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Are You Ready for the Age Wave? And the Shrinking Youth/Young Adult Market?
By chris | November 13, 2007
Did the Boomers build the Evangelical church? This is not a theological question. Of course Jesus builds the church. I am just waxing practial from a macro scale here. Who comprise the majority of people in the church? What has been the effect of the Boomer generation on the ministries of the church historically?
See this Graph showing the Boomer Birth Years
Graphic from “The Boomer Century” by Richard Croker
Most of our gurus don’t seem to be aware that the expansive growth of evangelicals is not due to their outreach genius (semiars, conferences, and workbooks notwithstanding), it’s because there are a ton of Boomers. If you find something they like, or that connects with enough of them effectively you have a “hit” with a huge number of people. Unfortunately, they are not as discriminating as some think. (See also: “Jabez”)
- 1950’s-70’s they were the reson for explosive Sunday School growth. In the SBC the “Million More in 54 Campaign” changed the face of that denomination. It wasn’t the slogan that made it work…it was the huge numbers of school age children “out there” that needed to be in church. The SBC went out and enrolled them door-to-door and they came to church. We didn’t have children’s ministers in substancial numbers until the Boomers.
- 1960’s-70’s they caused the church to focus on youth and college (they fueled the growth of youth camps, youth musicals, campus ministries,”Jesus Freaks“, etc. We didn’t have youth and campus ministers in substancial numbers until the Boomers.
- 1980’s-90’s they moved en masse to mega churches (mega church growth is from transfer growth from smaller churches–sorry, that’s just the truth) and brought their contemporary Christian pop music to the worship service and caused the “worship wars”. More analysis could be done to show how they fueled the mission volunteer movement, made seminaries grow, and more. We didn’t have cool church seminar leaders (or goatees) until the Boomers.
- 2000-Now Boomers are the drivers, thinkers, and writers behind the missional church and emerging church movement really. You can’t go to a ”emerging/relevant church” conference without there being a Boomer within spitting distance. I also see the begining of a movement among them as “social entreprenuers” developing new parachurch ministries. Thanks to the Boomers many currently celebrated churches were founded as younger Boomer and GenX leaders leveraged the name (and members) of their forebearer’s (read:”Daddy’s”) ministries.
- Moving-Forward Boomers will transform the church again. At every stage of life the Boomers transformed the church drastically. Today the Boomers are in their Mid 40s-Early 60s. It’s easier to pretend life in the church and our institutions will stay the same and not spend time thinking about the coming transformation to the Evangelical church. But get ready for a change. We will have Senior Adult Ministers in substancial numbers I predict, but they will be called something really cool.
There is no generation as large as the Boomers. It seems as if people assume that the church can expect young adult outreach to fuel the growth of the church. People seem to act af if they think there is another Baby Boom of youth and children “out there” behind the Boomers to fuel future growth. They are not there!
Everything we now see from our seminaries, our missions institurions, etc will have to “compete” in a shrinking, highly “niched” marketplace. In the secular marketplace the Boomers will contain the most sought after segments. Since the evangelical church was build by the Boomer “market” will she follow-suit?
What will ministry look like in 20 years for you?
Topics: Demographics |