I believe that the Butler Street Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and perhaps other churches like Butler Street is deprived of the rich diversity that God’s Kingdom should express. Should the Kingdom of God on earth, through the church, look like what we imagine the Kingdom of Heaven to be? My claim is that it should and it should include members of all age groups and all backgrounds. We are deprived of the significant presence of young adults. This is important for the church in that it is graying and without more inclusion of young adults we could be doing no more than keeping a dying church company on its death bed. Are there different forms or models of preaching that appeal to and attract young adults and ultimately help increase a church’s diversity? Beyond this are there special models or styles of preaching that speak to African American Young Adults specifically? Through surveys, group work, monthly conversations and fellowship with the young adults of Butler Street, testing of different preaching forms and models I examine the response of young adults to the preaching and whether or not it moves them to greater response to the call that Jesus Christ makes upon their lives. Through the narrative form of preaching young adults come to find this as the most effective sermon style for them in receiving God’s word and discovering the press of that word upon their lives.
