Building Church Leaders is sharing some information from my newest book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them, pointing the nine traits common to churches who are effectively reaching young adults. I am a contributor to the site, but it turns out I don't contribute as much as I should. So, when they use what I have already written, I say, "Thanks."

Let me encourage you to check them out here: Building Church Leaders

Creating Deeper Community Churches that are effective at attracting and developing young adults place a high value on moving people into a healthy small group system. Young adults are trying to connect and will make a lasting connection wherever they can find belonging.

Making a Difference through Service
Churches that are transforming young adults value leading people to serve through volunteerism. More than being pampered, young adults want to be part of something bigger than themselves and are looking to be part of an organization where they can make a difference through acts of service.

Experiencing Worship
Churches that are engaging young adults are providing worship environments that reflect their culture while also revering and revealing God. More than looking for a good performance, young adults desire to connect with a vertical experience of worship.

Leveraging Technology
Churches that are reaching young adults are willing to communicate in a language of technology familiar to young adults. Young adults sense that these churches are welcoming churches that value and understand them, engaging them where they are.

Building Cross-Generational Relationships
Churches that are linking young adults with older, mature adults are challenging young adults to move on to maturity through friendship, wisdom, and support. Young adults are drawn to churches that believe in them enough to challenge them.

Moving Toward Authenticity
Churches that are engaging young adults are reaching them not only by their excellence but by their honesty. Young adults are looking for and connecting to churches where they see leaders that are authentic, transparent, and on a learning journey.

Leading by Transparency
Churches that are influencing young adults highly value an incarnational approach to ministry and leadership. This incarnational approach doesn't require revealing one's personal sin list so much as it does require that those in leadership must be willing to express a personal sense of humanity and vulnerability.

Leading by Team
Increasingly churches reaching young adults seem to be taking a team approach to ministry. They see ministry not as a solo venture but as a team sport--and the broader participation it creates increases the impact of ministry.

Is your church reaching young adults? If so, are any of these traits proving to me more instrumental than the others in your context?

I am very happy to see that many are finding encouragement and direction in the book, Lost and Found.

If we are going to take the Great Commission seriously we have to figure out how to best communicate the gospel to and connect with the younger generations - especially the unchurched. So, I was very impressed with the continued good work of my friends at Threads. They created this video that gives you a peek into the stats and perspective you'll find in the book. If the video interests you, you should order the book. ;-)

Trevin Wax recently interviewed me for his blog, Kingdom People. We talked about our new book, Lost and Found, and the issues facing our churches and the unchurched younger generations. Here's how it went down.

Trevin Wax: Did you encounter any surprises as you sifted through the data as you were researching this book?

Ed Stetzer: Yes. Not only did we see some surprises, but also we actually were really encouraged by these findings. It would have been unfortunate had the younger unchurched expressed interest in things that we simply couldn't offer.

As a Christian, a researcher, a pastor, and a father I am very interested in the spiritual temperature of the younger generations. In surveys conducted by Lifeway Research we found that many have been getting it wrong concerning the younger unchurched.

In fact, 73 percent of unchurched twentysomethings consider themselves "spiritual" and would like to know more about "God or a higher supreme being." This is 11 percent higher than among unchurched individuals who are 30 years old and older. They are also significantly more likely to attend church or a small group than older, unchurched generations. This research is included in my newest book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches That Reach Them, co written by Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes. You can get some more numbers and thoughts from the authors of the book in this article at Lifeway.

Below you can check out a podcast where Jason Hayes and I discuss the younger generations and the churches that reach them. Give it a listen and share your thoughts in the comments.

On Monday, I posted an article about preaching to the younger unchurched based on our new book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and Churches that Reach Them. 

Yesterday, I posted more about preaching and communication from an interview with Andy Stanley.  While the discussion continues on that "Andy Stanley post," Jason Hayes (co-author of Lost and Found) gathered up some of the book reviews of Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and The Churches That Reach Them.

We appreciate you checking out the book and sharing it with others.

Here's a quick look into what you are saying (in the order we saw them).  If we missed you, feel free to post your review below-- even if you hated the book!

"Lost and Found is not a how-to book for reaching young adults. It is rather a here's-what book -- here's what this generation is, here's what they want, and here's what churches are doing to reach them."

Chuck Warnock, Confessions of A Small-Church Pastor, Ed Stetzer's new book, Lost and Found

"... we should read the Bible until God stops us. One verse, one page, one chapter; when we run into something God wants us to ponder, then stop and ponder. That happened to me literally hundreds of times in Lost And Found. I finished the book much the better for having read .. make that studied .. it."

Bob Cleveland, Eagles' Rest, LOST AND FOUND ... Riflebore Study; Shotgun Results

"... A great read. You definitely need to pick this up if you are church planter, pastor or leader in a church that cares about reaching the younger unchurched."

Joshua Reich, My World, Lost & Found: The Younger Unchurched & the Churches that Reach Them

"Ed Stetzer is a genius - he is able to make statistics interesting!  He speaks with both authority and humility. His research seems (to this amateur) to be solid and honest. But he is careful not to use research as the basis of truth. He recognizes that truth comes from God's Word - something this book is careful to remember. He is not trying to derive truth from statistics, but to use his research to show the church how to communicate its eternal truth more clearly."

Dave Miller, SBC Impact, Ed Stetzer: "Lost and Found" A Review

"This is not a book to be read once. It is a book to be slowly digested and considered over time. Buy it. Read it. Think about it. Pray about it. Implement its recommendations. The younger unchurched in your community will receive better ministry if we do."

Dave Miller, SBC Impact, Ed Stetzer: "Lost and Found" A Review

"A very well done book led by an author who's been there and done that. My first thought was who to give this book to next."

Curtis Powers, If I Have A Faith That Can Move Mountains, Book Review: Lost and Found by Ed Stetzer

"This book is a must read for all pastors and church planters who desire to reach the younger generations. Lots to think about and some very interesting stats."

Joe Gnatek, Soul Trek, Lost and Found by Ed Stetzer

"The short of it is that Lost and Found is a good place to begin a journey. You will find several hints about what is connecting the church with the unchurched. My prayer is that pastors would read this book and get their butts in gear."

Jeremy Davidson, JeremyDavidson.org, Lost and Found Book Notes and Rant

"...you have to read this book. Let it challenge you. If you have no clue why the young adults generation is missing from your church, you have to read this book. You will have to consider making serious changes if you want the missing to be found. If you have young adults, but have no idea what it might take to keep them, you have to read this book."

Shane Kennard, ShaneKennard.com, Lost and Found: Reaching Unchurched Young Adults

"... church leaders need to know how to equip those in church to reach out to others who won't ever enter the church's doors. This book does a great job of offering suggestions for how leaders might do just that, and I am thankful that the authors have put it together."

Joshua Lake, Quieted Waters, Lost and Found - A Review

"Let me recommend this book for reasons beyond the information, practices, narrative, or tone of the book. We need to connect to this generation of young adults in a big way. Maybe it is because I am a young adult myself, but I have a passion for this group. I think this book can help us- I pray it helps us."

Daniel Edwards, Faith In Chandler Blog, Lost and Found - A Review

"The book is an engaging read. A well structured balance of research based data, personal interview, and an engaging "true story" narrative that glues the concepts together with practical advice."

Matt and Nancy Heerema, Matt and Nancy, Book Review: Lost and Found by Ed Stetzer

"Reaching young unchurched adults is the concern of every church. Lost and Found serves a useful purpose in allowing us to move past our opinions of what "should" be and begin to consider the obstacles confronting us in this task."

Chuck Huckaby, The Christian Observer, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches That Reach Them.

"Lost and Found championed the simple in order to make maximum impact.  This was simply a great read. When you pick it up, don't rush through it. Take your time and make sure you have notebook and pen handy. My copy is filled with notes!"

Dan Scott, Life As Best I Remember It, Book Review I  Lost and Found

Here are some other kind folks who spoke of the book.

Tom Goodman, Get Anchored, Book Review: Lost and Found

Todd Burus, Todd On God, A Review of Lost and Found

Finally, here is one more referring to the conference I am doing tomorrow in Chattanooga:

Jimmy, Street Beat: Faith Connection Church Blog, Ed Stetzer to Host Seminar In Chattanooga.

Feel free to post your own link below if we missed yours.

Sermon Central is the largest on-line community of pastors in the world. So, when they ask us to write an article, we always agree! (And, for full disclosure, they may ask me because I am on the Sermon Central Advisory Council.)

So, I was glad to submit the article to my friend Ron Forseth (purveyor of all things Sermon Central and the only person I know who spent four and a half years in Outer Mongolia). He specifically asked us to write about preaching to the younger unchurched.

You can read the whole article at this link for Sermon Central, but I have included a few excerpts below. Give it a read over at Sermon Central and then come back here to discuss.

Preaching to The Younger Unchurched Ed Stetzer and Jason Hayes

Let us begin by saying that not only is it possible to preach to the unchurched, it's quite probable you're already doing so, perhaps weekly. Just because someone has awareness of your church or has attended a service at your church does not make them churched. Consider those that show up for their annual visits on Easter and Christmas. They may have sat through the last 20 years of your holiday cantata, but that doesn't make them churched. Entertained, sure. Inspired maybe. But certainly not churched...

While the research that we share in the book discusses a broad scope of issues related to young adults and their opinions, we will focus in this space specifically on preaching and teaching. We'll leave specific stats for the book, but we hope you'll be encouraged as you read through the provided recommendations we've drawn from our research. Take note especially that so much of what the younger unchurched are looking for lines up directly with the biblical instruction we've received as teachers.

Examine Your Approach

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "It is not length of life, but depth of life." Interestingly enough, our research shows that young adults agree. The survey data confirms that the younger unchurched maintain a high level of interest in theology, apologetics, worldview, and other religions.

Many churches have chosen to lessen their emphasis on depth in order to complement their inaccurate stereotypes of this generation. This isn't working now, and it certainly won't in the future. In fact, most young adults are turned off by shallowness and are beginning to walk away from environments (including churches) that foster it...

What they are interested in, however, is preaching that engages on several levels, that provokes deeper thoughts, that reveals complexity. This doesn't mean watering down the truth. It means teaching the truth in all its challenging fullness. Preaching that engages the younger unchurched is deliberate preaching crafted with depth of thought and delivered with conviction. Think and rethink. Evaluate and reconsider.

Encourage Struggle

Directly connected to the younger unchurched's aversion to simplistic preaching is their aversion to "tidy" preaching. The Church has somehow forgotten that life is not always about having a neat, pat answer...

This means that the moralizing of our preaching past is out like the 80s. Our preaching should encompass more than do's and don'ts. It should reach to the why and the how behind our proclamation. Great preaching requires mining truth down to its deepest core and assigning it to resonate within the hearts of our listeners. As a result, our preaching must go beyond appeals to behavior modification, beyond pithy platitudes on being happy and living well. Our preaching must wrestle with the meat and marrow of human existence, because this is what young adults are already doing. Otherwise it is like tossing a fortune cookie to a man starving in the desert.

Be Authentic and Transparent

We must remember that preaching is not just about what you say; it's very much about who you are. One of the reasons so many young adults think negatively about churches is because they see very little authentic struggle from their leadership. Indeed, a large majority of the younger unchurched believe the church is full of hypocrites.

Consider the "foolishness of preaching" from the perspective of an unchurched young adult. What they see is a pastor standing up and presenting the message in a way that implies that implies the pastor already has everything all figured out. When pastors relate to no doubt, no struggle, and no experiential element, they are just begging to be tuned out. But preaching is not just about the level of intellectual content; it's also about the teacher's relationship with that content.

Leaders who know the value of speaking to people, not over people, are leading churches that are reaching young adults. There is no substitute for authenticity. Preaching with transparency has to do with being open and honest with a purpose that is redemptive and developmental. A preacher who is being transparent opens a window for the divine and pure purpose of helping others change in positive ways, without hidden motives or pretense. That is the kind of transparency that will connect with younger adults...

Head over to Sermon Central, read the full article, (while you're there you should sign up for their newsletter where articles like this get sent to your inbox) and then come back here to discuss preaching to the younger unchurched.

Catalyst Friends,

Here are the stats I presented at Catalyst on Friday. I promised to post them here today.

As you will recall, the numbers are those who agree, somewhat or strongly, with the statement listed. I have only listed the agree percentages. You can download the PowerPoint I used here. You can pre-order the book, Lost and Found, here.

Thanks for coming to Catalyst and coming by the blog. And you are welcome to come back by and stay up with the blog this week to learn more about church planting in Europe!

Here are the numbers grouped by topic: