July 17, 2025
A new young family is walking through the front doors of your church. Excited at a chance to connect a fresh face to your church family, you walk up and say hello. It’s just a few moments before worship starts, so you rush them down to the kids welcome desk, get the children’s name tags, and hand the parents their security tag for pick up. The kids, ages one and three, are eager to meet new friends, and after a quick tour of the hall, you take the parents back to worship, just before the first song finishes.
The service ends late again, and a herd of parents rushes through the hallway, ready to get to lunch. After waiting in line, both kids are secured, and you see them heading toward the exit.
Politely, you get in the way and ask if they had a good morning. They say they had a great morning, shake hands, and walk to their car. As a pastor, you tell several others about the young family you met—likely mid-20s—and you’re confident you’ll see them again.
In the minivan, a post-church evaluation starts on the way to a drive-through before nap time hits. They talk about how it was a lovely church, and the kids seemed happy, but they (as adults) are unsure where they “fit in” to the church community, raising a family in their mid-30s.
Most churches do an excellent job of ministering, supporting, engaging, and keeping kids safe. The question is: Are we reaching the family or only the kids through our efforts?
Consider these three ways your kids ministry could be holding your young adult ministry back.
We can be so focused on children that we neglect to see the adults in front of us. Reaching kids is equally as vital as reaching their parent(s) or guardian(s). Here are a few ways to connect our kids ministry “win” to our young adult ministry “win.”
Look at all areas of ministry in your church and see how families can be involved. Kids choir is excellent, but combine the show with the adults who bring them, and you have family worship.
Special days in the hallway don’t have to be just for the kids. Give options for adults to join their kids in the special day by making time for them to connect before or after their time in the hallway. It could also be a great one-time opportunity to serve adults, leading to more volunteer involvement in your church.
Instead of just drop-off and pick-up, invite parents to take their next step. Collaborate with adult group leaders to cross-promote groups, events, and training.
Each time you have an adult in the kids area, consider their community as much as you do their children’s. If you want to promote a parenting opportunity, target your kids area first and then the pulpit for more transparent communication.
When planning your church calendar, instead of coming to a meeting to plan your area’s events, dream together to create a family-aligned calendar. This will help families with kids of all ages participate in more areas and ensure you have volunteers to support your initiatives. Busy isn’t the goal when considering a family-centric calendar; better is.
Feelings based on personal opinions and not data lead to ineffective ministry decisions. We must inspect what we expect through data to evaluate if our kids ministry is helping or hindering our young adult efforts. Are we reaching our entire community or simply connecting those who already understand church culture?
Consider your community’s young adult demographic information when planning a time and date for your evangelistic efforts.
You may find moving VBS or a large kids event to a winter or fall break is more effective for your community than competing with a busy summer calendar. Then consider which event time is best for those in the community you want to reach. Every context is different, even in similar geographic locations. Ensure data gets a seat at the table when event planning.
If you assume who a young adult is, you will likely miss them. First, the term young is relative, not definitive. The average age for first-time marriage for women is 28 and for men is 30.
Dating and relationships have also changed dramatically in recent years. Analysis from Pew Research found more than half of adults aged 18-44 (59%) have lived with a romantic partner at least once, surpassing the 50% who have never been married.
Equipping yourself and kids volunteers with this information can help connect young adults from the hallway to the community by not assuming their stage of life.
Married young adults 25-34 are divorcing at a rate of nearly 20%. When your church hosts women’s and men’s events, special events, or mission opportunities, your kids ministry needs to advocate for single parents.
Ensure they feel invited and welcomed while removing barriers (such as costs) for them to have an opportunity to engage. If you know of single mothers engaging with your kids area, connect them to a minister, leader, or deacon to see how the church can minister to and support them.
If you measure success by your current results, you’ll hit it every time. Your church’s mission, vision, values, and strategy must permeate every ministry, volunteer, and calendar, including your kids ministry.
Neglecting those values creates ministry silos that ultimately drive young adults to choose between them or their children engaging in discipleship. Consider ways to challenge the process to increase connections between young adult groups and the ministry in your kid’s area, and measure those results with data.
Nearly 1 in 3 young adults say they have no trusted relationships. When your children’s ministry interacts with families, it’s easy for the focus to be on the child and for the adult to feel invisible.
There’s a consistent opportunity for kids volunteers to authentically connect with young adults and build a relationship to connect them in the community, as they seek to find belonging in your church.
A lot is going on at drop-off and pick-up times, but consider having key leaders and volunteers nearby when picking up to make a next step opportunities happen. Send children home with communication to parents, not just information about the next kids ministry event.
Consider placing pick-up tags (often sticky) on the fronts of adults who enter the kids area. This not only increases the security of those in the kids area but also gives volunteers a chance to look up and ask for their names and their kids’ names. Using a name is powerful; find ways to do this for the adults and kids.
When we treat the adults dropping off their kids in the same care we do their kids, we’ll connect them in discipleship. Allowing a young adult to slip in and out may feel like respecting their privacy, but this time is an opportunity to show them God’s love (1 John 4) and invite them into community.
Asking if our kids ministry is holding back our young adult ministry is a challenging evaluation. Taking the time to ask hard questions and honestly answer them will lead to success for both ministry areas.
Consider reaching out to parents, leaders, and volunteers for evaluation. Then measure your changes and see if you’re hitting your goals.
Every connection point is important in making disciples, even the ones we sometimes overlook in kids ministry.
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Dr. PJ Dunn is the regional discipleship consultant for North Georgia of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. He can be reached at pdunn@gabaptist.org. This column appeared on Lifeway Research.
