churches talk about being welcoming and outreaching, but their visitors feel like interlopers. Members do need to love and support one another, but unless the congregation intentionally attracts and ministers to outsiders, unless it pours the bulk of its energy into those outside its doors, those doors might just as well be barred shut.
Second, young-adult friendly churches passionately proclaim the wonder of God’s love, the grace of Christ’s mercy and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Any one congregation’s favorite themes may be justice or salvation, koinonia or spirituality, community organizing or global missions, but they are convinced that “people need the Lord,” as a popular gospel song says simply.
Preacher and music director, elder and usher, congregants all can express a passion for what God is and can be doing, or they can be nonchalant. In the youth culture, it might be cool to be cool, but young adults go to churches that are hot for God.
All of which takes me back to the Big Apple and to the pressing questions. What makes your church a church for young adults? What would it look like if 20-somethings were to descend upon it? What might be done to make it a young-adult-friendly church? Might we exceed expectations by becoming known as the church for the absent generation?
