Youth look for 'warmth' in their church, Christian authors say

Authors of the book "Growing Young" have found that young people seek authenticity and connection when they go to church. After researching 250 congregations and speaking to 1,300 young churchgoers, the authors concluded that young people want their church to be "warm" not "cool."

"Forget the rock-band vibe and the flashing lights. Warm is the new cool," the authors wrote.

Kara Powell, Jake Mulder and Brad Griffin recently released the book "Growing Young" to address the diminishing number of young people participating in parish activities. According to the publisher's website, the book "provides a strategy any church can use to involve and retain teenagers and young adults."

In an article they wrote for The Washington Post, they listed the words commonly used by young people, aged 15 to 29, to describe the church they attend: "welcoming, accepting, belonging, authentic, hospitable and caring." They collectively termed it as the "warmth cluster."

In their analysis, they discovered that the warmth cluster was a major factor in engaging young churchgoers. They advised against providing too many programs because it could work against the church's warmth.

"By suggesting that churches need to grow warmer, we don't mean adults should be nice to young people. Nice does not cut it. And warmth is more than superficial community. It's 'like family' — as young people told us again and again during our interviews and field visits," the authors wrote.

The authors noted that achieving warmth in churches may take a lot of time. They mentioned that a church should exhibit qualities such as stability, faithfulness and patience to a local community.

"Progress may be slow. But that's all the more reason to get started today," they concluded.

The findings of the authors echo the observations of pastors Brady Collins and Jason Powell from Greg Laurie's Harvest Christian Fellowship. They noticed that millennials are actually interested in authentic discipleship rather than light show theatrics in the church.