Young Young Adults

Pictured is the leadership team of the young adult ministry at our church - a phenomenal group of young people. I had the privilege of being with them for about 18 hours a few weeks ago for part of their spring leadership retreat. Huge privilege.

During our time together, we watched a few of the videos from the Verge Conference, best described as a gathering of future-centric church leaders. I loved the content of the talks and my role there was to help facilitate discussions with this team. Some of the concepts that we talked about included movement thinking, releasing and ordaining ordinary people to do ministry, and postures and gestures. The other idea that I walked away with was the reminder that vocabulary creates culture - the words that you use and their definitions matter and help define the ethos of your team.

Much has been said about the decline of church involvement among young people and how the American church is in crisis mode. I don't dispute any of that and certainly agree that the future of a movement of Jesus followers will see many challenges. But people like these people - who love each other incredibly through good and bad, who are bound so tightly by a sense of impacting the world for God's glory, and who are willing to break the mold of how we have done it before - yes, I'll hang with them and cheer them on.