Sermon Tone Analysis

Hey You!

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.

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.

Core Commitment: Fuel a Warm Community

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

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?

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.