Expansion of Young Adult Ministy Theory

If we take it as a given that there exist three distinct groups within Young Adult Ministry, the next big question is whether or not ministry to Young Adults as a distinct group, that is, one that is different from the already existent adult ministries of the church.

A case could be made that Young Adults need to merge into the Adult population of the church anyway. I would subscribe to this view to a point. I believe that the scholarly approach that is most respected in the Evangelical tradition carries with it a great desire to carefully label and categorize things. Spiritual gifts, ages (or dispensations) of God dealing with man, personality types, denominational types, and more are subjected to sometimes seemingly arbitrary divisions and reduced in a very scientific way to constituent parts that are reasonably easily explained. But this is a practice I find sometimes useful, sometimes trivial, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes divisive within the Body. To that end, I would rather see as few categories created as possible.

However, in American culture, most really important decisions in life are made in one's twenties. Marriage, career, education and family are suddenly brought to bear on people who, due in part to an ever longer process of highly structured education have often not as much experience making their way in the world. Reason #1 in my book for Young Adult ministry is that Young Adults need support and guidance. But this is a different sort of guidance. More carefully structured education exascerbates the problem, rather than addressing the needs.

Beyond this, it has been said that Young Adults, those in college and just beyond, have been the driving force in many revivals of prayer and passion in the Western Church. I believe this is tied to the highly structured environment of the Western world. In that space between having a chance to find your own way and finding yourself in a set path with strong incentives not to change, people can move in strange directions. I use "strange" here, not connoting wrong, but different. Stagnation is death. The Protestant church often looks down on the Orthodox church because of ritual, blinded to its own rituals. To be sure, they are harder to see because they are diverse, but could this not be a greater error? Hidden from the world by sheer size, our own "acceptable" behaviors, actions, dress, music, prayers, and ceremonies are granted an unspoken solemness, and those that should break them know it, without needing to be told. Hypocrisy is the term Jesus used of condemning another while doing the same thing yourself. And not much brought out his ire like religious hypocrites. His words against adultery, prostitution, gluttony, homosexuality, and abortion combined would not come close to matching either the intensity or the frequency of his condemnation of this sin. The church needs those who have not yet grown accustomed to the same ways of doing things to help remind us of what is important, and what is less so. Young Adults with seminary education are made pastors, surely this group is old enough to be mature, but not yet molded.

Young Adults come from a very rigid, but also generally very safe environment. As about the shyest person I know, I can say that there was great comfort in knowing that while in school I was never invited to a party except small gatherings where I was good friends with everyone there, I could go to the Tuesday Bible Study, the Thursday Night youth meetings, Sunday Morning services, and regular outings, trips, and other special occasions. This continued in College through my time in InterVarsity and the College Group at church. While both went through a time of weakness while I was there, they were ancors of friendship and acceptance for a guy that will sit at home for ages, lonely beyond words, and not call anyone. But now, I am in a void - gone are any structured environments, as most people seem to assume that everyone my age is married and therefore too busy lost in marital bliss to need the companionship of anyone else. The shock alone of the transition from regularly structured events that I depended on more than I knew to absolutely nothing is one I am still not over. I have observed that most newly married couples drop off the planet for about 6 months, and then begin reestablishing friendships and contacts realizing that no couple is an island unto themselves any more than the proverbial man is. Young Singles seem to be those most likely to slip off into the quiet, a couple of percentage points of the makeup of the church, but in some ways people most in needs of companionship and acceptance in the church. As it stands, if I were to come into my church without ties of about 20 years, but were to walk in otherwise as I am, I would probably visit for no more than a month and never come back. As it is, I have thought long about leaving my church in search of one where I "belong," but do not believe that I will find it any different elsewhere. Young Collegiates are those who could transition from a structured environment to more organic and less frequent meetings of people in the same place in their lives, not experiencing the shock of having so much stripped away at once. Young Adults need fellowship with each other.

But, this same group needs a different sort of fellowship. Be it the struggles of starting a family, learning to live together, trying somehow to make one's way in the world alone, graduating and choosing a career, or the other pressures of becoming a full adult - the time needed to have 3 evening meetings each week with a Sunday Morning class too is a bit much, and improperly executed will drive almost everyone away as though they are being trated like children. Young Adults need a place of belonging, a group for support, a way of exploring what it means to be God in the world, a way to grow in the faith, to learn from the wise, and to serve others. But they likely don't want to be told who, why, how, where, what, or when. Young Adults need to be given the freedom to grow.

So what parameters do we have for Young Adult Ministry? We have a need guidance, fellowship, support, companionship, comradeship, and opportunity. And all of this somehow without treating them like little kids.

How can we do this? Stay tuned.