After an off-and-on, nine-year battle, my only sister finally succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 47. I received numerous sympathy cards from members of our congregation, but one is particularly noteworthy because I did not recognize a single name on it.

It had been sent by one of our young adult weekly home Bible studies. Close to fifteen personally penned notes filled both of the inner flaps of the beautiful card, but I honestly could not put one face with any of the signatures. That's nothing for a pastor to brag about, but I share it with you so that you might better appreciate what has happened at my church in the past four years.

When I was installed as the senior pastor, we had about 250 people. Our single young adult population was less than 20 percent of that. Today, about 650 people gather together on Sunday mornings and single young adults constitute more than 60 percent of our attendance.

How is it that we're drawing Gen-Xers? The church is staffed by baby boomers. We don't ...