Growing a 20s & 30s Ministry By Giving Them Ownership

I wanted to post a couple of comments from the previous post as they may be helpful to someone who is working with 20s/30s and who may not catch the comments through an RSS feed. Here is the first.

Clint P wrote –

Our church has long focused on what is the now the “Hilltoppers” group. Our elders have asked me for some advise on how to reach the 20 to 30 year old members. Can you give me advise on some practical starting points for developing a place where 20s and 30s to connect with each other and to more importantly see the importance of connecting on a deep level with God?

Clint,

Here is one older post that might be of help – https://mattdabbs.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/transition-from-traditional-bible-class-to-missional-20-30-somethings/

We started with Bible class on Sunday morning. You probably already have a core of people in that age range who come already. Give them a class of their own and make sure the teaching and material is quality. We have found that video series really connect with our 20s & 30s (Rob Bell’s Nooma videos, Andy Stanley, and even a little Dan Kimball). What is nice about this is that you get someone who is a master teacher right their in your midst and you can discuss the video afterward. When the Bible class is quality people will come and they will have a place they feel safe to invite their friends to.

Once our Bible class was solid the attendance started to increase. We had periodic activities to try to draw in those from our class as well as people on the fringe within the congregation. These activities ranged from devos to service projects and social outings.

The next move was the transition from me being the leader of the group to me being a facilitator of the members of the group becoming the leaders. I laid out what I thought the group needed for organization and leadership. I wrote up a list of leadership positions and specific job descriptions for each area and then had a meeting where people could sign up for a specific area. Here were our areas and our goal was to get most areas having 2 leaders for accountability and convenience:

Devo director (2)
Service project director (2)
Social director (1)
Evangelism director (1)
Encourager (1)
Prayer team (4-6)

This year we added women’s ministry positions. Here are the descriptions we laid out to make sure people knew their specific responsibilities:

o Devotional Director – Point person to keep us grounded in scripture and worship
 To coordinate monthly devotionals, set up time, location, and topics
 Advertise to our group, visitors, and outsiders about our activities through email and phone calls – asking other group members to help with these contacts.
o Service Coordinator – Point person to keep us engaged with our community
 Coordinate at least one service project per month and to advertise the project to our group.
o Prayer Team – 4-6 people who are regularly praying for our group
 To pray for the prayer requests of our group, spiritual development, and outreach.
o Evangelism – This is a point person to keep us focused on the lost.
 Keep up with visitors – who has come in and are they still attending. Coordinating people to contact first time visitors and give them a warm welcome through a phone call.
o Encourager – pass cards and mail on a regular basis. Maybe something eventually with birthdays.

Once we had them leading the group the group took off. We went from having 20 people in class to having over 40 in a matter of months. As the group grows we continue to add positions and continue to find ways to keep people involved. One place that helped me see the need to have them do the ministry was Rainer’s book – Raising Expectations. In that book he lines out how growing churches know how to get members involved from the get go. We have implemented that policy pretty well and it has worked so far.

If you have any more specific questions they are welcome here.