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In the previous post I began to present the ministry of ONE SIX EIGHT, and discuss it’s mission. This week I would like to continue to present the heart of ONE SIX EIGHT, and the reason it is important for college and career ministries to exist.
Perhaps one of the most influential stages in a person’s life takes place when one moves from their teenage years into their early adulthood. It is here that one will begin to adjust their lives for the future. Almost everything that happens over these years plays a crucial part in how one will face the future. Many people go to college in order to prepare themselves for the future, some people begin full time jobs, and many young adults get married and even have children during these years. Hence, these years are extremely important for people because these years shape a person into what they will become in the future.
It is for this reason alone, that churches should play a crucial role in the lives of this age group. Christendom should impact the lives of young adults in such a way in order to equip them to carry the love of God into their future experiences, to live a life that proclaims the redeeming power of Christ, and to develop a heart that is sensitive to the direction of the Holy Spirit. People who are entering or experiencing young adulthood should be able to gather together as a community of saints who, together, embrace the power of God in their lives. This age group should be a pivotal target of the church, in order that the church pave their own future success in the world (which is to make the name of God famous), and to prepare young men and women to incorporate God in all of their decisions, trials, and tests that the future will present to them.
The Barna Research Group states that there is a 66% drop in church attendance for 18 to 29 year olds. In 2007, research on what 18-29 year olds thought about Christians was compiled in the book, unChristian. The table below describes what secular culture thinks of Christianity: 
This has not been an important demographic to reach out to in many churches. In the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) denomination, the typical age groups attracted are children to teenagers, and middle age to elderly people. There has been a neglect of those who are young adults. The structure of most of our churches centers around fun-filled youth gatherings (typically with no real life or spiritual application), and especially seen in the corporate gatherings, a focus to reach older adults through traditional worship and pulpit preaching. Though these strategies have proved successful in reaching their targeted audiences, the disturbing fact that stands out in the Pentecostal tradition is that most teenagers leave their youth group, and typically disappear from their church in order to pursue something better, or fall out of the faith completely because our churches equipped them with a frail gospel that is usually not solidly grounded in the scriptures or in Christian tradition and doctrine. Thus, we suffer with an obvious age gap between youth ministries, and older Christians who have good teaching over the years.
It is for this reason that I been burdened with a mission to reach those who are in the developing stages of young adulthood. One Six Eight, is a ministry designed to reach those who are entering and experiencing young adulthood, and equip them with Biblical teachings and principles that will guide them in their futures. One Six Eight is designed to be a corporate gathering of individual who share common struggles of being young adults, and unite them under the liberating power of God. It is our desire to impact the lives of these individuals through corporate worship and practice, through biblical proclamation, and through opportunities to apply their faith to their daily lives.
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