As time has gone on, cultures have changed, and so has the way the church interacts with people. I notice something very interesting when I read the accounts of the growth of the early church that are depicted in Acts: you don’t see the Apostles appealing to different demographics—there are no kids’ ministries, no men or women’s ministries, no family programs, no youth ministry. In fact I get the impression that church leaders dealt fairly intuitively or logically with issues that arose within the church, and the church’s appeal to the communities they were part of was universal.
This is definitely not the case today. What’s changed?
Church ministries
I can’t really comment on Middle Eastern Jewish culture of 2000 years ago. But I feel it’s fairly safe to assume that my own culture is quite different. Considering the way churches seemed to work in New Testament times, and the way the nation of Israel is founded around a deep ancestral heritage beginning from Abraham and then branching out from the 12 sons of Israel, Hebrew culture is based very strongly around the family.
My own culture seems to be getting less so. In a sense, it’s a less family oriented and more demographic oriented: university, high school, primary school, work. You could probably even call kindergarten a subculture. In the church there are different divisions still: men, women, teens, kids. We have ministries for each of these groups. Families are catered for on Sunday services when everybody is together in one place.
Have we missed anyone?
Recently I have begun to think about this problem: whilst we in the church cater well for families, how do we support those who are “all grown up” but aren’t yet settling down? How do we support the twenty-somethings? We care for young kids growing up in the church, and when they go to high school they transition well into youth ministry. Youth groups are fun and frenetic, and often have high appeal to the school friends of church kids (even if it is just for the promise of free junk food).
Yet I see a potential problem: if teens don’t transition into leadership, or settle down and have a family after finishing school (which is incredibly unlikely in Western culture), where do they go? What does the church have to offer? I am one of this particular demographic (i.e. uni student), and if I wasn’t heavily involved in church leadership, and was more interested in what all uni students seem destined to do (i.e. partying and drinking), would I still be involved in the church?
If I wasn’t already brought up in the church, I don’t think I’d be particularly interested in walking into a building full of people I’ve never met, singing songs I’ve never heard of don’t particularly like, and listening to someone tell me what I don’t agree with.
In Western culture—especially in Australia—Christianity and church are no longer the norm. Sometimes they’re just plain weird.
Sadly, this sort of thing seems to be far more common:
Laurie’s Story
Lee’s Story
Reaching out
So how can the church reach out to people like this? In the cases above these were churched kids who were tempted to stray from their roots when they began college/university. And what about those who haven’t had anything to do with churches before?
Let me pose this question: Why do churches put on events? The short answer is that they’re fun. Poker nights, paintballing, sports, movies, BBQs…the list goes on. All of these are things that “normal” people1 love to do, and why? Because you can have fun with other people, doing something that you really enjoy. What should be the difference when the event is put on by a church? It is an opportunity for Christians at any time to be able to say, “Hey, this is what we believe, this is how much we care for and love each and every one of you, and we want you to know about what changed our lives for the better.”
Ok, saying “I love you” is a little bit campy—but you probably wouldn’t phrase it so tactlessly. Real love is shown through our actions, and that’s what churches should be doing.
What’s the point?
I have a friend that, to date, has never been to church. I invited them, but due to a very unfortunate set of circumstances they were never able to come. Yet, I didn’t stop there; I asked them if they’d instead like to come along and hang out with a group of friends after the service. Then the next night they came along to another gathering with the same group of church friends. Personally, I believe that this has been more effective than coming to a Sunday night service ever could have been: it is proof that, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). It is an opportunity for unchurched friends to see that, no, we aren’t all freaky, weird, prudish, boring people—we’re just people who love each other.
There you have it: it’s about love.
I’d love to be able to say that church-goers are all normal…but who am I kidding? Unfortunately it’s not always the case. [↩]
Reaching out
As time has gone on, cultures have changed, and so has the way the church interacts with people. I notice something very interesting when I read the accounts of the growth of the early church that are depicted in Acts: you don’t see the Apostles appealing to different demographics—there are no kids’ ministries, no men or women’s ministries, no family programs, no youth ministry. In fact I get the impression that church leaders dealt fairly intuitively or logically with issues that arose within the church, and the church’s appeal to the communities they were part of was universal.
This is definitely not the case today. What’s changed?
Church ministries
I can’t really comment on Middle Eastern Jewish culture of 2000 years ago. But I feel it’s fairly safe to assume that my own culture is quite different. Considering the way churches seemed to work in New Testament times, and the way the nation of Israel is founded around a deep ancestral heritage beginning from Abraham and then branching out from the 12 sons of Israel, Hebrew culture is based very strongly around the family.
My own culture seems to be getting less so. In a sense, it’s a less family oriented and more demographic oriented: university, high school, primary school, work. You could probably even call kindergarten a subculture. In the church there are different divisions still: men, women, teens, kids. We have ministries for each of these groups. Families are catered for on Sunday services when everybody is together in one place.
Have we missed anyone?
Recently I have begun to think about this problem: whilst we in the church cater well for families, how do we support those who are “all grown up” but aren’t yet settling down? How do we support the twenty-somethings? We care for young kids growing up in the church, and when they go to high school they transition well into youth ministry. Youth groups are fun and frenetic, and often have high appeal to the school friends of church kids (even if it is just for the promise of free junk food).
Yet I see a potential problem: if teens don’t transition into leadership, or settle down and have a family after finishing school (which is incredibly unlikely in Western culture), where do they go? What does the church have to offer? I am one of this particular demographic (i.e. uni student), and if I wasn’t heavily involved in church leadership, and was more interested in what all uni students seem destined to do (i.e. partying and drinking), would I still be involved in the church?
If I wasn’t already brought up in the church, I don’t think I’d be particularly interested in walking into a building full of people I’ve never met, singing songs I’ve never heard of don’t particularly like, and listening to someone tell me what I don’t agree with.
In Western culture—especially in Australia—Christianity and church are no longer the norm. Sometimes they’re just plain weird.
Sadly, this sort of thing seems to be far more common:
Laurie’s Story
Lee’s Story
Reaching out
So how can the church reach out to people like this? In the cases above these were churched kids who were tempted to stray from their roots when they began college/university. And what about those who haven’t had anything to do with churches before?
Let me pose this question: Why do churches put on events? The short answer is that they’re fun. Poker nights, paintballing, sports, movies, BBQs…the list goes on. All of these are things that “normal” people1 love to do, and why? Because you can have fun with other people, doing something that you really enjoy. What should be the difference when the event is put on by a church? It is an opportunity for Christians at any time to be able to say, “Hey, this is what we believe, this is how much we care for and love each and every one of you, and we want you to know about what changed our lives for the better.”
Ok, saying “I love you” is a little bit campy—but you probably wouldn’t phrase it so tactlessly. Real love is shown through our actions, and that’s what churches should be doing.
What’s the point?
I have a friend that, to date, has never been to church. I invited them, but due to a very unfortunate set of circumstances they were never able to come. Yet, I didn’t stop there; I asked them if they’d instead like to come along and hang out with a group of friends after the service. Then the next night they came along to another gathering with the same group of church friends. Personally, I believe that this has been more effective than coming to a Sunday night service ever could have been: it is proof that, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). It is an opportunity for unchurched friends to see that, no, we aren’t all freaky, weird, prudish, boring people—we’re just people who love each other.
There you have it: it’s about love.