Benefits For Mission of an All Age All Stage Church: Part 2
Reaching people who do not fit into the boxes Christians create
As we mission to a diverse society we often create different community spaces in our churches to reach different kinds of people. For example a teenager may not easily connect in a formal service attended only by seniors, so we start a youth group. But we cannot just assume that a youth group will be easier for a young person to connect with. A teenager might go along to a youth outreach for the first time only to find that all the other teenagers there have different interests. Alternatively, the existing friendship circles in the group might be too hard to break into. Sometimes Dr Who fans (Whovarians) may not mix much with surfers and teenagers who love elite team sports don’t always form friendships easily with committed gamers. Is the solution to an increasingly pluralistic culture to keep creating more and more boxes? In the early 1990’s Mark Senter argued that there was a Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry. He saw that in the face of a plurifying youth culture the age of the one catch all youth group is over. Even though some teenagers do not stereotype themselves into a single narrow teenager sub-culture, Senter argued for different youth ministry gatherings to reach different kinds of teenagers. A new era of ministry in a post-modern culture had begun. In this line of thinking we saw the beginning of separate youth ministries to athletes, music fans, surfers, gamers etc. In other words more Christian boxes. The same logic has found it’s way into Church planting strategy in the form of ‘targeted’ church planting. These strategies do work for many. But no matter how many boxes we start, there are always going to be people in our society who do not fit into the targeted demographic gatherings created by Christians. For example, the 30 something single person who isn’t a Christian, may find it difficult to fit into a gathering where most of the Christians their age are already couples. Another Christian box like a singles ministry might be a solution to this. But while this can be a helpful expression for many, for some it can be isolating. Sometimes our targeted church gatherings can seem a little artificial and can feel forced. We also may be giving people the impression that they are not a complete person until they have a partner. Couples in their early 40's who do not have children may feel that it is hard to fit into a family focused church gathering. Another example is that an aboriginal person living in a predominately Anglo area of Sydney may not have a church near them that they feel comfortable to visit. There also may not be enough people of Aborigional background in their area to get a critical mass for a targeted church plant. It may sound counter intuitive, but by not targeting people at all we are finding that we are reaching out to people who would not normally go to church. Some may say that if you aim at nothing you will hit nothing. But we think, if you aim at everything you will hit even more. We have had lots of unbelieving people visit our church. They have told us that they have noticed that Soul Revival is a diverse community, (in terms of ages and stages of life). Their feedback to us has been that they see this as attractive. The result is that rather than fitting into a box to be accepted, visitors feel like they can be themselves and have a conversation with us about the Gospel. The word they use to describe our gatherings is that they feel warm. We try to give people permission to be different and to have relationships with people who are different to them. In other words an all age all stage church plant is helpful in that a person does not have to fit an existing demographic to be made to feel welcome. We have found that it is important to give the expectation that people are all different at church and that is ok. As a result people are not restricted to only ask their friends who they think will fit into a certain box. We have seen people who had stopped going to church years ago because they did not fit a box, give church another try. An all age all stage church does not have to be a reaction against the targeted approach to church planting either. While we attempt to create spaces where everyone can gather, we are not opposed to having some same age and same stage gatherings at times too. It is about having a balance. For example, while we see kids as the church of today and do include them in adult gatherings, we also have kids teaching times aimed at their developmental stage we call Soul Revival Kids. We run Soul Revival Youth on Friday that compliments our Saturday night all age all stage gathering. Teenagers who do not fit in on Friday night at the moment still have the Saturday night gathering as an option too. Some of our small groups are made up of 20 somethings but if a young adult chooses to, they are welcome to go to mixed age community group. It is good to have some flexibility as an all age all stage church. It is about being both/and rather than being either/or.