Pastor Rick Dunn leads Fellowship Evangelical Free Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Of the church of 5,000, 65 percent of adults are under the age of 35. Though fresh in style, the church doesn't embody the uber-trendy vibe many think you need to attract the younger set. Rather, it's Dunn's commitment to empowering and discipling emerging adults that has made them such a vital part of the congregation. He understands the longings of young people, and the specific spiritual challenges (and assets) of emerging adults.
Dunn co-wrote Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults (IVP, 2012) with professor and church leader Jana Sundene. It's filled with practical strategies for empowering Millennials to use their gifts, addressing their skittishness and cynicism, and communicating a vision for their discipleship to older believers. Leadership Journal's Paul Pastor sat down with Dunn to discuss his approach to discipling the younger generation.
Millennials have been skewered in the media. Why are you excited about working with them?
"With" is the important word here. To be effective with emerging adults, pastors need to think of ministry as work with, not work at or work for. This generation is deeply drawn to places of passion and authenticity. They want to be part of something that's meaningful, that is more than what they experience in other places.
They have tremendous energy and vision to ask hard questions and move the church forward. I don't think we've seen the 21st-century church yet, because we haven't let the emerging generation really come into its own.
I don't think we've seen the 21st century church yet, because we haven't let the emerging generation really come into its own.
I have a friend who left a very prominent position to work at a non-profit. He's almost 50 and the CEO of the nonprofit is a 29-year-old woman. When I heard it I said, "Wow, if I was going to work in a non-profit, I'd want to work for a 29-year-old! They're going to figure it out a lot better than I would."
We need to have wisdom from older generations, and bring our experience, and our understanding of life, but the form of the 21st-century church will be realized as today's emerging adults come into their own. The 15- to 25-year-olds out there are going to do it, and because of their energy, vision, and creativity, it will be something special. All I want to do is make sure it's rooted in authentic gospel, authentic community, authentic transformation and mission. They need our guidance, but we need their creativity and their freedom from existing forms.
How does the church get Millennial ministry wrong?
Too often the church treats emerging adults the way that overindulgent Americans treat their kids. We try to show our love by giving them things, and doing things for them, and making sure they have everything they could possibly want. We think, We need young adults in our church. We have to attract them. This is wrong. We don't have to attract them. We have to care about them, believe in them, and communicate a vision and mission for their lives.
They are marketed to literally all the time. They're bombarded with information in our consumer culture. But with all this noise, they feel the need for something authentic and passionate. They want something to touch their souls.
They're looking for a place where they belong and where they can make a difference. The way you show someone you love them is to have vision for their lives, to invest in them, to call them out when they're wrong. To give them resources and encouragement, but also to believe that they have something valuable to offer the world.
We need to move from trying to please them to actually believing that they have been created in God's image, that they are redeemed and powerful, that they have an important, authentic place in the kingdom right now. When you do that, you stir something in them.
How does a church stir them without becoming another marketing voice?
Be genuine and transparent. Don't just say you're not trying to manipulate them, really don't manipulate them. Don't market to them. Talk to them. Don't ask them to invest in things that you're not willing to do yourself. Genuinely believe that each one of them has something to offer. You have to be willing to invest in them. You have to be willing to take risks with them.
Sixty percent of our church is under the age of 35. I don't think of them as "those young people who will come and build my ministry" or "the people who are going to come and build my church." I think of them as disciples, as agents of the gospel in the world. It's not about them attending your church. It's not about them making your program successful. It's about leading them to their place in the kingdom.
What reactions do you get when you put that kind of trust in them?
At first they're like, "Really? You want me to do something?" But they see us living in our place of passion, and we invite them to find what they're passionate about. I tell them, "Find your place of passion." It may be helping hurting kids. It may be single moms. It may be whatever. But find your place and get involved there." And because I talk about that in my own life, I think that gives them permission and blessing.
Too often we treat emerging adults the way that overindulgent American parents treat their kids.
A lot of emerging adults are looking for permission and blessing to be the people God created them to be. But too often we try to make them into church people. They know intuitively that's not going to work. It doesn't work to be a church person. It works to be a disciple.
They're excited about that. They want to take the risk. They want adventure. They want something more than vicarious consumer experiences. There's got to be some reason to live beyond the American lifestyle or getting drunk on the weekends or whatever.
What's the quickest way to alienate emerging adults?
To promote the traditional, institutional church at the expense of the "church on mission." Or coddle them, and do superficial things. Just "doing church" without genuine heart and external focus doesn't work for this generation. At the end of the day, they sniff out empty self-promotion. They ask the hard "why" questions of how our behavior in church impacts the mission of the kingdom. I tell my staff, "If we stop bringing our heart and we just start 'doing church,' we'll look up and see that the sanctuary's empty."
Does it take some convincing to show emerging adults that you back up your words?
Of course. They wait to see how it plays out. They're jaded—even on the concept of "transparency." My goodness, in our culture everybody claims transparency. It's a buzzword. Hardly anyone actually delivers it. That's what they're used to. But the gospel can carry a different story. The gospel calls us to a transparency that doesn't pretend that we're not sinners but pursues biblical health and open community. Like I said before—you're going to lose them if you stop bringing your heart. When you're not being transparent, you're hiding something, and they sense that.
As a pastor, it's important to understand that cynicism has a root cause. There are good reasons people are cynical. Just look at the governmental dysfunction in our nation. Look at the liberal/conservative venom. Even look at the sell-out world of college sports, which is a big part of our culture.
We've been trained to expect failure and greed from high profile leaders. We've been trained to be sarcastic and jaded, and not to pin our hopes on anybody, because we've seen what happens to them. And we walk away saying something like, "It's all just about the money."
But we need to fight that. If you don't think that people can be trusted, then become a trustworthy person. If you don't feel like people are leading well in the government, then get involved in your civic community. If your goal is to live the gospel, rejoice because you have opportunities all over the place.
Your book focuses a lot on emerging adulthood as a journey. Does that term resonate with Millenials?
I think it does. We want to think in the church that spiritual maturation is a stair-step journey. So it's like you can conquer this, or master a level, then you can master your sexual impulses. Then you master your finances. Then you master sharing your faith, and so on. We think of it as a steady ascension into spiritual excellence.
Actually, it's much more like a rollercoaster. So the word "journey" validates and affirms the way we really experience the ups and downs of living out the gospel. And for those of us called to shepherd, we join people on that journey. We're not trying to get them to adapt to the stair step approach to spiritual maturation.
You describe middle age as a "natural priesthood" for those wanting to guide younger generations. How do you inspire middle-aged people in your church to engage with young adults?
Mobilizing people in the middle stage of life is the key to all of this. They're the disciplers.
Building passion and commitment for it is a long-term process. But it's not complicated.
I tell would-be mentors: "The most significant thing you can do in the life of an emerging adult is to show up. Show up with your weaknesses, your strengths, with who you are."
Over time that's really all it takes. But it's hard to believe that. People, particularly middle aged men, feel inadequate.
With that in mind, a leader has to find positive stories and share them. Often, on Sunday mornings, we tell the story of someone's spiritual journey in a short video. Right now we're focusing on people who are reproducing themselves as disciple-makers. The goal of every story is for the person sitting in the congregation to think, Well, I could do that.
We have to show them what showing up looks like. And then it's got to be the people who have grasped it who become the leaders, not the paid staff. You've got to bet the farm on the laypeople. Not on the staff. When lay people get it, they start living their lives with passion.
Just like we have to believe in the emerging adults, we have to believe in our middle-aged adults. They drive this process. And then you've got to risk them doing it, which is a lot messier than you setting up some program and controlling the curriculum. You've got to do what Jesus did. He said to the disciples: "I'm going to go away now; it's yours." As leaders, we have to believe it's our people's church. We serve, but we are replaceable. Ultimately, we're just here to help them live their calling, whatever life stage they're in.
Zach's Story
Zach is a 27-year-old member of Fellowship. Here's how Fellowship's focus on discipling emerging adults impacted his life:
I first heard the gospel and came to faith as an eighth grader at camp. During high school my roots were shallow. I didn't know how to follow Christ or make him known in my life. After walking through my parents' divorce and the death of my father, my faith became parched and dry. In college my Christianity became more of a cultural identity than a faith that shaped everything else.
After my sophomore year, my heart was callous. But I ended up reconnecting with Greg Pinkner, the teaching pastor at Fellowship, who was my camp pastor as a student. He encouraged me to join their ministry.
I woke up one morning and realized I had no idea what it really meant to follow Christ. I began to think about men I admired and who I would want to be like. I thought of my friend, Todd. I loved the way he loved his wife, raised his family, treated others, and loved the Lord. We began to schedule lunch every Friday for the rest of my time in college. I later figured out that this was "discipleship." We read Scripture and prayed. He challenged me and pointed me to Christ in ways I had never experienced.
As I began to know Christ more through Todd's friendship, I wanted to make Christ known to others. Through Fellowship's messages on Sunday, I realized that I did not have to be on some spiritual varsity team to be effective for the kingdom. As I continued to grow, opportunities came up for me to disciple others. With each step I took in that direction, Fellowship supported and encouraged me.
During my last two years of college, I began a friendship with a Chinese student studying in the U.S. He'd never heard of Jesus. We became roommates. Through our friendship, I learned what it means to not only give someone the gospel but to give them your whole life. He saw me at my best and worst. Living with him taught me how to live with integrity and honesty, and how often my own life didn't match with the message I believe. It ended up being such a meaningful experience, that I left my full-time marketing/PR job to work with international students at the University.
One of the biggest challenges to my faith and discipleship has been consistency during times of transition. For the past 10 years, my life has been one transition after another. That's a familiar story for people my age. Fellowship has encouraged me, created space for me to question and explore my gifts, and celebrated community life. It has been these authentic relationships that have helped me know Christ and make him known to others. Just being able to follow older men as they follow Christ has been crucial to my discipleship.
—Zachary Cochran
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