How to keep Millennials in the church?

McCracken brings a lot of wisdom to the table at a young age. Haven’t picked up his second book yet, but Hipster Christianity is a good read.

If a church accepts the homosexual lifestyle as okay and if it is more about rituals and religion more than following Jesus (including obeying the clear teachings of God’s Word), it would be better off NOT to exist.

BTW, I was responding to the CNN article. McCracken’s article is GREAT!

For the first time in our relatively young congregation - the Lord has blessed our efforts with 20 year olds - We now have about 20 of them - they have their own Sunday School class and small group. The brother who leads the group is an “elder in training” here at SVBC. Most of them (20 year olds) do a good job of reaching out to the other age groups in the church. They are looking this year to build an outreach to the local community college not far from our church. The thing that is encouraging is that we are not a “cool” church in the sense of an evangelical church that has a cool looking pastor (short, girthy, nerdy, etc….)….we use them (the 20 year olds) with our music and we do mix in newer music with hymns but we are hardly a “rocking” church. While I don’t wear a tie - I wear nice slacks, shirt and sports jacket - I don’t wear blue jeans with cool shirt and Italian shoes (which isn’t a sin for those who do - that’s just not our style). We are just a simple congregation that desires to honor God through careful Bible preaching/teaching, meaningful worship, Scripture reading, outreach, fellowship and aggressive “one-another ministry.” We decided a long time ago not to cater to one group or to one philosophy. We have lost people of every stripe because they demand a church that caters to their idiosyncrasies. No thanks! You can have your idiosyncrasies at the cool church.

Straight Ahead!

jt

ps - we do have a philosophy - but it’s a Biblical philosophy - not a pragmatic one based on demographics.

“…what I need is something bigger than me, older than me, bound by a truth that transcends me and a story that will outlast me; basically, something that doesn’t change to fit me and my whims, but changes me to be the Christ-like person I was created to be.”

Several years ago at our current church’s 50th anniversary one of the former pastors preached a message entilted “It’s not about me”. That message really challanged me to preach Christ and let Christ work through me and His church to accomplish His task…because it really is about Him and the transformation He can bring to broken lives of any age.

I’m hoping when people walk through our doors they don’t see a segmented church, but a body of believers of various ages and nationalities who have put their hand to the plow and love one another as Jesus loved us.

1 Timothy 4:6-10

1. Tell them Divine Truth (vs. 6)

2. Reject what is not true (entertaining fairy tales as Paul describes them) (vs. 7)

3. Exercise with Godliness (know God and live consistently with that knowledge) (vs. 7-9)

This will produce weary labor and agony in you (vs. 10)

but we hope in the living God and if anyone is to be saved, it will only be by God (vs. 10), not by our creative or imaginative work.

—I think this is what born again millenials want, and what all people need—

John MacArthur said once in an interview I watched, Pastoral ministry is simple. Know the Word, preach the Word, and try to live the Word.

Maybe we should focus back on the basics.