Why Target 15 to Twenty-Somethings?

During the decade after high school most people decide what they will live their life for. Certainly there are opportunities for change and conversion later in life, but most people chart their course during these times. These are the years that people choose their occupations, find a spouse, start a family, and find that they are now fully responsible for their own choices.

It is during this time that people try to figure out how the world "works." They develop their worldview. If the worldview they have been exposed to by their family and their church does not address and explain the world they find themselves in, then they will look elsewhere. This is why theology is so important during the middle school and high school years. A Christian worldview has to be more developed and richer than the competing worldviews. But, most of all, it has to exist in the first place. As one college professor put it, "One reason students are not getting reasons to defend the Faith is that they are not getting the Faith to defend."

Our Sunday mornings and Christian education need to be planned with twenty-somethings in mind. I find the questions they have are fairly basic and universal. They are the issues that will bring preChristians back to your services and will prepare middle schoolers and high schoolers for the future.

But let's be honest. They will help our youth with the present. My daughter and son are currently in high school, and I know the issues they face. They are interacting with and ministering to fellow students who are confused about their sexual identity. They are being presented with ill-informed caricatures of their faith by well-meaning but misinformed teachers. If we can't meaningfully deal with these issues to their satisfaction on Sundays, then don't expect them to still be there after high school.

One answer has been to protect our youth from all these issues, but if you do that, then you assist in their failure. They will have to deal with these issues someday. If they are not ready, they will fall. Besides, where do you want them working out their ethics-in the lunch room or at church?

This emphasis doesn't mean we neglect the rest of our congregation. You will find that many have the same questions and concerns. In addition, the entire congregation should be thinking missionally. As the body of Christ, we should be looking beyond ourselves and participating in God's work within our youth, our community, and throughout the world.

If we cannot reach and hold twenty-somethings, then we have no future. The twenty-somethings that we lost over the last two decades are the thirty and forty-somethings of today. The corner needs to be turned. The hemorrhaging needs to stop and headway needs to be made. God once again calls us to think differently and to trade our old wineskins in for new ones. After all, we should all thirst for God's new wine. Otherwise, we are just traditionalists and not really Pentecostal.