Who are Young Adults?

Interesting Statistics

From high school graduation to age 25 there is a 42% drop in weekly church attendance and a 58% decline from age 18-29. That represents about 8,000,000 twentysomethings alive today who were active church-goers as teenagers but who will no longer be active in a church by their 30 th birthday.

The notion that these people will return to the church when they get older or once they become parents is only true in a minority of cases. More importantly, that reasoning ignores the real issue: millions of twentysomethings are crystallizing their views of life without the input of church leaders, the Bible or other mature Christians. If we simply wait for them to come back to the church in later adulthood, not only will most of those people never return, but also we would miss the chance to alter their life trajectory during a critical phase. And besides, what church couldn't use the infusion of energy, ideas and leadership that young adults can bring to the table?

Information contained on this page came from an article entitled "Twentysomethings Struggle to Find Their Place in Christian Churches" -Barna Group www.barna.org

The Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ defines Young Adults as anyone 18-35.

But what else defines this age group? They ARE most likely somewhere in your congregation, certainly in your community:

Young singles, young singles with children. Young marrieds, young marrieds with children.
Divorced young adults, divorced with children. Interracial and cross-cultural birth origins.
Interracial and multicultural relationships. Diverse racial/cultural presence; interracial and multicultural backgrounds; diverse languages. Diverse lifestyles and sexual preferences.
High school dropouts/graduates, technical/vocational school attendees/graduates, junior college or community college attendees/graduates, college or university attendees/graduates, advanced degree students/graduates, seminary students/graduates. Unemployed, employed workers and professionals with income levels ranging from poverty levels to 6- and 7-figure annual salaries; growing numbers of entrepreneurs.

No single characteristic adequately represents a group of young adults. They are multifaceted and multidimensional. Assessing this target audience is the first critical step in planning an effective ministry program.

The above info was resourced from: http://www.gbod.org/adult/youngadults/articles.asp?item_id=8529