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Ben Brown > Four Questions Millennials at Your Church Plant Ask Themselves before Staying Long-Term
Church Planting is more like my mistress than just a strategy.
I have worked at a church plant for the last four years, have read every book about church planting (the ones coming out soon are already pre-ordered on Amazon), and I remember emailing the Acts 29 Church Planting Network about job shadowing their staff when I was in junior high.
With church planting being so near to my heart, I am often surprised at which millennials stay or don’t stay at the new church plant. I’ll be honest, we millennials have some pretty strange beliefs, but as I’m sure you know, we’re also not very shy about sharing those beliefs. Before we stay at any church plant, we unconsciously are asking these questions.
1. Do I like the Lead Pastor?
Let’s be honest, church plants are usually small (unless you’re Andy Stanley). You know everyone at your church plant, and they know you—but do they like you? It’s not the most spiritual sounding question, but we simply don’t hang around people we don’t like, including pastors.
2. Can I trust the Lead Pastor?
For millennials, trust transcends all other priorities. If we can’t trust your character, we simply won’t follow you.
Do you have a burning passion for Jesus? Do you actually love me, or do you love what I bring to you and the church? Are you only still here because you can’t get a job at a “real church,” or do you still believe in what you’re doing? A lot of trust has been lost in recent years with mega churches losing credibility due to their lack of character.
3. Do I agree with the church’s philosophy of ministry?
Someone can be completely sold out to Christ, sharing Christ with their friends and giving generously, but they simply won’t stay if they don’t agree with your church’s philosophy of ministry— and that’s ok. We don’t follow blindly, which is something that should be celebrated, not rebuked, or even just tolerated.
Millennials, more than others, look into the vision of the church and how they plan on reaching people for Christ. It’s rightly said that it takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people, but some of us prefer attraction churches, others missional churches. Some of us want our churches to pull people in to find Jesus at the church during an attractive weekend, others of us want to be encouraged to engage our friends through serving the single moms together.
4. Are they externally focused?
Most millennials will prefer the missional model of churches. We’re simply done seeing churches preach grace but not show grace. The widely known stats of millennials leaving the church are rooted in the lack of authenticity we see in churches.
We’re tired of Christian service being only for the institutional church’s benefit and not the benefit of our neighborhood (which is where we are trying to actually reach, right?). We don’t want to just volunteer in the nursery, we want to be immersed in our neighborhoods. Millennials simply won’t leave this issue alone. We read the Bible, see that the early church preached the gospel and served the poor, and see the state of our churches, and we can’t reconcile the difference.
Join the conversation About Ben Brown
Ben Brown is the Director of Operations at The Mission Church in Renton, WA. Ben can usually be found on a mountain trail with a backpack or at Safeco Field waiting for the Mariners to reach the playoffs.
