An article was recently posted about churches struggling to attract young people. It suggests that they aren’t seeking ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ environments, but rather places where they feel a sense of belonging, hospitality, authenticity, and warmth. What do you think? Post in comments below.
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Transcription:
Brant:
This is interesting. The Washington Post has this article about churches trying to attract young people, I guess teenagers, people in their early twenties struggling to do it. We got to attract people to this thing, to our programs, our ministries, or whatever. They found that young people are not looking for cool. They’re not looking for hip. They’re looking for things like belonging, hospitality, caring, welcoming, authenticity, being real. Now, all those things can become buzzwords too. But what the article the Post was saying is that the researchers are saying there’s something about warmth that attracts people. There’s something about warmth, which obviously by definition is not cool and it’s really what people want. Rather than going, look how hip we are. The same thing happens. I even tweeted this, I’ll probably get in trouble for it, but I wrote, look, radio people trying to be hip and cool, nobody buys it. I can come on here, I do it as a joke sometimes, but be like, yo, what’s up? That’s not me.
Sherri:
And it’s really easy to see through very quickly.
Brant:
Totally. So, what they don’t need is somebody else going, see, I’m hip and young and cool too.
Sherri:
They don’t need what they are. They need what they need.
Brant:
It dawned on me too. And you’ve done youth ministry too, they got enough teenagers.
Sherri:
Oh yes. I learned that very early. I am not your buddy. I’m actually what you need.
Brant:
Right. And it may mean that you don’t always want to hang out with me, but it’s the price of being who you actually need.
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