Beyond Sunday - Young Adults

Dina, Pastor Zach, and Jacee explore why young adults are craving authentic community and how King of Kings is investing in helping them find it. They share the vision for a growing young adult ministry, from Connect Groups and worship nights to leadership development and opportunities to build lasting relationships.

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Transcript

Welcome And Ministry Spotlight

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the King of Kings podcast, where we usually dive a little bit deeper into our sermon series and see what we're taking Beyond Sunday. But we are doing something a little different here in July. My name is Dina Newsome, and I am excited to be here. We are diving a little bit deeper this month into some of the different ministries here at King of Kings and finding out kind of what's going on, what people can pray for, how they can get involved. And today we are talking about our young adult ministry. So I have some stellar guests here. Go ahead and say hello. Introduce yourselves.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Well, hey, I'm Zach Zender. I get to serve and really hopefully give a little bit of guidance and direction for Young Adult Ministry, but hopefully let this ministry become something that young adults really crave and need. And so excited to be here with you, Dina, and a first time guest.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yep, it is.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

First her first time on Beyond Sunday. That's right. I'm JC Pfeiffer. I am the Northwest Associate Director who happens to fall into the young adult category. So here I am. I'm happy to be here and ready to share a little bit more about this new ministry here at King of Kings.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

And let's just clarify that I do not fall into the young adult category category. We're old ancient wise. We're young at heart. I feel like. No, I will remain young at heart. That is my determination. That's what I tell my grandchildren. They keep me young. All right.

National Junk Food Day Icebreaker

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I don't know if you guys know this, but today is National Junk Food Day.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yes. Today is today. Nice. The day we're recording this, Tuesday, July 20. So my question is what's your go-to junk food if you want to eat something not healthy, or if you would just have something that maybe it's part of your regular menu, what's your favorite quote unquote junk food? And what is it that you like about it?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah. Um, for me, it's a good old bag of Doritos. Um, I I do this thing and my friends make fun of me. I like the sweet chili.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

And the nacho cheese. And I don't just have them singularly at one time. I have to have both bags open and eat them together. Wow. Yes. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Do you take one of each and put in your mouth at the same time? Or just that you're that you're enjoying both flavors.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

You gotta enjoy both flavors. You know, you gotta change it up. One gets a little too stale, you gotta change it up, try the other one. Yeah. It's usually with a dip of some sort.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Are you a cool ranch in the Doritos?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

I'm not.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

No, interested. I'm not.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I prefer the other two. Ever since I tried the sweet, sweet tie chili. I'm a big cool ranch fan. I can't do the sweet chili.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

I know we're talking young adults. I think that was a generational thing. I feel like you know, the older 30s, 40s, 50s are like cool ranch. Yeah, at a time.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

All right.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

All right. What about you, Zach? What's your go-to?

SPEAKER_03 3:07

This is people, longtime listeners would know this that I'm a chips and queso guy or chips and salsa, guac, whatever. I just like tortilla chips with something. It's delicious.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Cassetta nachos is my favorite, but I would say my go-to junk food is fries. I really love like a well-done, not too crunchy, not too soggy French fry. Yeah. The seasoning makes I'm I'm a big fan of crinkle fries. Like they're my favorite in general. But if the seasoning isn't right, it doesn't matter the style of fries.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Are you do you like Renza crinkle fries?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I do enjoy Runza crinkle fries. Yeah. I do also enjoy Rensa Ranch. Yeah. Their ranch, they mix theirs with mayo. I don't know if everyone knows that. Oh, is that the secret? That could be. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

I don't know what the what the portions are, but I just know my my daughter, way back when, who was also a young adult, almost out of the young adult, dated a boy that worked for Runza, and she came to me and said, Oh my gosh, mom, they mix their ranch with mayo. So, you know, maybe it's not still true. That was many year moons ago.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

But my favorite it right now is wingstop fries. The seasoning on wingstop fries is addicting.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

I will say wingstop is might also be like my one kryptonite. Yeah. I love it a little too much in their ranch.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

I was gonna just say something about their ranch. I feel like their ranch, I'd put it up against any ranch in the city. There you go. I think we just solved it right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yep. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

I also lately in the last couple of years have really found a great love. Every time I fly southwest and it's not a direct, it always takes me through Chicago, through Midway and Garretts Popcorn. If you haven't been to Garrett's, uh, they do a Chicago mix of cheese and caramel. And I always ask them to do like two-thirds cheese, one-third caramel, but it is dynamite. And I just had it a couple days ago because I was coming back from a trip and I'm like, great, I love stopping at Midway because I can get myself a bag of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Garrett's is good. Good stuff. Good stuff. I can't, I can't picture those two flavors together. Well, I'm not a big fan of the cheese popcorn. So I'll have to try it now the next time I fly through Midway.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

They actually had bags of it for sale, like the packaged bags at Costco a couple months ago. And I was like, this is kind of dangerous because this was my love, but it was only like a love I got four to six times a year, potentially. And I found out it's not as good as the fresh stuff. So I was like, okay, good. So I tried it, it's not as good. I got that out of my system, and it can still be like uh, yeah, maybe six times a year.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Now, do you ever purposely schedule flights a certain way just so you can swing through?

SPEAKER_03 5:48

I don't. I still you travel a lot. Give me a direct. I'll far more take a direct than a over the popcorn stuff. Yeah. But that is a nice little bonus just in case.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah.

Why Young Adult Ministry Matters Now

SPEAKER_01 5:59

All right. So today we are talking about young adult ministry. And this is a fairly newer focus, um, bigger focus for King of Kings. We have always loved young adults and had various um programs or events or things to involve them, but this is now something that we are really putting some time and resources in. And really, this has meant a position change for you, Zach. Do you kind of want to talk about like the development of this and how this focus kind of came to be and what it looks like right now?

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Yeah, it's probably a few different things kind of came together and converged. But I was actually just kind of doing what I thought was a side project for the leadership team of trying to figure out we have this big goal at King of Kings to be 10 campuses by 2042, because there's great growth. You when you open up new campuses or merge with existing campuses, you can see many more people come to Christ. And so that's why we're doing this model at King of Kings. But to get underneath the layers a little bit, so uh people might find this interesting, might not, but um to be a one campus or single campus versus a 10 campus model requires an entirely different type of thinking and entirely different type of staff. And we've had to kind of grow out of that mindset of being a one campus three, four years ago to have opening our second campus in late 23, merging with Fremont in 2025. And when you go from one to two, it takes a little different. But I think we really felt the difference of when we went from two to three on the staff side. And to be frank, like God showed up in a crazy ridiculous way for our Fremont. JC was on the Fremont team for a while, so she got to experience a large part of that. Um, but the way that things came together, again, kudos to God. But if if we always do it the way we did it, it's always coming through. I know. If we always do it the way that we did it then, it's not the most healthy way for a church that that has vision for more campuses. And so I actually started this project with the leadership team of rather than being reactive, what does it look like for us to be proactive from a staff side and and put ourselves in a position to succeed as a 10 campus church, thinking of the long term? So I actually did interviews with about five churches that do like a camp, like a multi-multi-campus strategy well. And I was trying to find like what are some commonalities between them. And one of the things, the the probably the biggest thing that jumped off the page to me was the ones that I talked with at least, all of them had strong influence with college age and young adults, um, both locally but also nationally for some reason. And so I kind of came back to the leadership team and said, like, I there's a couple other things that are important, but this one felt like the most important thing that kind of rose to the top that I don't think any of us would have anticipated. And and so that was kind of the the impetus for it of like, okay, well, that's really important. And then looking at what are we doing right now for young adults at King of Kings, and there's a little bit, but there wasn't a lot. And so that was another piece, the second piece of like, yeah, we can do more. And then the third piece was just looking at national data and trends too, and seeing there's a rise in spirituality, particularly in Gen Z. Bible sales are up, um, curiosity about Jesus is up. Uh, there seems to be a real willingness. There's you hear talks of revival um breaking out in different places, uh, fueled by Gen Z, fueled by kind of confession and repentance, and like this, there's lots of really great things happening. And so part of it's like, how do we how do we kind of leverage the moment of time we're in with a need that we actually have at King of Kings locally for our young adults and at the same time position our church to be hopefully a 10 campus church in 15 years or so? And so all those three things kind of came together. It's a long answer, um, but I also wanted people to hear that it it has a lot underneath it. And that's why we're so excited about what God's doing.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Now,

The Community Gap After School

SPEAKER_01 10:01

JC, being of the young adult, how does this hit you? That, okay, do you feel or do you notice in your social circles that there is this feeling of revival? Do you find um talk of that more publicly? Or like, does this feel like it's going to be fitting a need, filling a need?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Oh, absolutely. Um, we talked a little bit about it even at our Connect group for young adults at the Northwest campus this last season, um, and even just amongst my friends of right, we're provided this Christ faith-filled community growing up through high school, college. And then once you leave that, you often go in different directions away from those friends, and you're not all in one area. So, unless you're really intentionally making time to connect with those people that you've already, you know, laid that foundation foundation and that groundwork, where are you going to find it? And so that's why I do think this is absolutely prevalent right now. Um, because there is this desire and this need for community, especially, um, because we're told to go out there and figure it all out. Um, and that can feel lonely at times. And so even with people that you work with or that you go to church with, it's different when you're able to connect with people your own age and shared experiences. And so that's why I do think there's a lot of value in kickstarting this work.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, I feel like kids grow up with their social circles kind of pre-made for them. It's their school, it's their soccer team, you know, even into high school or college. It's the people you take classes with or they're in your sorority. And then once you're starting to work your way out of that, you may be living in multiple different places. You know, you're you've got a different apartment every year because of changes in your lifestyle or your income. You may have a different work circle, you know, as you're figuring out what your career, quote unquote, or you know, you're just just going through those natural transitions in that age group. And so, yeah, that sense of community is no longer preloaded for you. Yeah. And so finding that, yeah, could be difficult.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

And there's so many transitions, Dean, I'm sure you had many of these I did, and that young adults go through in a 10-year span, where there's for many of them is life after high school, which for not all, but a lot of them looks like college. And then you finish college, and some have more college in a different place, and some go into the work field, and some uh, you know, get into their career and maybe even second or third career by the time they're 29 or job change. And then on this other side of that, there's the whole some are single that are moving into dating, that are moving into engaged, that are moving into married, and then there's some that are married, that are moving into having a first kid or a second kid. And it's like, man, there's so many things that are happening in that, let's call it 18 to 29 year old range, that in all of that transition, it's important for the church to be there for a young adult because there's so much happening there and ensuring that they don't feel alone, that they have a sense of community, that there are others who have gone through maybe not the same things, but some of the things they're going through, I think it's so important to surround them and let them know that you have a home here, you have a place here. And I think we've we can do a better and we're trying to do a better job of that.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Yeah, and I think as you talk about all those transition and life stages, right? Where it's a it's a wide age range. Um, but there's a piece of consistency and that knowing that we can come back to this community of regardless of where we're at, like Christ is the foundation. And so having that consistent community of like-minded people is really life-changing.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Yeah, and and pressing into the the data and the trends a little bit more that I think also positions King of Kings well is the number one word when you gather young adults in a room. And we've done that with a Vision Knight back here in April, but also I've done that in a couple other settings. Number one word you hear is community. They want community. But then if you go down deeper into like the theological underpinnings of what this time is, there's a good number of them that are looking for community, but also looking for something. The words I keep hearing are historic, rooted, transcendent truth. And I think they're looking for that because they're growing up in an age, and we are too now, but uh more so percentage-wise of their life, of social media, which doesn't always isn't always real, and now artificial intelligence, which sometimes looks real, but you're not sure if it is. It's very hollow, it's very empty, very fake. And so they're looking for something that's historic and rooted, that's transcendent, that they can feel, that they can touch. And that's where I think Lutheran theology is built for a time like this, because we have the history, we have the deep roots, we have the sacraments, which are incredibly transcendental. There's an experience, there's an encounter. It's more than symbolic. It's it's meaningful. God's doing something. And so I think, like, again, there's so many things that are aligned, like for such a time as this, that let's see what God can do if we put some more time, energy, attention, and focus onto that.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

And so King of Kings really made a shift. And we made some staffing transitions, we made some budget transitions in order to try to highlight this and really put some meat behind it. Yeah.

Building The Fall Ministry Plan

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Um, so okay, so we've done that. And where are we at right now? What's happening in the world of young adult ministry right now?

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Yeah, and so I think we've definitely shifted a lot to get ready for it. And so I would say we've done a couple of things, but we're really looking at this fall to kind of do a more fully developed, if you will, ministry towards young adults. So we've had a vision night, we've had a few events, we'll have another one or two. But really things we're hoping, and this was kind of our goal is to kind of have that vision night. I think it was back in April, and to really understand and listen and hear from our young adults what's important to them. We want to make sure, again, that we're not putting a ministry together that fits, you know, what me as a 42-year-old guy or what anyone else that like we want to, we want to serve their needs, their desires. So we definitely spent some good time listening, been meeting with a small leadership team here at King of Kings that's made up of young adults. But the goal was to we can hopefully have something kind of fully running this fall. So that's still the plan. Um, so it like I said, there'll be a couple other events and things, and people can go to the website kingofkings.org slash young adults and stay up to date. But what we're hoping for this fall is kind of three pieces. Um, the number one word again that we heard from our King of Kings young adults was community. In fact, we did a little like this or that game and we had it up on the screen of like, you know, and gave different options of what this ministry could look like. And it wasn't like 100% to 0%. I think it was like 63 to 37% of like when you think small and community-based, or when you think large and like worship oriented, actually, more of them were along the lines of we want relationships and community and smaller. And so that for me was like great, we need to have young adult connect groups. And so the idea this fall is that we'll have some King of Kings young adult connect groups more than we've had in the past that kind of hits at that community piece. And then um, so we'll have some weekly groups meeting. There's kind of three tiers to that. That's the first tier is the weekly groups. And then uh secondly, uh, we'll hopefully have a once-a-month kind of larger community worship night event where it'll it'll have some teaching, but it won't it won't be like, you know, probably a 45-minute sermon. It'll it'll have a smaller teaching, but again, chances for them to get around tables and meet each other. Um, so that'll be monthly. And then the third component is also monthly of just sort of some sort of organized fun social event. And so our hopes are that each of the Kinect groups can kind of fuel the larger events, but also the larger events can fuel more connect groups. Ideally, like this thing gets going, these groups happen and these monthly things happen. And then we go into next year with even more momentum and we have more connect groups, and young adults can feel like uh no matter what campus they go to, no matter what night they want to meet, hopefully there's something for them in that capacity. So that's what we're geared up for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

So um, as a young adult, like how does that sound to you, JC? Like, do you know? I hope she says it sounds okay. She's like, no, this plan stinks.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Let's tell you what. No, I I think I've seen evidence in that, especially with our Northwest Young Adult Connect group. I think it started. I am actually new as of this year, my first year attending. Um, but I believe they started fairly small. There's like maybe three or four initially. And I think we got up to maybe like eight or nine. Um, so even just within a span of a year, we we grew that much. Um, and it's great because Connect Group, a little plug here, Connect Groups are starting September 9th, back up. So be on a lookout to sign up at all uh Fremont Millard and Northwest locations. Uh, but it is a great opportunity, like you said, community. We want to connect on a deeper level and go past this surface level curated version that we're seeing out in the world. And that's exactly what these larger events funnel into the smaller events, and that's exactly what it provides.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

And if you're unsure about a connect group, you can go back to Beyond Sunday Podcasts ago, where we tied talked about Kinect groups. And Kate Solberg was here, who was the associate campus director at Northwest and talked about the young adult group there. And when it first started, Gabby would show up, sometimes being the only person that would show up. And then she would just join one of the other groups. I our Kinect groups are amazing. They're all different sizes, all different shapes, all different walks of life or combinations of people. But I think the ones that find the rhythm and really um, I don't want to say thrive as opposed to other ones don't thrive, but it's it's a group of people who are in somewhat of the same life stage. So starting these young adults because there's not necessarily something for, let's say, my 27-year-old daughter to connect with a group of married people in their 50s. You know what I mean? They can connect on their faith, but there are stages of life that you want to have that community or those people to talk about that it's gonna make much more sense for her to connect with people her own age. So I think that's an amazing step to get those going.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

And so the goal, the goal is to have five or six groups going this fall. And so if there's a young adult listening that wants to lead a group, we'd obviously love for you to lead a group. Um, if there's uh, you know, someone who maybe, I like using the term Grant Skeldon, a friend of mine, I think was the first to coin it chronologically superior people. Um, that means older. If they're for those that don't know, uh, but if there are some chronologically superior people that would like to open up their home or perhaps host a group, um, I think that would be also totally on the table. Um, you can email me zach at z A C H at KingofKings.org, and I'd love to explore that with you. One of the six groups, like this fall, will be my wife and I are going to lead a connect group for young adults that are um dating, engaged, married, but for couples. And so I think there can be a few of those as well. Um, and so there are ways for some folks to get involved or perhaps in a mentoring way kind of set the stage. And so that's what we're hoping to do as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

And there's a group that's starting that meets at a coffee shop.

unknown 21:16

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Like it doesn't have to be in someone's home or on campus. There are options to explore. So if that, you know, triggers something in you and you want to lead a group, contact Zach. There's lots of ways to go about it. All right. So now that's kind of what's on the short term. And oh, I will totally plug. There is a pool party for young adults coming up this next weekend. Yes. If you haven't signed up yet, let's go. Go to the website, go to the app, sign up for the pool party this weekend, find out more, spend some time, get some sun. It's great weather for it.

Long-Term Vision Residency And 2027

SPEAKER_01 21:44

All right. So now let's look a little bit longer down the road. What is more of the vision? Like what is happening in the next year? I know there's a big event in roughly a year, and talk about what this hopefully looks like moving into.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Yeah. So obviously we want to get this thing rolling in the fall, and our hope is that. Um, our young adult ministry can be strong and can be supportive of all of our campuses. We would love for our young adults to be a large part of each of our campuses. I think the vibrance they bring, the spirituality, the excitement they bring will be a benefit to all of our campuses. And so at the King of Kings level, our hope is to continue to invest and to continue to move this ministry forward. Um, and that young adults would not only have a place to connect with each other and to join, but hopefully to jump in and serve if they're not already. That's such a huge part of being a great disciple of Jesus, and especially at King of Kings as well, is to jump in and serve somewhere. It's really awesome to do that and really fulfilling. And so that's a big piece. And then I would say kind of two other things like on the bigger side of things that are definitely in the works and we've talked about and made some plans for. Um, number one is our uh one of the pieces that as we talk about being a 10 campus church, that some of these churches, a lot of the churches I talked with, they have a resident, they call them a residency program. And that's somewhat new in the church space, but it works like any residency program of any any career you might have, where um a church residency program is a two-year program where someone ideally in that younger age range, 18 to 29, can spend two years working at a church in a specific department or ministry setting. And the goal of a residency program is that over a two-year period, that person essentially would be hireable for ministry. Many times, sometimes it happens at the church where they're at, and there's a need for that, and that that's great. Other times it's just a two-year development process that looks really great on a resume. And if ministry is kind of an end game for somebody, it can be a really helpful win. Um, so the churches that again are doing the multi-campus strategy well, many of them have residency programs that have 10 to 12 to 15 to 20 young adults that are in their residency program. So I would love for King of Kings to grow and build into that. And so we we've got applications actually that are currently being filled out. There's a couple of candidates we're already talking with. Uh, we're working with a group called Leadership Pathway, who are kind of the church residency experts in the nation. And so our hope is that we get a residency program kind of up and running here pretty shortly with a couple, maybe one or two residents and test it for a year, and then that can exponentially hopefully multiply and grow. And then uh in addition to that, um King of Kings is gonna be the host of uh the 2027 Lutheran Young Adult Gathering, uh, which is really exciting. It's being put on by an organization called HODOS, which is a new nonprofit that I've been pretty wrapped up and involved with. And so we're actually gonna be hosting that here at King of Kings July 28 to 31 of 2027. And I think that's a really cool opportunity. When I talked earlier about there's a local and a national for some of these churches, kind of uh excitement with the college age young at all. I think that's gonna be the national excitement side of things as well. So I think all of it's hopefully converging well to set up King of Kings well for our strategy, our vision, but also um to do what this ministry is intended to do, which is to really invest in the lives of our young adults and grow them spiritually in a faith that they can become strong in and help them follow Jesus. And so I think that's a cool opportunity that is unique to the King of Kings Young Adult Ministry, is the fact that we're going to be hosting the first one of these. Our hope is to have 1,500 young adults from across the nation. And so it's a cool opportunity if there's a young adult listening that wants to jump in on a planning or a strategic team. Um, those are forming literally as we speak right now, um, with people, with young adults and with young adult leaders across the nation right now. So it's a really awesome way, if there is a young adult, young adult that wants to serve in that capacity to kind of be on the inside to know what it looks like to put on an event for 1,500 young adults. Um, it's going to be pretty exciting. It's already been exciting to be a part of the first stages of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

And registration for that gathering is open already.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

That is open, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Where can people find that? If there's somebody that wants to Yeah, that's at the HODOS website.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

You can go to HODOS H O D O S, hodosway.com, and uh they can register for that there. Um, and then if they'd like to volunteer for it, if there's a someone who'd like to volunteer for it, uh we're we're getting that part of it set up right now for volunteers. They can already fill out an application, and then in a few months from now, when we're ready to tackle that, we can follow back up with them.

HODOS Gathering And Fundraising Momentum

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Okay, so HODOS is this organization that has been created. And and like you said, you've been very wrapped up in this. You um, as part of HODOS held a gathering recently, like what, a month ago, maybe? I mean my timeline could be. Yes. And brought people together. Like, tell me more about that. Tell me more about the feeling and from both of you, because you are both a part of that. Like, tell me how that came together, and then tell me about the like I have heard all good things from the people that I know when talk about the vibe, talk about the excitement, talk about the the desire to push forward with this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Yeah. And this this came from a little bit of what I mentioned earlier of like, gosh, the trends and what we're looking at nationally. It's exciting to hear about these young adults. Except I don't want to be a person that just hears about something. I want to be a part of something. And I want to help others who are in that young adult age actually be able to experience that too. And so there's in the LCMS inner webs social media world, uh, there's a lot of complaining.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Did you just say interwebs?

SPEAKER_03 27:29

I did. There's a lot of complaining, there's a lot of frustration. And the Lord just put it on my heart that if I'm gonna speak into some of those things, that it's okay to identify what problems are, but at some point you've got to stop complaining about what isn't working and start creating something that might. And for me, that came early on about a year ago in 2025. Of if I'm gonna be a voice speaking into church denomination things, I need to be able to not just talk about problems, I want to create solutions. And this one jumped off the page to me because it's it's everything converged so nicely as I've already talked about. And so uh anyway, behind the scenes, we've been working on putting a nonprofit together that's called hodos. That's a Greek word, by the way, meaning uh road or way or path. And so our goal is to kind of pave the path forward for young adults in our church body. And so as a result of that, the long term was like we want to create an hopefully what becomes an annual event that has a lot of people every year and have some deeper formation things that could come out of that. But to get to that, um, I was kind of counseled by a couple of people to have a smaller gathering. And that's what this was in in late June. It was about 50 people. Uh there, I think there were 48 that came in from all about 42 of them or so were from across the nation. The other five or six were here here in Nebraska. And uh, we gathered in Ashland at the Carol Joy Holland camp, and it was a really awesome time to again hear feedback from what young adults would love in a ministry and at a gathering like that. And um, as part of it, we also uh had a live stream fundraiser because it's cool to talk about ideas, but also you need money to do things. And so we had this audacious goal. I started with, can we raise a half a million dollars to get this thing going? And um, but like four months before I started saying, uh, I don't think that's enough. Um and I think more people are gonna want to give. And so we had a goal to raise a million dollars actually to help primarily fund the 2027 Young Adult Gathering. And so we did a fundraiser here at King of Kings. It had some worship, we had a few little messages, some testimonies, and uh and and we ended up raising just north of $900,000, which is a huge process. Um way enough for us to get going on the path that we feel like God's called us to be a part of. But I found that influencer, we called it the influencers gathering. I found that gathering of 50 people and especially that fundraiser night with the worship and everything else to be one of the most life-giving things I've done in ministry over what 16 years now. Um, the excitement and the passion that kind of poured out of the young adults was uh something that I knew was going to happen. It was cool to already see it happen and to get hopefully, I'll let JC talk about her experience, hopefully to get a glimpse of what might happen, not only on the national scale, but what I hope happens at the King of Kings local scale as well, as we get into this more.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah. And I would say, speaking from my own personal experience of having this desire to do something more, but maybe not having the means to do it. And so having organizations such as HODOS, where it's like, yeah, there are people taking action steps to make change to do something. And for me, one of the most impactful um areas and times of the influencers gathering was that first night when um certain we had, I don't know, maybe 10 people share um their why behind why are you here? Why are you motivated to do something about this? And just hearing their testimonials of and there was it all, it wasn't just young adults that were at this influencers gathering. So that's important to know. Um, it was all ages and just the desire and the compassion to see something change. Um and as a young adult, I think we sometimes get pigeon-holed into that category of you know, the tail old tale of like, well, you're not gonna do anything ever, and you're a little, a little lazy lazy some of the times. Um, but a lot of us do have this fire and the desire to make change. Um, and so again, like I said, Hodos is is paving the way to do that and having resources to be a part of something bigger is really inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

That's really amazing. So Hodos is still collecting money. If you like have a heart for this, yes. But if you were unaware of the fundraiser and you would like to contribute to something like this, go ahead. What did you say? Hodos way?

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah, put hodosway.com. There's a donate button on the top that people can can choose to select. And and I will say that's one of the other pieces, like JC said, the influencers gathering was about half young adults and half young adult, either leaders or people that cared about it. But that's also what's really neat to see, like the dollars that came in and everything else is like there's a lot of people that want to be a part of a solution, that believe in the next generation, that believe in young adults, that want to see something and are actually like, cool, we're gonna put our money where our mouth is as well. And and I hope more and more people can be a part of that, whether it's with Hodos or whether it's with the King of Kings specific young adults, is like there are ways for older folks to get involved and to uh to be generous of their time, their skills, their knowledge. Like there's so much. And again, when this is done well, what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing from young adults is as long as they trust the person that wants to help them. And trust comes with time, it comes with uh, you know, uh being there for that person, that as long as there's there's actually a real great willingness to be mentored and to kind of learn from that wisdom. And I would say it kind of goes the other way too, from my ripe old age of 43 now.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Um Yeah, you said 42 a few minutes ago.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

I know I had a birthday since I last uh not in this podcast, but since I had the influencers gathering when I kept talking about my age. Um But we also need what they have, their excitement, their vibrance, their their skill set, their energy. And so to me, it's a two-way street where, yeah, we have some things that we can provide, but they also will provide a lot for us as we get going.

How Older Generations Can Help

SPEAKER_01 33:56

I really liked how you talked about um older people could have potentially opened their homes to host a connect group for this age group. Um, we partner with an organization called Momco that uses our facility for meetings. And Momco is an international organization, but their model is they have table moms. I don't know if that's the technical term for it, but they have an older, more seasoned mom who sits at the table at their meetings with young moms who may be going through things that helps provide that just reassurance that this is a stage, you will get through this, you know. And they talk about the two-way street also, where those older moms get feedback and energy and wisdom and joy from those youngers. And so if you're a couple or if you're an older individual and you would like to pour into young people this way, connect with Zach and find out how you can get involved.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Yeah, and not just on the connect group side too, like some of the things we're putting on the calendar this fall are like a Halloween party and a Friendsgiving celebration and a Christmas party. And like it'd be really great to host those at homes that can have, I don't know, minimum 20 up to 50, 60 young adults. And so if there's, you know, someone listening that might be willing to lend their home for something like that that has a beautiful gift of hospitality, for sure. Those are certainly other ways that we can um that you can serve as well.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

We'll take you with your home too. You can be there.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

You know, you can have some of the sweet chili Doritos that you see. Yeah.

Prayer Requests And Personal Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 35:19

I can bring those. Okay. So what specifically can people pray for? If they maybe can't give financially right now, or they maybe are not ready to step in a volunteer role, what can people put their prayer behind for this ministry?

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah, that's good. I would I still I would still say any anytime you start something new, it there's a little uncertainty. It it takes a little while to kind of get over the hump. You do a couple things well, you do a couple things that didn't work. And so I think prayer for just kind of the start of anything is is important, but also prayers for young adults because even jumping into a connect group takes a little bit of courage, right? And so I think I I would love that's one of our four core values at Kingdom Kings is current courage. And so I would love for people to be praying for our young adults to be courageous and uh give it a shot. And um, that that would be one of the main prayers I'd ask. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Yeah. I was gonna say just continuing to have the heart for Jesus and continuing to seek after him and being courageous enough to step into a space and be vulnerable to share and connect with others.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

I also think having that um initiative to invite, we all have young people, whether we work with them in our lives. We work with them, we live next to them. If we're not in that generation, my three children all fit the window right now. Over a 10-year span, they are, but they all fit in the window of young adult ministry. And so that's been something I've been, hey, do you know about this? Hey, do you know about this? This is happening. Is this something that you want to get involved in? We all have either children or neighbors or friends that we can invite and let let them know that this is because it is that isolating, where do they find this connection and how do they find out about it if they're not in the the community already? And so talk about it to the people you know.

unknown 37:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

All right. So as we wrap up today, what do you want people to know about? What is the one thing that you hope people have as a takeaway from this? Um, whether that's regarding young adult ministry at large or specifically here at King of Kings.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

I'm gonna put the call out to young adults um at King of Kings to, like you said, invite, invite your friends, be courageous enough to take the step to connect with others. Um, it can be very life-giving to connect with other people and just create that sense of community that we've been talking about this whole time. Um and maybe you're maybe you feel like you're missing something right now. And so um we'll continue to pray for you as you're courageous enough to take that next step. But maybe, maybe this is the piece um that that this young adult ministry um can provide.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

Yeah. And I was gonna say the one thing would be is if somebody's kind of going through midway and has a few extra minutes to stop over at carrots to pick me up some popcorn and that can be life-giving in another way. I think so. I mean, maybe I can have that once a month instead of six times a year. Um, so just think about that. No, I I I would echo what JC just said. Um, just I think it's important. It's a new thing. So thank you, Dina, for just the awareness. I think that's probably the biggest thing is like be aware that this is happening, that we're attempting, we're trying, we're doing what we can. And uh, you know, some things will go great, we'll fail at a few things, but through it all. Um I yeah, I hope people know now know that this is uh this is happening and that young adults can be a part of it and that young adults can be inviting and um and and uh as much as possible, yeah, we can we can see God do these great things through through the young adults.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Thank you

Where To Learn More

SPEAKER_01 38:53

guys so much for being here. I am excited to see kind of where this grow goes, how it grows, all of the things. So yeah, thanks for taking time out of your day to come and talk more about it. And you can check out more on the King of Kings website or in the app kingofkings.org slash young adults and pray for it. All right. Thanks guys for being here. Let's go, let's go find some Doritos. Thanks, Dina.