The sad thing is, we're not. We plan for 30-somethings and occasionally throw in a teen activity or song or drama. Very occasionally. But we skip completely over the 20-somethings, which is really sad on multiple levels. First, because I am becoming disconnected from my church as the only unmarried 20-something around. Second, because we have a college in our town! I went to that college, and they only list about 6 churches on their list for the whole area - us NOT included because we don't reach out AT ALL. I pushed for years to get some outreach over there, as the campus minister made it easy for area churches to come in and get known, but my ministry staff has and still refuses.

Up until recently, not much. However, a few weeks ago the teens came back from Bible camp and were on fire! Several songs had been sung during the week and the songs touched their hearts/soul. To keep the fire going, I have met with some of the teen boys who want to contribute to planning worship on Sundays. We went through a list of about 100 "new" songs and they have chosen their favorites as a starting point.

At the same time, I started a Wednesday night singing class to teach the favorites to anyone interested and we are planning once a month to have only one Wednesday class to teach the songs to everyone.

The plan is to learn as many of the "new" as possible and slowly introduce them into worship on Sunday.

The really cool thing is that the teens recognize that there should to be a blending of songs (some old, some new) - truly a heart for God and a wonderful understanding that we are a diverse group with many song tastes and we can successfully sing with one another no matter when the song was written.

D