My colleague and friend, Bayou Bill, wrote an excellent reflection piece on attempted "magic bullet" answers to church growth problems. One on worship wars, the other on targeted age groups.
To piggyback off of his latter contribution, it's also true that to grow a church needs adult Christians. That is, Christians who are mature. No matter what chronological demographic they fit into, there is a christological demographic that is even more important.
You can get some of those notoriously fickle Gen-Xers who are absolutely sold-out to Christ and will do whatever He says. They can grow the Church.
You can also get some middle-aged muddlers who may have some expendable cash, maybe some extra time, but they're mostly sold-out Christians. They can grow a church...but still have too much growing they need to do to be seriously useful to anyone else - or even themselves.
May God grant the increase, in spirit and in numbers.
To piggyback off of his latter contribution, it's also true that to grow a church needs adult Christians. That is, Christians who are mature. No matter what chronological demographic they fit into, there is a christological demographic that is even more important.
You can get some of those notoriously fickle Gen-Xers who are absolutely sold-out to Christ and will do whatever He says. They can grow the Church.
You can also get some middle-aged muddlers who may have some expendable cash, maybe some extra time, but they're mostly sold-out Christians. They can grow a church...but still have too much growing they need to do to be seriously useful to anyone else - or even themselves.
May God grant the increase, in spirit and in numbers.
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