Study guide Young adults: Giving myths
:
hen it comes to younger adults—say, those in their 20s and early 30s—they certainly have something in common with every other age group, especially
when it comes to stewardship: they defy categorizing. In an effort to follow our commission to “make disciples of all ages” (apologies to Matthew 28:19), a wise church will be aware of the many ways people engage and process the world, and then pattern church life to reach a broad spectrum.
Exercise 1: Mythbusting • Do all the older people in your church love traditional Lutheran worship? Do they all love the “old hymns”? Do they all attend worship without fail? Do they all hate change and fight every innovation?
• Do all the members of “the greatest generation” give gen- erously, unflinchingly and sacrificially of their time, tal- ents and treasures to support the church?
• How do these myths play out in the life of your congregation?
• How are they as misleading and harmful as the myths about younger adults?
Exercise 2: Millennial myths • How prevalent in your church and its leadership circles are the myths that writer Adam Copeland describes?
• Which myths in particular are alive and well? What are the consequences of this?
• In what ways, explicit or implicit, does your congrega- tional leadership tend to write off or cater to younger adults?
• How can your congregation implement and live into the corrections that Copeland suggests?
Exercise 3: Demographic diversity A 2008 ELCA report found that the median age for wor-
shipers in the denomination was 20 years older than the U.S. population as a whole. Discuss: • What would you estimate the average age of your congre- gation’s worship attendees to be?
• If you do not have a healthy mix of age groups, what fac- tors can you cite as to why?
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• In addition to stewardship, in what important areas of church life are we failing to connect with younger people?
• If we aren’t connecting with younger adults in worship, education and other areas, can we hope to connect with them in stewardship?
• What can we do about it? What will happen to our churches if we don’t?
Exercise 4: Stewardship plan • What does “stewardship” mean in your congregation? • What and how are members taught about the proper role and use of money as a follower of Jesus?
• What system or program is in place to formally and regu- larly ask members to contribute their time, talents and treasures to the life of the congregation? (If there are no programs for education and giving, why not?)
• For what age group does the current stewardship pro- gram work best? Work least?
• Reviewing the suggestions in Copeland’s article, in what ways does your current stewardship program miss the mark for young adults?
• Can your congregation do better? How? Who would lead the work? Develop an action plan for your congregation council.
Exercise 5: Ageless ministry After dispelling the myths about younger adults, Cope-
land suggests ways that a stewardship ministry might be directed to better reach them. Go through the article care- fully, review every idea and suggestion, and discuss: • What’s good about this idea? • Would this help us reach young adults only? Who else would it affect?
• How would imple- menting this idea improve steward- ship specifically, and church life generally?
• What would it take to put this idea into practice?
• What do we have to lose?
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