You might find this blog article interesting.

“The Loneliness of Being a Millenial in Church” by Sarah Howel-Miller
https://sarahshowell.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/the-loneliness-of-being-a-millennial-in-church/

An insight she shares:
“I hear people long for the days when everyone came to church because that’s just what you did. But was the church really so much better off when people came because “that’s just what you did”? I don’t think so.

The solution isn’t to go backward, and it isn’t simply to move forward as is, or even to tweak our message and presentation to appeal to a new generation. It’s to reorient ourselves as to what the problem is. Maybe the problem isn’t millennials’ apathy toward the church—maybe it’s the church’s apathy toward the concerns and passions of millennials, and not just millennials but the world outside the Christian bubble.”

Ouch.

This video is about a little church in a rural area in England. They have had tremendous success in impacting their community by doing “church” quite a bit differently than the “traditional” church model.

If you find yourself stuck in thinking that we must only do church in the ways we’ve always done church, you might very well be missing out on the beautiful ways Christians are thinking outside the box and engaging with non-believers and anyone in the community (just as Jesus did)!

Think about the person who might not really think much about “religion” or God. There’s a pretty good chance that all the advertising in the world won’t attract them to come to a traditional church. But what if followers of Christ choose to do more to include those who feel like they are outsiders, including people who don’t consider themselves as Christian at all. God loves them. How might we love them too? How might we make a space where they don’t feel like an outsider? How might we give them a place where they feel like they actually belong and they are loved just as they are.

If you are trapped in your traditional church model, you may think this is not really what church is supposed to be all about. But in reality, this IS what church is all about. Christians gathering and loving their neighbors, all their neighbors, excluding no one, and entering into a relationship first, getting to know them, loving them like Jesus did. Our efforts in loving God and loving our neighbors is the most beautiful way of worshiping our God.

This video is about 10 minutes long. I just provide it as an example.

There are SO many ways churches are finding new vitality as a congregation as they try new “fresh expressions” of how to do church in today’s world, and the result is leading more people to Christ.

VIDEO: Xpressions Café