- [Alex Choi] Personally, I'm not a fan of hyper-specializing life
stage ministries, but at the same time, you know, there is a aspect
of it that's necessary.
So I think it really matters, like, for example, if your small group
ministries are just geographically based, and it's not life-stage based.
I do think it's nice to be able to have some kind of ministry where
that life-stage demographic can kind of get together. But I do get concerned
about hyper-specialization in life stage ministries just because I think it can
kind of produce consumers because they're so well targeted.
The affinity is so strong.
The sense of coming out of self to be a part of a community, I think it presents a
little bit of challenge there. But I think if you do have specialized
ministry, then I think it's important for church
to find intergenerational connections.
And if you don't specialize, just find opportunities for them to connect.
- [Michael Lee] I mean, I totally agree with that. Especially as Asian-Americans
and growing up in a Korean-American church, I mean, there were so many
departments, and so many different, like, you know, life stages that we chopped up
our adolescent child experience. And so when you're just used to spending three
years in this ministry, four years in this ministry after college you get,
kind of, you know, that becomes a habit.
That becomes, like, the way you view church and ministry. You always want to be
with your peers whether it's the single adult, married without kids,
married with young kids, married with older kids, empty nesters,
all of these things. And I definitely think that there's danger in chopping up
the church in too many different pieces.
So at our church, we always warn our members about, like, you know, preference.
And we don't want the church to be Steve-shaped, or Alex-shaped, or
Michael-centered, but we really want to encourage our members to, you know,
be servants and to belong to a greater body and a greater
community that's multigenerational.
At the same time, we know that, you know, for a lot of people's felt needs we have
to address them.
We can't just ignore them, and be like, "Hey, singles, it's not about you,
it's about Jesus.
Come serve in this ministry, and be part of the church."
Like, we have to address those needs in a way that, yeah, enables them to experience
community, but then hopefully, lead them to see the church is bigger than just a
three-year, four-year department, but it's a multigenerational body.
- [Alex Choi] Yeah, because it's, like, really about meeting people where they're
at, and taking them where they need to go, but where do you meet them at?
What's that point where you come and incarnate and then disciple them
to this place.
It's always hard.
- [Steve Bang Lee] Yeah.
And I don't think there's a one size, you know, fits all model.
There's, you know, a church that a different evolutionary stage.
Some churches they might need to collapse and fold their, you know,
young adults ministry.
Other ones they might need to create stronger culture.
I have a question for you guys.
Let's say there's a church pastor listening to this, and man,
it's hard for him to get single adults.
Hard, difficult.
What are some onboarding maybe needs, felt needs that you guys were mentioning?
What are some things that you feel, like, maybe need to be addressed to help
kind of reach that demographic?
Any thoughts?
- [Alex Choi] Do a marriage, single, sex, dating sermon series.
Our church used to grow when we did stuff like that.
I mean, but again, but I feel like that's meeting them where they are.
They're interested in those things.
They're thinking about those things. And then just maybe taking a break
especially if you're a expositional preacher or a book by book, verse
by verse preacher. Sometimes just take a pause and address biblically the very
things that they're thinking about.
You know, because sometimes we as pastors, we're addressing the problems that they
don't actually struggle with, but maybe just getting to the heart of what they're
going through, and that's a whole new world because
of Coffee Meets Bagel, Tinder, all the dating apps.
It's a different world, and so we can't even, we have to redo our stuff to be able
to minister to them and kind of shine some light of the gospel on their reality so...
- [Michael Lee] Yeah.
I mean, for us, like, we were trying to grow our singles ministry as well in our
church, and it just, it began with questions, and I asked like, "Why do you
come to our church?
But then what about your friends?
Would they come? Would you invite them?"
And they said, you know, "I grew up here.
I'm loyal here.
I'm faithful here, but I would never invite my friends."
And I asked them, "Why?"
[inaudible], "You know."
And they were pretty blunt, they're like, "Because we kind of suck."
And I was like, "Then we have to change that."
And so just realizing that there are certain, like, you know, like, things that
an emerging generation, a millennial generation,
they value in the church experience. And just taking the time to ask questions.
Maybe having the leadership, and vision, and courage to, like, reshape a couple
things. And over the last four years, we've really seen the group grow, but it
began with questions.
It began with questions and asking young adults.
- [Alex Choi] And I would also add, I think, I don't know if I learned this from
Steven Um or Tim Keller. I learned in church planting, "Preach and speak to the
one who isn't in the room."
And so I remember when our church was, like, 10 people, and I would be like,
"Hey, so those of you who are Buddhist..." and our core members were like,
"Hey, you know, we're not Buddhist, why do you keep saying that?"
And, like, and I said, "If I don't speak to the Buddhist that
isn't in the room, you won't bring them.
If I don't speak to the atheist or if I don't speak to the LGBTQ community that
isn't in our churches, then you will never think to bring those."
And so it was a very strange thing, but it really was speak to the one
who isn't there.
So that's kind of, like, that whole why I said marriage, you know.
- [Steve Lee] [inaudible]
- [Alex Choi] But, you know, another interesting thing for me
as an Asian-American is, what do we mean by young adults, right?
Because in Korean churches, young adult meant singles ministry from 22 years old
to 40-year-old if you're single.
When I went to Barnes and Noble, young adult books were middle school,
high school kid books.
And so I think even culturally how we define young adult... I actually was
wondering that with this question. I didn't know we were talking about youth
students, and single post-college, or are we talking about singles.
That's another thing for us to think about [crosstalk], how do we define young
adults, you know?
- [Steve Lee] [inaudible]