One of the greatest privileges and joys of our ministry here at Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College is leading the “First Love” connection group for young couples. This ministry brings many challenges with it, but those are far outweighed by the joy of seeing young families strive to follow Christ and honor God in their lives.
One of the challenges we continually face is the simple task of reaching young families. More often than not, these families struggle to strike balance between work, sometimes college, starting a family, and so on. Like an infant learning to walk, they sometimes “wobble” through the many challenges of adult and family life. Though many might consider attending church, sometimes they feel overwhelmed with the idea of one more thing on the calendar.
Over the last few years of ministering to this group, we’ve discovered a few strategies for meeting, engaging, and ultimately reaching young families. We constantly have to evaluate and revise our approach in order to keep up with such a transient demographic, but hopefully, some of these ideas will inspire some ideas for you to reach young families in your community.
1. Canvass.
Ok, so this one is not novel or revolutionary. Honestly, though, it has been the best way for us to meet new families. Meeting them is the first step to reaching them. If you don’t go to them, they often won’t come to you. Get involved in your church outreach program and endeavor through it to meet young families in your community.
You have to be on the lookout. When you go out in your community door to door, you can get in a rut of just saying the same “sales pitch” and not making any observations about the people you meet. If you pay attention, you can always spot the home of a young family. Your invitation to them should be more specifically relevant to their life stage and needs.
2. Go where they go.
Apart from canvassing, the second most fruitful way we meet young families is simply going where they would go. Parks, family-friendly community events, grocery stores, Toys R Us…the list goes on. While you might make contact with every young family in the community over a year or two of canvassing your city, going where they go in a sense “filters” your contacts allowing you to meet many young families in a shorter time span.
One of the greatest hindrances you’ll face to reaching young families is your own compartmentalizing of soulwinning and confining it to an event or day of the week. The reality is, a Christian should always be a witness in every place, in every situation. It’s about who you are, not what you do.
The point is that you have to train yourself to notice the people around you, rather than being caught up in your own world. I believe God divinely puts people in our paths each and every day so that we can be a light and witness to them. While I’m focusing on young families here, this is true of everyone you meet everywhere.
3. Follow up on church visitors.
While canvassing and being out in the community allow us to meet a larger number of young families, the number of those families that turn into prospects or visitors is sometimes low. Much like sales, you have to meet a lot of families before reaching one.
The most fruitful activity in reaching families for us has been simply following up with church visitors. These can be the visitors you invited or simply those who visit your church. Obviously, they’ve already indicated a level of interest by virtue of their being in church. The problem, once again, lies in the failure of Christians to notice guests and effectively engage with them.
There are a couple things steps about follow up that we’ve found helpful and fruitful:
- Connect with them. Talk about kids, their careers, their education…anything that you might have in common. If there seems to be a level of connection proceed to…
- Schedule a time to meet. Offer to bring them some information about the church. We’ve found that young families are typically not “thrilled” about having you to their home for whatever reason, so you might ask to meet at a Starbucks or something like that. However it works, try not to leave your first “meeting” without scheduling your next one. It’s as simple as, “Hey, I’d love to give you some information about the church and all the resources we have for your marriage/family/etc. Could we meet you at Starbucks later this week?”
- Connect them with other young families. This is especially helpful if you don’t have as much in common with them. When you find out what they do or their interests, try to introduce them to someone you know with common interests. Sometimes this is possible at the service. Other times, you might take someone from your class to visit them. You can also invite them to specific events like a ladies brunch or a BBQ where they can meet families and build new friendships.
- Keep following up. Many times we’ve scheduled a visit that fell through for one reason or another. What’s important is that you keep going back. More often than not, they’re just busy people.
4. Involve them in your Connection Group.
Once they’ve visited, you really want to get them to visit your small group, especially in a larger congregation. The fact that you offer coffee and light refreshments on Sunday morning might be motivation enough. It is here, however, that they can see how the church can minister to them at their stage in life on a weekly basis. It’s also here that they can meet other families who support each other in prayer and encouragement while facing the same challenges and struggles. The lessons cover relevant topics like finances, marriage, parenting, and Christian living.
5. Lead them through discipleship.
Discipleship has often been the “glue” that holds a young family to our church family. The close relationship they build with another, more mature couple strengthens their social ties to the church. More importantly, their deeper understanding of the Bible and its relevance in every area of their lives often fosters a hunger for more growth and obedience. Finally, completing discipleship and engaging them in service helps them to feel like they are truly part of the church family.
There is one thing that must be true through all of these methods: you must have a genuine compassion for them and you must genuinely become their friend. The goal here is not numbers, it’s relationships. It’s not about checking the boxes on a list, though the list helps us measure our efforts in reaching people. These are real people with real problems and real dreams. We have to be real with them so that they can sense and see God’s real love, real promises, and real power for their lives.
