Didn’t Jesus say “I have come to seek and to save those who look like me?” No, that wasn’t it, perhaps it was “I have come to seek and to save the 20 – 35-year-old generation.” No, I don’t think that was it either. I’m pretty sure it was “I have come to seek and to save those who are lost. (Luke 19:10)”
With this in mind I have to ask myself why does there seem to be such a push in western Christianity for churches to target specific groups? One fellow youth pastor I know is preparing to plant a church whose mission statement declares that the church will focus on people between the age of 20-35. May God bring the church success, but the I cannot stop asking the question – where is the Biblical command, example and/or insinuation for such limited target group? That’s a fairly mild example, and in full disclosure the pastor isn’t excluding other age groups, they will just be focusing on doing what that specific age-group likes. But there still seems to be a pattern and I’m always grateful when others see it too! Bill Steger notes in an article titled “Uncool People Need Jesus Too:
And as I’ve looked at some amazing plans from church planters, I’ve started to notice a trend. They all sound the same….
Not only is the language the same, but so is the target group. It’s amazing how many young pastors feel that they are distinctly called to reach the upwardly-mobile, young, culture-shaping professionals and artists….
Seriously, this is literally the only group I see proposals for. I have yet to assess a church planter who wants to move to a declining, smaller city and reach out to blue collar factory workers, mechanics, or construction crews. Not one with an evangelsitic strategy to go after the 50-something administrative assistant who’s been working at the same low-paying insurance firm for three decades now.
Why is that? I can’t offer a definitive answer. It could be that God is legitimately calling an entire generation of young pastors to turn their focus to a small segment of the population that happens to look very much like they do.
What exactly is a Biblical evangelistic strategy? I am aware that there are cultural issues to take into effect. I am also aware that within every culture the gospel message is still the same and results in the exhortation “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed…” So where do we draw the line?
A couple of years ago Phil Johnson, in a response to a guy who insisted that he got tattoos and piercings to reach the tattooed and pierced crowd, noted:
But wouldn’t you yourself actually agree that there is – somewhere – a limit to how far Christians can legitimately go in conforming to worldly culture? Surely you do not imagine that the apostle Paul’s words about becoming all things to all men is a prescription for adopting every vulgar fashion of a philistine culture. Do you?
Later Johnson makes a similar point as Stetger, though about a more extreme “target audience”:
And why is it mainly the lowbrow and fringe aspects of Western youth culture that this argument is invariably applied to? Why are so few Christian young persons keen to give up video games and take up chess in order to reach the geeks in the chess club? or give up heavy metal and learn the cello in order to have a ministry to the students who play in the orchestra?
While the quotes from Stetger and Johnson may appear to be dealing with different issues, I believe fundamentally they are the same. God does call us to minister to people of all tribes, tongues and nations. In doing so there will be some cultural adaptation, however the goal is the same – Give the gospel to whomever will hear! The believer’s identity must ultimately be wrapped up in Christ, not in what ever culture or sub-culture he belongs to (Phil 4:3-11).
Follow up question:
Is there a difference between a missionary going to a foreign country (like Brazil) to plant churches and a church planter targeting a specific age group or sub-culture within a culture?
The question is not “how much can we be like them?” but “how much do we like them?” Sometimes love requires you to adopt practices (dietary, lifestyle, etc) that you would not normally consider. And sometimes love requires you to firmly, lovingly, declare certain practices as wrong.
Excellent point.
Do you think the issue is a little more black and white when dealing with obviously foreign cultures as opposed to the sometimes faddish sub-cultures that come and go within a culture?