May
1
2012

Reaching the Boomerang Generation

An article by Matt

Last week, while I was in Florida, I had an enjoyable lunch with a pastor friend from a small church outside of Tampa. Leaving the restaurant I took two things away from our conversation: my first sunburn of the season, and a nagging question about how to effectively minister to adult children living in their parents home.

A quick search unearthed the term Boomerang Generation, a phrase that I am not entirely comfortable with… but does describe the situation well. The boomerang generation comes in many varieties:

Roomies: This is the crowd that for one reason or another has never left home. The movie Failure to Launch made this group famous
Respite: With the recent economic downturn, the number of people who have returned to their parent’s home has increased sharply. This is the group that needed a financial respite for a season.
Relief: On occasion a family member’s illness requires adult children to return home. This is the situation that Theresa and I have found ourselves in.

Over the course of our conversation we spoke of the difficulty that he is having in meeting the boomerang generation where they do life, and how what works with other generations just isn’t working here. As I have been thinking about this conversation, and how Theresa and I are currently doing life, I have to admit that this is a tough one. Were Theresa and I not interested in the church, I doubt that a pastor would have access to us. That said, the people that would have access to us are our neighbors and the people who work with Theresa (since I work from a home office). The only wisdom that I could speak into his wrestling is that a church culture that centers on disciples that make disciples is the way to go.

Having said all that, there is a part of me that says that there has to more to the answer than that. While I am all about disciples making disciples, I am am sure that there have to be churches that are effectively reaching out to the boomerang generation… so here is my question for you:

How have YOU seen the boomerang generation reached effectively?

About the Author: Matt Steen

Over the last fifteen years I have been a Church Planter, Youth Pastor, Executive Pastor, and now I serve as a Church Concierge with churchsimple.net. I love Jesus, my wife, the Redskins and Capitals and am currently living on Long Island striving to properly pronounce the word G'island.