Bishop Estabrook Speaks About Young Adults
Anyone working in young adult ministry needs to read the latest study, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults by Christian Smith with Patricia Snell (Oxford University Press, 2009.)
In the second chapter, the authors paint a picture of the cultural world young adults live in today.Their statistical analysis indicates the vast impact our culture has on them and on their capacity to relate to traditional religion. The remaining chapters provide insight into their religious experiences. Here the reader discovers how both religion and spiritual formation can assist emerging adults in their journey.
Learning to stand on one’s own two feet, for example, is perhaps the biggest challenge emerging adults have according to Smith and Snell. Achieving financial independence, personal identity, and moving out on their own, apart from their parents, represent key priorities consuming a majority of their time and energy. Often, however, they experience conflicts in attempting to achieve these keystones of young adulthood. For example, young adults want to move out of their parent’s house, yet often need to stay close by their parents (or even have to stay under their parent’s roof) because of financial constraints and lack of job opportunities.
Psychologically emerging adults tend to distance themselves from beliefs and traditions that remind them of their youth. Instead, they attempt to carve out their own systems and ideas that help them on their quest for independence toward adulthood. This can lead to great distractions from traditional religious practice and devotion.
While Smith and Snell outline that young adults have a lot to figure out it is surprising to note that they are generally very optimistic about their own personal futures. They have been involved in many of the addictions of society but feel little regret about past mistakes. Instead they are intent on moving on into their future. They see the gospel values of sacrificing and giving up material things as alien to their very material world (i.e., their lived experience of culture.) Emerging adults value diversity and recognizing everyone as different. They have the idea that life is up to each individual to live. In addition, young adults see that absolute authority for every person’s beliefs or action is his or her own sovereign self.
It seems to me that the best way to reach out to young adults today is to encourage a cadre of those who are centered on what Smith and Snell describe as the “less typical” themes and those who embrace Gospel values in their life. These young adults travel in worlds/cultures that move beyond the individual. Together they are best suited to address needs that develop along their journey into adulthood. Enabling these emerging adults encourages disciples to witness to their peers through their life choices and actions.
Hosting small social groups for young adults with discussion opportunities focused upon topics relating to developing identity, independence, and the challenges of following Christ in a secular world might be the place to start. Theology on Tap has had relatively good success in this kind of effort. Concrete opportunities for outreach to those in need is also a good way to connect those who are interested in meaningful ways to live out their faith.
Just Faith Ministries, a group that highlights and engages people in activities centered on Catholic social teaching, has just developed a pilot program called College Justice Walking (J-Walking). It is a semester-long “Discipleship Journey” that forms small communities of college students/young adults who experiment with living the Gospel message and the social implications of our faith. One of the powerful experiences these small groups encounter are opportunities to meet, serve, reflect and pray with people living on the margins of life. The Just Faith Ministries web site gives an excellent overview of this new program. (http://www.justfaith.org/programs/index.html) College Justice Walking includes seven weekly sessions reflecting on the signs of our times, an overnight opening and closing retreat, a public dialogue, a day-long Justice Pilgrimage, etc. Reading, reflecting, and practicing five lifestyle adjustments that apply Gospel teachings to life choices are central to the gatherings. The Archdiocese for the Military Services Evangelization Office has just introduced this to our military communities. Feel free to contact our Director, Mark Moitoza, (202) 719-3648, for information.
The Jesuit Volunteer Corps is an organization of young adults who dedicate one year or more to community service working with people in need. Through retreats, local formation teams, and community living, volunteers are immersed in the "four values" of spirituality, community, simple living and social justice. Providing a cadre of young adults with such an experience can form a core group who can reach out to other young adults in search of meaning and purpose.
Another example of a “school” that offers such training for Hispanic young adults is The School of Leadership directed by the Secular Institute of the Crusaders of St. Mary, in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. The core of the school is a weekly group meeting that provides personal contacts, theological formation and apostolic encouragement. Presently it has thirteen groups with about eighty young leaders serving in several parishes throughout the diocese.
Providing leadership experiences for a selected cadre could greatly enhance the lives of young adults today. It would also help them realize that they are not alone in their quest for independence and identity in their ongoing faith journey. Faith is a gift to be shared. We give thanks for that gift when we care enough to mentor emerging adults to grow in faith and share their gifts too.
Bishop Joseph Estabrook is the Episcopal Advisor to the National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association (NCYAMA) and serves as the Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Military Services, USA.