Growing Young: Steps Towards Touching the Hearts and Minds of Millennials and Generation Z, Rev. Luke Thompson

Presentation Description

You and your congregation are on a mission to reach out to the millennials and generation Z in your community. You want to share with them the life-saving gospel, but you’re struggling with how to create those opportunities.

This session offers a guide to that mission, offering a simple way of analyzing the social needs of today’s young adults, and providing simple steps to creating communities that meet both the heart-felt and mind-felt needs of people in their 20s and 30s. Topics we’ll cover include the need for communities that address friendship and loneliness, doubt, and much more.

In Growing Young, we’ll explore the psychological and emotional needs of young adults today: We’ll explore the role of friendship and the church, the reality of loneliness in our culture, and how Christ made meals and socializing a priority in his ministry. And we’ll look at proven steps you can take to create your own communities of care.

We will also explore the intellectual needs of young adults today. In the midst of the information age, relativism, and ‘truthiness’, we’ll explore what psychology tells us about the doubts of young adults and the hesitancy they have for going to the church for answers. We will also look at the proven steps you can take to create communities that address these doubts with gentleness and respect. Let us help you create environments that touch both the hearts and minds of young adults so that you can grow young with them.

Speaker Bio

Rev. Luke Thompson

Luke Thompson studied philosophy at Marquette University (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), studied at the Strasbourg Academy of Apologetics and Human Rights (Strasbourg, France), and taught philosophy classes at Bethany Lutheran College and Wisconsin Lutheran College before graduating from the Seminary Certification Program and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. During his studies, he worked closely with numerous campus ministries and served St. Peter (Appleton, Wisconsin) developing ministry resources. He now serves as associate pastor at St. Paul and campus pastor of Illuminé in Ottawa, Ontario, which serves the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. He talks internationally at universities and churches on philosophy of religion, pop culture, apologetics, and ministering to millennials. He has taught courses at called worker events on apologetics and was guest lecturer on Ecclesiastes at Asia Lutheran Seminary (Hong Kong). He is co-author of Quick to Listen (NPH) and author of Your Life Has Meaning (NPH), both practical resources on apologetics.