It’s the thorn in the side for thousands of churches: Young adults. They can have a thriving youth group, thriving small groups, but have no idea what to do when it comes to those college age, and post-college age students.

Here’s what usually happens:

1. The church gets super excited about it’s young adult group, and announces it.
2. They choose someone to lead the group (a young adult, or one of the pastors)
3. It starts off really strong, lots of excitement and participation
4. It eventually trickles out, until it doesn’t feel like it’s worth continuing
5. Repeat 3 years later

This is a pattern I’ve seen at numerous churches over the years, and I’ve discovered 3 reasons your churches young adult group is probably failing:

1. You Didn’t Set Clear Expectations of What “Young Adult” Means

You may think you did, but you probably didn’t. Saying “This is for 18-25 year olds” is vague and could cause confusion. For the young person who got married at 24 and is struggling with issues in career and marriage, they may wonder if “18-25” means college students and not feel like it’s for them. Likewise with that 18 year old who’s fresh out of high school. They may feel like they won’t fit in with the older demographic of that age group. So what happens? They both don’t come.

When people hear about a new event or group, asking them to come is asking them to take a risk. They have no idea who’s gonna be there, if it’s going to be fun, what they’re going to learn, etc. You want to take away as much risk as possible from the people you’d like to show up. Set a very clear expectation for who you’d like to attract, and say it. (Ex.: “This is a group for college students and recent graduates”)

2. You Created Youth Group 2.0

Yes, youth group was fun, but it’s time to take it to the next level. Make sure you are making your young adult group something DIFFERENT but still fun. Maybe that means breaking from the “Game, Worship, Speaker” formula and trying something new. Maybe it means meeting off campus every time. If you are basically copying the formula of youth group and trying to replicate it, it is almost guaranteed to disappoint, because it will remind them how much more fun youth group used to be, instead of having them find new community and fun in a new, unique way.

If you have a recent graduate who is looking to grow, they should absolutely be participating and learning about topics and issues that are more adult than Youth Group as well. That college student just came out of youth group where they were hearing messages that also had to take into account the 13 year olds that are in the room. They are ready to be challenged. They are ready to be treated like an adult. Don’t be scared to bring them some real, Biblical messages, and allow them to ask questions.

3. You Quit During a Plateau

I’m going to compare this to YouTubers for a second, so bear with me. When someone wants to be a famous YouTuber, they get excited, announce it, reveal their first video, and see a solid amount of views and get excited. So they release weekly content. The problem is, once they create content for a few weeks, they notice the views dropping slowly, until they eventually get discouraged and quit. However, the YouTubers who are successful work through that, prove that they’re consistent in quality and putting out videos, and slowly gain a trusting following.

The same can be said for your Young Adults Group.

The fact is, people want consistency. They want to know that the event is going to be there at the same time and place and have set expectations of what it’s going to be like. You wouldn’t cancel your youth group that’s been running for 25 years because you had a few weeks of bad numbers would you? Probably not, because you know its something that needs to be offered, and needs to be consistent.

Treat your Young Adult group the same way. If you think you may be in a rut, sit down with the Young Adults in your church and ask them how you can make it better, but don’t go away. Bring the consistency and you’ll see your numbers slowly climb back up.