Reimagining Young Adult Ministry: A Guidebook for the Ordinary Church

Helping college students and 20-somethings today—the “Millennial Generation”—engage with the church seems nearly impossible. Everywhere you look you find churches trying the same stop-and-start, can’t-quite-get-it-to-work, and copy-the-church-down-the-street methods of trying to reach young adults…. and none of it seems to work.But what if it doesn’t have to be that way?What if success with young adults is within the grasp of every church?Before we throw in the towel on an entire generation with tremendous potential to change the church (and the world), it’s time to consider a new approach.With the clear, intentional, and measured approach found in Reimagining Young Adult Ministry, Pontier & Devries will first open the roadmap and firmly clarify “you are here” with the state of the relationship between Millennials and the Church. From there, they will help you avoid the six most common mistakes churches make with young adults and walk you through six new paradigms of young adult ministry that will reshape how we think about next generation ministry from the ground up. Finally, you will enter this new landscape with a step-by-step process that will give you the handles you need to always know what to do next!

Scott Pontier is the founding and lead pastor of Jamestown Harbor Church, one of the Harbor Churches, a multi-site church in West Michigan. He is an unabashed recruiter and equipper and is passionate about church multiplication and leadership development. Scott is an avid triathlete and outdoorsman and he and his wife, Cindy have two boys. Mark DeVries is the founder of Ministry Architects (www.ministryarchitects.com) a consulting firm specializing in creating sustainable, healthy ministry throughout the church. Mark is the author of Sustainable Youth Ministry and Family-Based Youth Ministry. Mark served as the Associate Pastor for Youth and Their Families at First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee for 28 years.