Reggie Joiner

Reggie Joiner used to be part of the leadership team at North Point Community Church. Several years ago, he transitioned to focus full-time on Orange, an organization that provides resources and events to equip children’s and student ministry leaders and parents. Here’s what Reggie had to share about one of the current trends he’s seeing impacting teenagers in the church:

The dropout rate for teenagers and college students in churches is forcing pastors to rethink programming. An influential church in the Dallas area has just redefined a weekly gathering for teenagers in a radical way. Instead of meeting to simply study Scripture, they are also mobilized to engage in hands-on service and ministry in their community. Pastors and small group leaders around the country are beginning to recognize that this age group needs to be given more ministry responsibility. If they hope to change the consumerism attitude toward church that causes so many teenagers to ultimately disengage, they will have to evolve their conventional programs.

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I didn’t intend for this to be a two-part series, but I couldn’t pass this up. On the heals of my post from yesterday, I thought you might need to see this video from Granger Community Church:

It’s not just the adults that are hurting. Our kids need a place of healing and hope as well.

(HT: Tim Stevens)

Yesterday I sat down with Cherie Duffey to ask her questions about children’s ministry at NewSpring. That included a great explanation of why we require kids to worship with kids and adults to worship with adults. Among other things, we also chatted about the benefits and challenges of working on staff with her husband. Here’s the interview with Cherie.