Season 2, Episode 10 | Randy Jumper | 20 Years In YA

Pastor Randy Jumper serves as the young adult pastor at First Assembly inNorth Little Rock, Arkansas! NXT YA/UNITE is a place where young adults inNorth Little Rock come together for a weekly service and grow in Christtogether. He has over 20 years of experience in young adult ministry. Here's an article Pastor Randy wrote to help those who are new to young adult ministry or might be starting something new:  I'm excited that you are going to be helping reach young adults!  You'll find it to be an exciting time of ministry and fun!  I know I love it.   A couple resources to start with.  Check out these websites:   Youngadults.ag.org  go down to the resources pages.  There are several articles we've written to help start and grow a young adult ministry   Facebook - become a young adult facebook member.  Find the links on the youngadults website. On the Resources page, under leadership, click Building the Ministry.  It’s a great resource for information!   Books you might want to consider reading:   College Ministry from Scratch by Chuck Bomar and College ministry 101 by the same author.   Practical Young adult Ministry from Group Publishing.   Lost and Found by Ed Stetzer   Sustainable Young Adult Ministry by Mark DeVries and Scott Pontier   Where do you start?  Most people will tell you relationships, discussion based teaching, and other basic info.  All that is true and important parts, but if you are like me, you want something to "do."     I know I need to be open to young adults, pray for the Holy Spirit to work in young adults, build meaningful relationships with young adults, etc...but what do I "do" to do that?  If I were you, I start with two simple steps:   Step One:  Make 5 lists.   Yep, get a piece of paper and a pen out and make some lists (OK, turn your laptop since nobody uses pens and paper anymore).  I regularly make some lists when starting a new area of ministry with young adults.  They are simple:   List 1:  Who are our young adults? Write down the names of all the young adults currently in your church and/or influence.  Your pastor may need to help you.  The size of your church will impact this list.  If you have a database system your church uses to record attendance, get help from it.  Because of our church size, we narrow it to young adults 17 - 30 and who have attended at least 2 times in the last year.  We annually go through this list.  But it started with a piece of paper and a pen writing down the names of real people we want to minister to and with.   List 2:  What is our church doing with young adults now? Don't write "nothing"!  You might be surprised. Start asking questions about what is going on in your church. Look at List 1 and see where YA's are now! I promise you they are there and already active in some place. Are young adults from list one Sunday school teachers for kids? Youth sponsors?  In the choir? Is there a small group for them?  Maybe a class? Do the YA's go out to eat every Sunday after church - do they sit together in the sanctuary? Are they on the Sunday worship team?  My guess is that at least 1 young adult is doing something, somewhere at your church.  This will help you better leverage them and others for future involvement and understand who is involved and who is a leader.  You might have an organic group of YA's already together, you just need to connect with them and mobilize them.   List 3:  What do you and your pastor want to see developed? What is your assignment?  Is it growing the church?  Evangelizing young adults in the community? Keeping your current young adults?  Providing fun activities only?  Discipleship only? Starting a Sunday school class? Starting a special service? If the answer to all those questions is a yes!  Then then narrow it down for what you want to accomplish in the first 3 months, first 6 months and then the first year.  Set an agenda for what you both are wanting to do for the kingdom.  When you know your assignment, you'll know the