I’m currently writing a chapter on characteristics found in churches that are embracing college age people. This isn’t a chapter about characteristics in college ministries specifically, it’s about churches as a whole. I currently have 8 characteristics and am looking for a few more. So, this is where your thoughts would be welcomed!
- If your church (as a whole) is engaging with college age people, what do you think it is about your church that is attractive?
- Or, if your church isn’t engaging college age people (as a whole), what characteristics in your church are hindering that engagement?
- In your time with college age people, what do you hear them say they like about their church (as a whole).
Again, I know it could be easy to talk about an individual ministry, but this needs to be broader than that. Would love your insights, suggestions, thoughts…
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Chuck Bomar is pastor of Colossae Church in Portland, Oregon and founder of CollegeLeader (
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I think the main aspect that attracts college-age to our church is the that we have cracked out space for them to be here. Meaning, we have a college age ministry.
Beyond that, a worship environment that they can connect with and relate to and that is a natural expression of their worship to God. I constantly hear our college age crowd say how much they love the environment they’re in and feel that we’ve embraced what they are going through. They like that our church is addressing raw topics from a biblical perspective. I.e, what does the Bible say about alcohol, sexualtiy, homo-sexuality, relationships, etc.
Another aspect that I constantly hear college age people saying about our church is that the people that are leading / speaking seem to be very normal. They don’t come across as experts or religious teachers, rather normal people that have real-life issues and can relate to the common person, more specifically the college age person.
Finally, our college age ministry is led by college students, and they love that they have a ministry that they can own. It’s an outlet for them to serve others and minister to others and be fully engaged in what God is doing in their community.
We aren’t that attractive because of our distance from the 2 main campuses in our town. However, they would say relationships with students from other backgrounds, etc., and having relationships with the couples that teach. They enjoy relating back to a family from our church and feeling ‘community.’ That’s overused, but they feel cared for.
Like Serban, just having a college ministry is important because most churches in our area don’t.
Finally, I hear college students saying they want to be a part of solution (social projects, etc) instead of being rules based.
Being 24 and working at a church that does a pretty terrible job at reaching the college demographic, I have some ideas.
- sermons relate to their age. so many churches can talk about marriage or use business examples in their sermons. pastors have to remember than college students are in the building.
- music isn’t lame. i don’t think i need to elaborate here. either you understand this or you don’t
- outside of sunday morning connects with their schedule. college students have a different schedule (if one at all!) than any other group of people on the planet. Do they have to be a part of a small group to connect with the larger body? Do most small groups meet at 7pm? If so, you’re not going to have a bunch of college students jumping in.
The book Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts (published in 2008) by Thom and Sam Rainer seeks to answer this exact question. Its overall focus question is, “Why do so many young adults (18 to 22) leave the church, and what will it take to bring them back?,” at least according to the blurb on Amazon! It says they interviewed 1,000 individuals that age.
So that would probably offer some wisdom for your chapter, I mean.
thanks for all the thoughts so far – please keep the thoughts coming! and, ben, thanks for the recommendation – i’ve read that as well. looking to add to what’s currently out there and go deeper into some things. but we are certainly using what’s available. thanks!
Last Spring I conducted interviews with graduating seniors, as well as twenty-somethings who were in our church during college. Every one of them said they loved our church because of the people, the relationships they formed, and the ministry they were able to be involved in. Conversely, no one talked of great sermons, or awesome worship experience. They all had become grafted into the life of the church, beyond just attending, and were thankful for their experience. So, our ministry is tailored toward doing just this. It is nearly impossible to just come to services as a college student in my church, but the goal is to fold in students with the church as a whole.
I wouldn’t say we are completely effective at embracing college students. At least not through worship services b/c we’re a pretty conservative Baptist church.
I think the biggest draw for our students is the opportunity to serve. They serve in children and student ministries and on worship teams. I don’t think the college ministry keeps them at our church as much as the ministries they are tied into outside the college ministry. For those not involved, the college ministry is the connection…but for those we can get to take the next step, it isn’t. The college ministry feeds them, but its their area of service and the relationships there that is helping them plant roots at our church.
What I’ve heard our college students say at the Austin Stone Community Church is that they like not being seen as a different part of the church, but as part of the body as a whole. They enjoy not having a college service or college specific arms of existing ministries.
They enjoy the worship and connecting with people of all ages, while being challenged to apply all truth in the college context. The opportunities to serve are endless for college students whether it’s leading their peers in small groups, serving parents in Kidstuff, or serving the church in set-up and teardown. There’s about 1500 students who attend on a Sunday and about 500-600 are engaged with the church in some form of service or small group.
For us at Journey Christian Church in Wayne, NE, i think one of the biggest characteristics of our church that enables us to welcome and minister alongside of college students, is that in a lot of ways we don’t treat them any different than other adults who come to our church (we do have a college ministry that meets on Sunday night) but we try to assimilate them into our church the same way we do with our adults, we ask them to serve on ministry teams, and give communion meditations, sing on worship, help with children, teach sunday school, etc…we treat them like the other “adults” who go to our church, and that has seems to be one of the best benefits our college students have liked.
I agree that they need to be on ministry teams, involved with kids, etc. However, ultimately, young adults want to how they will have an impact. It is the responsibility of the church to grow them in leadership and not just serving. Essential Church focuses on those that will leave the church and not come back until they have kids of their own. Churches that are embracing their young adults are the churches that see them as the future. How can we leave them out to dry from the ages of 18-35 and then expect them to be ready for leadership? It can’t happen! So, one characteristic of a church that targets young adults/college age ministry is where they value the maturing/developing of those in their twenties.