"For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow:" Ecclesiastes 4:10 KJV

If you want to bring those young adults back into your church during your lifetime, you are going to have to basically re-invent the wheel in how your church operates. But, if you want to bring them back into "the" Church, you can start doing that tomorrow with the cooperation of area churches and joint funding of a city-wide of county-wide young adult ministry initiative.*

Elevate Young Adult Ministry (elevateministry.net) of Collin County, TX (City of McKinney, TX) is one such successful program that helps young adults to re-connect with area churches. The main difference in their young adult ministry is that they offer a established community of similar age and interests, which appeals to those young adults who never had a significant church based relationship with anyone growing up.

Data indicates that most who attend Elevate had parents who attended church with them, but never stressed or talked about religion in the home. To counter this disconnection from the value of attending church, Antwuan Malone, director of Elevate Young Adult Ministry**, says that "..churches need to do more to instill in parents the importance of making sure their child truly connects with the church during their formative years."*

This departure from a diversity of ages found in a usual church is an effective influence. All youth that have left the church were totally in step with the majority of the population (NONES) who have quit attending church and programs like Elevate hope to break that negative influence.

That is why programs like Elevate are successful. They offer a positive image of worship in a facility open to all youth to worship with others within their own age group.

It works, but it is a joint effort and investment toward the common goal: getting young people back into a church somewhere.

* "How innovative ministries are bringing millennials back to church" by Samuel Smith, CP Church & Ministries - June 17, 2019

** elevateministries.net

Rik Charbonneaux is a retired NE Iowan who loves all of God's Word and all of His creatures.