We have just launched Ministering with Millennials with Katie Nakamura Rengers For Individuals and For Groups. In this course, Katie discusses reasons that millennials aren’t attending church and ways to reach out to them.

We’ve seen the memes.

We’ve read the irritable lists about all the things that generations before the millennials survived.

We’ve seen the headlines.

And yet we wonder why millennials (the subjects of these commentaries) don’t want to go to churches run by baby boomers (the people who tend to make these commentaries.)

Millennials are the largest generation alive today. They are not only important to the faith community; they are are a necessity if we want to bring the church into the new world — a world that they will be running in 20-30 years.

If we believe what we say about the good news of Jesus Christ, moreover, then we must remember that millennials need the church as much as the church needs them. They are a generation that has been steeped in dark news about the world since elementary school. Many of them were in their school years during 9/11. They have been bombarded with information about the evils of this world since they were very young — and, understandably, they have learned to question the people and structures that govern them.

Katie is an Episcopal Priest in Birmingham, Alabama, where she runs The Abbey, a nonprofit coffee shop that brings the church into the community. She’s also a millennial. In this course, she will discuss what characteristics define the millennial generation.  She will talk about how millennials view faith today and about millennials’ quest for community. Finally, she will discuss the importance of making room for this generation at God’s table.

We hope that you will learn a great deal from Katie about reaching out to millennials in the church. For a preview of Katie’s course, click here.