If you desire to minister to emerging adults in your church, I highly encourage you to create a team. Teamwork makes your journey more fun, and allows you to accomplish more than if you are working alone. While a good team can expand your reach and ministry; however, a bad team can exhaust you and hold you back from making a difference.
So if you recruiting people to minister to emerging adults, here are some essential qualities.
1. Community Builders
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These are the people that everyone wants to be around. There is just something contagious about who they are, and what they bring into a room. I actively recruit several “life-of-the-party” people before launching any type of small group or community, because they will be the glue that makes new people stick. These people are your front-line welcome the new guests. You want your new guests to walk away saying, “Wow, I really liked the people we met.”
2. Accepting
Look for teammates who readily accept others for who they are and where they are in life. Some people breathe judgmental attitudes, while others regularly speak their mind. While I do believe in the gift of discernment, sometimes people claim this spiritual gift because they simply want to speak their mind. After being raised with a postmodern mindset, emerging adults will run from those who claim to have all the answers.
Emerging adults must be safe to express who they are, and where they are truly at in their faith journey without fear of becoming a spiritual project of someone else within the group. I want teammates who are gifted at asking questions, rather than giving advice. A wise team will fully accept others for who they are, and wait for God to do the work.
3. Consistent
One consistent worker is worth – twenty part-timers. Due to the constant changes in their lives, emerging adults are looking for consistency. Emerging adults want to know who is going to be at meetings before they show up. When looking for workers, I ask those who were not otherwise involved in church ministry because I want my teammates fully devoted to our goal. Availability is also important because your teammates must have enough margin to be available to your group outside of your weekly scheduled meeting.
4. Intergenerational
Your team should include emerging adults. If you have no emerging adults on your team, you are already communicating that they are not capable of leading or contributing to the ministry. Emerging adults have great potential to give and lead within any ministry.
Your team should also include other generations who have traveled further down life’s road and can offer a different perspective. However, older adults need to understand that emerging adults are looking to develop relationships that involve give-and-take rather than downward-focused. As the team enters each week with an expectation of receiving, it will be amazing what God will do in their lives as they serve.
While you may be overwhelmed by starting a ministry to emerging adults, the beauty about starting a ministry is that you can pick your team. Choose wisely. Spend time praying over who God is calling you to invite into this exciting movement.
Dr. G. David Boyd is the Founder and Managing Director of EA Resources. He is passionate about seeing Emerging Adults survive and thrive in our world and the church.
