cover image Growing Young: 6 Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church

Growing Young: 6 Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church

Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Brad Griffin. Baker, $19.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-8010-1925-8

According to these three directors of the Fuller Youth Institute, a nonprofit serving Christian youth workers, there are some specific steps churches can take to bring today's young people%E2%80%94both new converts and those who have moved away from their faith%E2%80%94into the fold. Through a series of surveys and studies, the authors discovered many positives about how churches function as well as areas where churches can improve outreach programs to appeal to teens, college-age students, and young professionals. Specifically, they argue for dismantling the nepotism involved in many leadership positions, empathizing with a liberal mindset concerning technology and concepts of community, fueling a warm community, and prioritizing young families. Readers will appreciate that each chapter includes accounts of churches successfully executing these suggestions. In addition to explaining how to make these changes happen, the authors provide a summary of highlights at the end of each chapter along with strategic questions to help the reader's church "grow younger." Readers will be delighted by the lively approach of this primer for developing church communities. (Sept.)