youngadults.today Season 2, Episode 10 | Randy Jumper | 20 Years In YA
Pastor Randy Jumper serves as the young adult pastor at First Assembly in
North Little Rock, Arkansas! NXT YA/UNITE is a place where young adults inNorth Little Rock come together for a weekly service and grow in Christ
together. He has over 20 years of experience in young adult ministry.
Here's an article Pastor Randy wrote to help those who are new to young adult ministry or might be starting something new:
I'm excited that you are going to be helping reach young adults! You'll
find it to be an exciting time of ministry and fun! I know I love it.
A couple resources to start with. Check out these websites:
Youngadults.ag.org go down to the resources pages. There are several
articles we've written to help start and grow a young adult ministry
Facebook - become a young adult facebook member. Find the links on the
youngadults website. On the Resources page, under leadership, click
Building the Ministry. It’s a great resource for information!
Books you might want to consider reading:
- College Ministry from Scratch by Chuck Bomar and College ministry 101
by
the same author.
- Practical Young adult Ministry from Group Publishing.
- Lost and Found by Ed Stetzer
- Sustainable Young Adult Ministry by Mark DeVries and Scott Pontier
Where do you start? Most people will tell you relationships, discussion
based teaching, and other basic info. All that is true and important
parts, but if you are like me, you want something to "do."
I know I need
to be open to young adults, pray for the Holy Spirit to work in young
adults, build meaningful relationships with young adults, etc...but what
do I "do" to do that? If I were you, I start with two simple steps:
Step One: Make 5 lists.
Yep, get a piece of paper and a pen out and make some lists (OK, turn your
laptop since nobody uses pens and paper anymore). I regularly make some
lists when starting a new area of ministry with young adults. They are
simple:
List 1: Who are our young adults?
Write down the names of all the young adults currently in your church
and/or influence. Your pastor may need to help you. The size of your
church will impact this list. If you have a database system your church
uses to record attendance, get help from it. Because of our church size,
we narrow it to young adults 17 - 30 and who have attended at least 2
times in the last year. We annually go through this list. But it started
with a piece of paper and a pen writing down the names of real people we
want to minister to and with.
List 2: What is our church doing with young adults now?
Don't write "nothing"! You might be surprised. Start asking questions
about what is going on in your church. Look at List 1 and see where YA's
are now! I promise you they are there and already active in some place.
Are young adults from list one Sunday school teachers for kids? Youth
sponsors? In the choir? Is there a small group for them? Maybe a class?
Do the YA's go out to eat every Sunday after church - do they sit together
in the sanctuary? Are they on the Sunday worship team? My guess is that
at least 1 young adult is doing something, somewhere at your church. This
will help you better leverage them and others for future involvement and
understand who is involved and who is a leader. You might have an organic
group of YA's already together, you just need to connect with them and
mobilize them.
List 3: What do you and your pastor want to see developed?
What is your assignment? Is it growing the church? Evangelizing young
adults in the community? Keeping your current young adults? Providing fun
activities only? Discipleship only? Starting a Sunday school class?
Starting a special service?
If the answer to all those questions is a yes! Then then narrow it down
for what you want to accomplish in the first 3 months, first 6 months and
then the first year. Set an agenda for what you both are wanting to do
for the kingdom. When you know your assignment, you'll know the direction
to take to fulfill that assignment. Make sure you and the church leaders
are on the same page. There is nothing worse than achieving your goal -
only to find out it was the wrong goal.
List 4: Who is on your team?
You'll need several people, especially some young adults from list 1, to
join you in launching this ministry. Young adults need ministered WITH,
not necessarily ministered TO. Get buy in and recruit some young adults
and other people to help you do this and do this well. I'd say get as
many as possible on this team. If possible I like the number 5 (notice
the 5 lists!). Five people is a good size team to manage and lead. What
if we only have 5 young adults to start with....no problem, use the 5 of
them as leaders to start your group.
List 5: What is going to happen for the next 6 months
Take all this and build a game plan. The President of the United States
maps the first 100 days. Most NFL football teams script the first quarter
and even first half of football plays they are going to run. You do the
same. Script what you'll do for the next 6 months at least, and then work
your way backwards with planning, recruitment and involvement. Script what
is going to happen with young adults every week for the next 6 months.
Some weeks you'll have more than others, maybe even no scheduled events or
activities, but do something every week to minister to young adults (maybe
all you do that week is Facebook every young adult in your church and tell
them they matter to you!)
If you want to send me any of this to look through and offer my
suggestions - not sure they'll be any good, but I'll try.
BONUS: Change the Way You Eat
This isn't diet advice, its ministry advice. Never eat alone if at all
possible. Every Sunday possible have a young adult over to your house for
lunch or dinner. Go out to eat with a young adult. Go get coffee with
them on campus. I can't think of the last time a week went by and I was
not eating with a young adult.