Previous Post – Our Father & The Fatherless

While at Scot McKnight’s blog recently, I came across his comments on the new Barna report.  The second point he listed- “Religious activities are typically missing single adults, especially those who have never been married”- stood out to me, as Little Flowers Community is primarily made up of this very demographic.  True to the findings, given that Little Flowers is a house church, there is a higher level of involvement than the stats for a traditional church.  However, the dynamic was there and it has been something we have been wrestling with.

Please do not read this as a criticism of our young adults.  Far from it!  They are passionately committed to God, this community and each other.  For many of them, their commitment to Little Flowers has surpassed in depth and longevity any other such church commitment.  However the reality is this- singles in their twenties are afforded a freedom that results in an inconsistent breadth of work hours and social activities, making it challenging to get a lot of time available and even more difficult to coordinate activities for groups.  Since they make up 95% of our congregation, this has become something of a challenge.

One thing we have all felt in this respect is a desire to see couples and families join our community.  However, we are facing something of a “chicken vs. egg” dynamic, for many families won’t come unless we have something for their kids in place, yet until we have kids in our community, we won’t ever develop these things.  I am not just talking about programs or youth groups, but just the unique dynamic of inclusion that you find in mixed age churches.  We just don’t know how to develop that diversity.

Another challenge that stems from this becomes the problem of insular focus.  While our group is deeply motivated to live missionally, as we struggle to find ways for people to connect and serve in the neighbourhood, time passes and the culture of the group inevitably starts to lean towards becoming too inwardly focused.  If we don’t confront this, we risk discipling people into an expectation of community that is self-centered.  And so we are really confronting this head on.

Again, I don’t want you to get the impression that our community is a bunch of self-centered, exclusive young people.  Rather, this is just an awareness that is growing in us collectively.  We are determined to confront these challenges head on.  In the meantime, they continue to practice real grace, hospitality, boldness and love to each other and people in the neighbourhood.  I love my community and am deeply proud of them.

We are growing up and it is tricky.  Keep us in your prayers.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under Community, Discipleship, Missional, church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.