The Thriving Church, Part 5: Community

Acts 2:42–47 CEB

42 The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. 43 A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. 44 All the believers were united and shared everything. 45 They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. 46 Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. 47 They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.

Hey You!

Intro story of a warm church

Look! (Examine the Scriptures)

It wasn’t the preaching or teaching. It certainly wasn’t the building or the worship style. It was the life shared among the congregation that drew them in.

It was a place to belong.

This story shows that… they experienced a core commitment of churches growing young that research clearly and emphatically identified as warmth.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

To recap...

Six Core Commitments to Thrive and Grow Young (General): Leadership, Empathy, Discipleship/Evangelism, Community, Priorities, Neighbors

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Keychain leadership, Empathize with Today’s Young People, Take Jesus’ Message Seriously.

Today we look at Community.

CORE COMMITMENT: FUEL A WARM COMMUNITY

Specifically it’s...

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This is the picture we see in . It appears that a warm community was powerful.

It is much different than what some of us are used to. Sitting in rows, looking at each others head backs.

Research Findings

Structures alone are not enough to foster warm relationships.

However Structures are important. They simply are not enough.

Our research indicates that leaders need to stop assuming that programs alone are going to foster close relationships.

Structures like powerful worship times, ministry events, even small group classes, and emphasis for everyone to take part in one. All this along is not enough.

Here’s what young people are saying.

Analyses of the terms young people and adults use to describe their own churches shows repeated words such as welcoming, accepting, belonging, authentic, hospitable, and caring.

This has been termed the “warmth cluster.”

Warmth Cluster

Welcoming Accepting Belonging Authentic Hospitable Caring

And while 6 out of 10 interviewees mentioned group practices like small groups, youth group, and retreats when they talked about why their church is thriving, what seems important about those practices is that they create space for people to be together and nurture relationships.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

what seems important about those practices is that they create space for people to be together and nurture relationships.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Space needs to be created to fuel a warm community.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So should we develop a small group structure that works? Absolutely. We must be careful not to depend on small groups alone to remedy the social isolation often felt by teenagers and emerging adults. Nor can we rely on whole-church events, like Sabbath school and 11am worship alone.

Or put all your eggs in the basket of age- and stage-based programming. Warmth often lives much deeper than our programs and structures—it’s the lifeblood coursing through the veins of your church body.

“Warmth resonates, especially doing ministry in an urban context. For kids growing up without biological fathers or being raised by an aunt or in foster care, the church has to stand in the gap and be family. That means much more than a programmatic approach. Young people have to experience, ‘This is where I belong, where I’m affirmed, where I’m pushed and held accountable.’ This is a hopeful finding for a small church in the inner city or a rural area. You too can make a significant difference with young people. You can get in the game.” —Efrem Smith, World Impact

Of college aged church members who are part of churches that are growing young, when compared adults over 30, twice as many college aged 19-23 said personal relationships was the main reason they stayed involved. Not programming or other structures.

Warmth is a dominate gene in the DNA of the church family. Acts 2:42-47

Acts 2:42–47 CEB

42 The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. 43 A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. 44 All the believers were united and shared everything. 45 They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. 46 Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. 47 They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

When someone says the name of your church, what image comes to your mind? A building? A worship service?

When someone says the name of your church, what image comes to your mind? A building? A worship service? If you were a teenager or emerging adult in one of the churches in our study, your answer might be different. For young people today, church means much more than a worship service or a place to gather. Despite how much energy, money, and other resources we pour into making Sunday spectacular, the worship service may be less important to young people than we think. When we asked young people how they would describe their church to a friend, only 12 percent talked about worship, and only 9 percent mentioned worship style. Similarly, when we asked, “What makes your church effective with young people?” only a quarter mentioned worship at all, and only 12 percent mentioned anything about music (that figure dropped to only 3 percent when we isolated the top third of churches most effective with young people). So what do they talk about when they describe their church? Overwhelmingly, nearly 1 in 3 share about its warmth.

If you are a teenager or emerging adult your answer might be different than older adults.

For young people today who are part of a church that is thriving and growing young, church means much more than a worship service or a place to gather. Despite how much energy, money, and other resources we pour into making Sabbath spectacular, the worship service may be less important to young people than we think. When young people were asked how they would describe their church to a friend, only 12 percent talked about worship, and only 9 percent mentioned worship style.

How would you describe your church to a friend?

33% - Warmth

12% - Worship

9% - Worship style

Similarly, when we asked, “What makes your church effective with young people?” only a quarter mentioned worship at all, and only 12 percent mentioned anything about music (that figure dropped to only 3 percent when we isolated the top third of churches most effective with young people). So what do they talk about when they describe their church? Overwhelmingly, nearly 1 in 3 share about its warmth.

“This is life. It’s not just church life, it’s life life. It’s hard, it’s busy, but we’re in it together. We’re like a family.” A high school senior shared, “This is family here. It’s natural, I guess.”

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In site visits, it was noticed that some churches are moving away from the models of attractional worship and highly polished, timed-to-the-minute experiences. Say like La Sierra, or Pioneer Memorial. More than one research team noted that what a particular church lacks in physical resources or flashiness, it makes up in warmth, authenticity, and hospitality.

As it turns out, warm is indeed the new cool.

However, these statistics don’t mean that worship planning no longer matters. It may be that for young people, worship is a potential turnoff but not necessarily a turn-on.

In other words, our worship style or elements of our service may have potential to repel young people or prevent youth engagement, and simply making our music better does not seem to ensure their involvement.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Warmth is more than superficial community. It’s like family. In fact, the phrase “like family” surfaced as the most common term young people used to describe their church in our interviews and field visits.

Warmth helps young people find and stick with a church.

Warmth Helps Young People Find—and Stick with—a Church

What keeps you involved in the church?

Personal Relationships - 33%

Warmth - 30%

Beliefs - 6%

In other words, you may think young people are staying because of our beliefs, but it’s more often about finding an experience that feels like family. For teenagers and emerging adults, depth of relationship opens the door to deeper exploration of belief.

First relationship, then formation.

First belonging, then belief. And eventually these blend into one fluid movement.

It’s been stated in the context of disciplining people to Jesus, people don’t care what you know, until they know how much you care.

Remember, Jesus called the 12, they belonged first to his group, then he helped them along on a journey of belief. First relationship, then formation. It becomes fluid.

“The first message students hear and experience is, ‘You belong here.’”

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Warm intergenerational relationships grow everyone young.

Honest Relationships Build Belonging

Warm Intergenerational Relationships Grow Everyone Young

Much of American youth and young adult ministry tends to be devoted to building relationships with age-group peers. While peer friendships are crucial, a variety of analyses suggest that intergenerational relationships are also incredibly important. Specifically, churches with close intergenerational relationships show higher faith maturity and vibrancy, as well as more examples of the six core commitments in action.

While intergenerational relationships can develop naturally, two primary avenues through which churches strategically integrate generations are mentoring and worship.

Mentoring often develops through one-on-one discipleship, vocational guidance, or shared ministry work. A common example of shared work is adults and teenagers serving together in some skill-specific task in the church, such as kids’ ministry, technology, or music. Some mentoring structures are more formal than others, but most include a level of intentionality in matching young people with adults who share interests and talents.

“Intergenerational worship” has become a catchphrase of the Sticky Faith movement over the past handful of years. We discovered in our previous research that involvement in all-church worship during high school is more consistently linked with mature faith in both high school and college than any other form of church participation.6 As we studied churches growing young, we found a variety of valued and effective intergenerational worship practices.

Fostering peer friendships fosters spiritual formation.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Fostering Peer Friendships Fosters Spiritual Formation

We wanted to get your attention about the importance of intergenerational relationships, but guess what? Peer friendships at church also strengthen faith.

You may have guessed that, but now we have research to support it. Specifically, when we asked young people about church friendships, those who report more close friends at church also show higher faith maturity.

As the number of close friends gets closer to five, so does the likelihood that a young person attends church and regularly participates in worship with others, takes time to read and study the Bible, talks openly with other Christians about their faith questions or struggles, serves others in need locally and/or globally, and sees their faith as an influence in their friendships.

This benchmark of five close friends isn’t magic, but it sure seems to help.

Powell, Kara. Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

See!

Welfare Ministry A Work outside Our Homes

Men and women are not fulfilling the design of God when they simply express affection for their own family circle, for their rich relatives and friends, while they exclude those from their love whom they could comfort and bless by relieving their necessities.…

When the Lord bids us do good for others outside our home, He does not mean that our affection for home shall become diminished, and that we shall love our kindred or our country less because He desires us to extend our sympathies. But we are not to confine our affection and sympathy within four walls, and enclose the blessing that God has given us, so that others will not be benefited with us in its enjoyment.—The Review and Herald, October 15, 1895.

1 Corinthians 16:19 CEB

The churches in the province of Asia greet you. Aquila and Prisca greet you warmly in the Lord, together with the church that meets in their house.

Saul began to wreak havoc against the church. Entering one house after another, he would drag off both men and women and throw them into prison.

Also say hello to the church that meets in their house. Say hello to Epaenetus, my dear friend, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ.

The churches in the

province of Asia greet you. Aquila and Prisca greet you warmly in the Lord, together with the church that meets in their house.

Say hello to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, along with Nympha and the church that meets in her house.

Apphia our sister, Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church that meets in your house.

Acts 12:12 CEB

12 Realizing this, he made his way to Mary’s house. (Mary was John’s mother; he was also known as Mark.) Many believers had gathered there and were praying.

Home ministry passages ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Hebrews 13:2 CEB

2 Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it.

Heb 13

1 Peter 4:9–10 CEB

9 Open your homes to each other without complaining. 10 And serve each other according to the gift each person has received, as good managers of God’s diverse gifts.

1 Pet

Do!

Pray warmly.

Help newcomers.

Create 5:1 ratio of adults and young people.

Grow small groups.

The Thriving Church, Part 5: Community

Core Commitment: Fuel a Warm Community

Examples of Warm Community

Ideas for Action