Connecting with High School Students: Practical Tips for Preaching to Young Adults

As I looked across the table, the seven students selected for my interview looked a little nervous. I could tell they were apprehensive about the questions they might be asked by the Church Doctor and his associate. Little did they know this is my favorite part of all the interviews we conduct during a church consultation. For years, I have enjoyed the interviews with these young adults. I love their gut-honesty, transparency and insights about the church. This age group is a great source of hope for the future of the local church.

There they were: two sophomores, two juniors and three seniors from two different high schools. Most of them said they attend church just about every weekend. One attends four out of five Sundays and another said it was closer to three out of five. All of them are involved in the youth group and half of them attend the high school Sunday School class. The others said they dropped out of Sunday School because the teacher was boring and some of the kids fool around too much. 

I asked my usual question about their favorite radio stations. Two like alternative rock, three follow top 40 popular and one likes country. The other listens to Christian rock. This is a fairly typical mix of musical preferences, from my experience. 

For the past 30 years, I have been consulting churches of all kinds, all sizes, throughout North America—65 different denominations and a growing number of independent and emergent churches. 

How Is Your Preaching? 

As the interview reached the focus of worship, I heard some great insights about how the local pastor is communicating with high school youth. My theory is that for the most part, if you hit a home run with the youth, you will score with most of the adults, as well.  Some of my cumulative results should encourage you. Some of what follows may stretch and challenge you. My hope is that if it can improve your preaching you will make changes as your congregation reflects a new world of young adults.

Obviously not every church has retained its youth. Many churches are "graying," aging as younger generations are conspicuously absent. For those churches, it's never all about the preaching. Yet, it is accurate that preaching and worship in general is a visible distinction of congregational life and is generally included in the mix of whether young adults stay or leave.

Grade Your Church

Here is a system I use to draw out the perceptions of the youth. I explain that in school sudents are constantly graded. In this interview, however, I wanted them to do the grading. Because letter grades might include an "F" and reflect failure, I changed the scale to numbers. A "1" equals "the pits" and a "10" represents "awesome." While this type of evaluation system does not work well with older adults, the kids respond rapidly.  They also are surprisingly serious about the process. You would be proud of them!