Had a fun conversation with my brother and Dan, the pastor of my church, a few weeks ago. We were all up at the Geneva Coaches Conference actually and we had ducked out to Lakemba for a midnight kebab snack, along with a mate from Sydney.
My brother was sharing his struggles connecting with and mobilising the younger adults in his congregation.
He asked advice of his wife, who works with a lot of young adults in a call centre. She did a lot of reading and thinking about how best to connect with and motivate Generation Y workers. She found that investing in meaningful relationships with her staff was very important - far more than compensation, punishment or duty. If she built strong relationships with them, they were much more motivated to work hard for her as a boss. As a result, she had one of the best performing teams in her workplace.
So my brother applied the same principles to relating to the young adults in his church. He set aside some more time to get to know them, to invite them around for dinner and to do fun social things.
And lo and behold: they became more engaged, committed and motivated in the life of the church.
Of course the same applies to anyone, of whatever generation. And of course it isn’t a ‘quick fix’ for everyone. Yet it is some advice that is especially pertinent to relating to the the tendencies of youth culture at the moment.
via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/energising-generation-y (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)
