Common Pitfalls To Avoid In Young Adult Ministry:
Common Pitfalls To Avoid In Young Adult Ministry:
I don’t know everything and also these aren’t the only downfalls. A popular/trending article I wrote a while back covers 10 steps to building a successful young adult ministry. Recently, a reader reached out and said; those are so helpful to know what to do — do you have any thoughts on what not to do? Here are those thoughts:
1. Creating a sub-vision.
Probably the single greatest fear of lead pastors I talk to is that if they had a young adult ministry, it would become a church within a church or a siloed ministry. This shouldn’t even be a fear! And, sadly, this holds back and hinders many churches from fully reaching the next generation. For those of us who are privileged to serve a pastor’s vision don’t have the task of coming up with our own vision – we serve theirs!
Division is literally defined as two visions. When it comes to the church – there’s no place for division. Only unity and edification. Young adult ministry within the umbrella and spiritual covering of the local church ultimately falls in line with the vision of that local church! Unity is our desire and unity is the Father’s desire for us.
This is why it’s so imperative to have conversations with your pastor and ask them the question early and often: what is the vision God has given you for the church? (Or maybe you’re the pastor, and then it’s your role to cast vision). Another great follow up question is what do you dream of seeing happen within the next generation of our church? Even a third conversation starter could be: “why do you believe the faith of the next generation is important?”
The very idea of young adult ministry is an extension of the church’s primary vision into the next generation. The beauty of ministering to the next generation is you get to be a small part of something really significant!
2. Overseeing too many ministries.
So many churches pick the low hanging fruit of a youth pastor who’s already overseeing middle school and high school ministries to also launch and lead a young adult ministry. The result is often times that the young adult ministry becomes an afterthought. It’s only natural for a person with multiple responsibilities to prioritize one and neglect the other.
Pareto’s Principle was that 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people. I’ve found this to be true in the context of local church ministry. The people who prove faithful to volunteer, serve, or lead will often be discovered and asked to do even more. Same with paid church staff.
It is so strategic for young adult ministries to partner with their church’s youth ministry. This is vital for transitions from youth to college, college to young adults, young adults into the greater community. The strongest young adult ministries that I have seen have a champion of the cause. Whether that person is paid full time, part time, an intern, a volunteer, a couple isn’t always what moves the needle. What does move the needle is when that individual feels empowered, supported, believed in, and resourced.
Equipping the saints to do the work of the ministry is a requirement of pastors and leaders, not a recommendation. Not every church can afford to hire a full-time young adult minister. There is a young adult in every community worth investing into through mentoring, leadership, and discipleship who might just be called to or passionate about reaching out to their generation.
3. Meeting too infrequently.
A lot of times when churches launch or relaunch a ministry for young adults, they really wrestle with how often the group should meet. Many times, the thought process is that this demographic of young people is busy enough already and the subsequent fear is that if the meetings are too frequent nobody will show up. I’ve found that most often, the opposite is actually true.
Think about when you’re dating someone. You just met, and you can’t wait to hang out again! Same with your group of friends – these are the people you dm and group text all the time. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that people are starving for community.
When you look at contagious community, Jesus never lowered the bar. His model of discipleship was doing life together. Students and young adults have the most discretionary time of any age group – we should leverage this in a way that creates opportunities. Multiple touch points provide opportunities. I always recommend weekly gatherings & groups for a variety of reasons:
· Don’t forsake the gathering: Hebrews 10:25 reminds us how important meeting, worshipping, praying, teaching, reading, and studying together are.
· Consistency: we live in a day and age when everyone wants options. People say young adults are flaky. Commit and be consistent!
· Habits: helping those we minister to have weekly rhythms.
· Memory: a lot of times, when a group meets every other week for example, even the leader forgets which week is on and which week is off.
· Value: look at Buffalo Wild Wings as just one example. Their busiest night by far out of the week is Thursday nights: BOGO on boneless. Everyone can remember that a great value is every week!
4. When the demographic is undefined.
When you’re starting out or taking over an existing young adult ministry, one of the questions you’re bound to get is “what age is this for?”
You have some people who are 16 years old and should be a part of high school student ministry, but for some reason are drawn to young adults. Then, you have people who might be single and in their 40’s who want to be a part of community. You get to pray about it, you get to talk to your pastor, there can be conversations with wisdom from church boards about it. Whatever you decide, it is helpful and important to have a definition.
It’s not necessarily the right definition, but we define young adults as 18-30-year old’s. Even that is a tremendously wide range. Within 18-30, you have college students/college age, people in their early career/young professionals, and young couples.
When it isn’t clear to you or your church what your definition of young adults is, it’s going to be even less clear to those who may want to attend. These conversations can be awkward if not prepared, but they are a lot less awkward when you have a plan.
There’s also the follow up conversations about where are you leading people? What is the plan for transitioning people into the ministry? How about the plan for transitioning people out of the ministry and into men’s and women’s ministries’?
5. Filling a room.
For so many, there’s and a preference of collecting crowds rather than dispatching disciples. It’s undeniable that there’s a higher level of energy in a larger room or a room that is fuller. Simply pursuing that energy is absolutely chasing the wind.
Instead, I would ask any leader wrestling through numerical metrics what their definition of success is? Followed by their qualitative and quantitative ways of measuring success. An over emphasis on something is when it’s out of balance. I can tell you this one personally, there’s a need for both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
If your goal is simply to fill chairs in a room, I highly doubt you’ll ever be satisfied. If your goal is to lead people towards holistic health, growth, and life-change; ministry never gets old! Vision isn’t picturing people filling an empty room, vision is picturing God’s spirit filling the room of people.
If you need some help coming up with what else to measure besides attendance here’s some other things to ponder:
· Salvation
· Membership
· Water Baptism
· Mentorship
· Giving/Generosity
· Community
· Scripture Memorization
· Kingdom
· Serving/Volunteering
· Growth
· Availability
· Maturity
6. Endless cycle of launching, relaunching…
I don’t know of a way to measure this, but one of the most common phrases in the church of America when it comes to the next generation and faith has to be “Oh, we’re relaunching!” This can happen for a variety of reasons: the leader could be changing, the core group of volunteers could be in a season of moving away, singles who meet eventually get married and start families and age out.
My wife and I live in Minnesota and while there is four distinct seasons of weather here, many residents would argue there’s only two: winter and road construction. I think that just like laying new pavement in the spring, one of the greatest actions of stability a senior leader can make involving the next generation is casting a clear vision regularly of where the Lord is leading the community individually and collectively.
Questions that can help build a framework for vision:
What is the picture of health we are desiring to lead people towards?
What do we hope would happen over the next 5 years in our community?
What do we pray happens after people show up? They show up and then what?
What is the desired life change?
7. Leader turnover.
Transitions are normal and a constant in life and ministry! The reality is sometimes churches initiate the transition of a staff person and apply pressure to encourage that person to move on. Other times, individuals may feel stuck in a rut that sparks an interest to play the field. The true reality is nobody is in their forever assignment. People change, leaders change, churches change, and assignments change. Change is part of the deal and no matter what, God ultimately guides and provides.
Something I think happens quite a bit, though, is leaders look for new opportunities too soon rather than sticking it out. Many times, this is right between the two- and three-year mark. It takes time to build trust, recognition, and relational equity in any community – and to the previous point of launching and relaunching – whenever you leave, the community will need to go through another relaunch.
The reason this is particularly tough within young adult ministries is that young adults themselves are in a constant season of life change from their twenties often into their early thirties. In a generation that is so transient, leaders have the opportunity to be Christ-like bedrocks of consistency.
I think a great question every leader should prayerfully consider: “Is God asking me to stay a while longer?”
8. Comparison with other churches instead of contextualized ministry.
We live in a day and age where information is readily available instantly through globalized technology and social media. This means many opportunities for the gospel going forward digitally. There are some definite drawbacks to this, too. The biggest downfall of social media and technology I can see personally is comparison.
Whether it’s comparing our behind the scenes with other people’s highlight reels, or measuring our assignment up to someone else’s assignment, comparison is costly. Competition isn’t part of the Kingdom! Celebration is. Collaboration is.
Even the danger of an article like this one, a conference geared around ministry, or podcasts (although they can be incredibly helpful tools), they are a substitute for contextualized ministry. God has placed you on an assignment in your current context. The same Spirit that rose Christ from the grave lives within you. You don’t need to copy and paste what appears to be working in Tennessee, Tallahassee, Taiwan, or Tibet! Be your own person. Seek first the Holy Spirit. And in the words of Tommy Barnett “Find a need and meet it. Find a hurt and heal it.”
Andy Stanley suggests that the cure of the enemy of the hear that is comparison is celebration. Cheering other people on when they win costs nothing – except your ego and your pride. If you find yourself in a cycle of comparison and competition, it’s human and it’s normal. Do whatever you can to lay down the flesh and natural to pick up the Spiritual and Supernatural.
9. Too Much Change.
A lot of leaders try to be someone they are not. A lot of churches copy other churches that may appear to be reaching more of a young demographic. When you’re on mission, the DNA of your church doesn’t need to change. What I mean is that change for the sake of change may not be as effective as you’d think!
Changing the music might not attract new young adults by the droves. Similar to how renaming your church might not be the answer to the challenges you are facing. I asked Levi Lusko about relevance one time and he told me “the gospel doesn’t need to be updated, just shared.” Living the mission is more important that updating the vision.
In terms of relevance, I’ve found that people (young and old alike) appreciate and relate well with leaders who are authentic, transparent, and vulnerable. When a young adult visits your church for the first time – does anyone make a natural effort to get to know them? What is the follow up process? For the returning regular attender who’s a college student or twenty-something: do they have any friends inside your church or are their friends all outside the church?
When I was in college, one of my professors, Dr. Nate Ruch taught us three things for a framework for preaching, communicating, and leading. Pathos, ethos, and logos. People experience each one of them in every environment they encounter. I find them really helpful when making decisions of change:
· Pathos: what is the vibe? Emotions and feelings that are experienced by those who participate.
· Ethos: what are the beliefs, ideals, and values of the community? Think character and integrity.
· Logos: what are the words used? Written, spoken, and sung.
10. Avoidance of necessary conversations.
I think one of the greatest disservices done is when there is false harmony within the church. We act as though if we pretend the problem doesn’t exist that it will go away. We all know that is not the case. There seems to be a wealth of content and an absence of wisdom in our world. For a generation that is fluent in information, yet starving for truth, we can no longer tip toe around issues that arise in our culture and in our communities.
I often hear young people share how college taught them how to function as an adult and their church never did! We don’t have to have all the answers – we point people to the one who is the answer. Scripture is our source and guide as Christ followers for conduct and community, love and living. As a leader, leaning on Scripture gives you feet to stand.
What is your natural posture when you read this list of issues: purity, racism, gender, black lives matter, politics, sexuality, mental health, adulting, etc. Is it to back-peddle? Is it to avoid them? My encouragement would be to lean into them!
If we are not teaching a biblical perspective and a kingdom world view in our churches, where are the sources of information people are building their lives upon? What will they be taught instead by Netflix, podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Universities, Bars, Blogs, Workplaces, Apps, TV’s, Phones, Mobile Devices, Twitter? The stakes are sky high.
What else do you see? What other follow up questions does this spark for you? As always, feel free to shoot me an email or DM to connect!