Strategic Plans For Western Churches Overemphasize "Young Families"

As an abstract concept “The Kingdom of God” is sometimes hard to grasp.  The Bible teaches us that our main purpose as human beings is to exist within the Kingdom of God.  Our main purpose as people who follow Jesus is to work with Jesus to expand the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God, or the Reign of God, can be described as places and times where God’s will for creation is carried out perfectly: where everything is doing exactly what God created it to be doing with respect to everything else in creation, and with respect to God.  The church in the West has certainly understood that healthy families and healthy marriages are included within the Kingdom of God.  But they are not the main part of the Kingdom, or our purpose as followers of Jesus.  Our emphasis on healthy families has become completely dissociated from the importance of living at peace with “the environment,” with the plants and animals around us, with our neighbors, with those who are unlike us both near and far.  We have neglected to stand up for the rights of the oppressed.  We have sanctioned the status quo. We have neglected to tell others in a loving way of the hope of Jesus: that our sins can be forgiven and life can have a purpose greater than ourselves.  We have neglected to sacrifice, even to suffer, to do these things.  The worst part is that this unbalanced view of the Kingdom of God completely ingrained in our communal church culture.  We, the Western Church as a group, have neglected a great portion of the gospel.  We have let one part of the Kingdom of God supplant the rest.

In my work with churches in the Southwestern United States, I have had the honor of hearing bits and pieces of several strategic plans that individual churches employ for growth.  Interestingly enough the vast majority of them intentionally target a group they call “young families.”  In their programming, in their teaching, in their organization and outreach, they are trying to attract and keep “young families.”  On the one hand, this makes sense, because if a church is to keep a tithing base that is going to be stable long term, it had better have some young adults with kids who are anchored in their community.  Any church that ignores its young families is going to run itself into the ground (whereas, you can ignore single people and retirees and the finances can be fine).  Furthermore, young parents are often in a time of personal transition, when they’re open to the gospel of secure families and redemptive romance (though not particularly more open to a Biblical gospel of radical, sacrificial living for the sake of the Kingdom of God), making them easier to bring into the church.  On the other hand, if a church is trying to represent the community around it, this emphasis on the ever more rare “young families” is generally misplaced.  It is especially misplaced when it is emphasized to the neglect of older families, retirees, and single people.  Of these, single people are the most neglected.  Yet, if there is one group that has shown its value to the church in bringing the Kingdom of God to the community, it is not young families but single people.  I would be interested in seeing more churches say that they are targeting single people.  I would be interested in churches saying that they are intentionally targeting older families or retirees.  Most of all, I would love to see a church who openly targets the broken people around them with a message of hope found in Jesus regardless of age or marital status.  Until we give up on our subconscious worship of the myth of redemptive romance, this is impossible.