WHO ARE WE?

I heard once at church, “Well if the young people would just come, it would be a place for young people.” Over and over again the question is where are young adults when it comes to church involvement? Part of the way to answer this might be to look at WHO are the young adults? What characteristics make up this generation?

Ken William’s post on remaining Baptist has generated something of a debate over at the Texas Baptists Blog, where the question was asked, “what are the hallmarks of our generation?”

A recent Christianity Today article looks at the response of churches to this generation, in addition to some background on the 18-30 demographic, categorized as “emerging adults”:

This is the time of life between ages 18 and 30, roughly, a phase which in recent decades has morphed into quite a new experience for many. Researchers in sociology, psychology, and human development have been investigating the contours of this new life stage and have recently published some fascinating books on the subject, whose findings are well worth pondering for their implications for church and culture.

To grasp the significance of emerging adulthood, it is necessary first to realize that life stages are not naturally given as immutable phases of existence. Rather, they are cultural constructions that interact with biology and material production, and are profoundly shaped by the social and institutional conditions that generate and sustain them. So, “teenager” and “adolescence” as representing a distinct stage of life were very much 20th-century inventions, brought into being by changes in mass education, child labor laws, urbanization and suburbanization, mass consumerism, and the media. Similarly, a new, distinct, and important stage in life, situated between the teenage years and full-fledged adulthood, has emerged in our culture in recent decades-reshaping the meaning of self, youth, relationships, and life commitments as well as a variety of behaviors and dispositions among the young.

The author, Christian Smith, goes on to describe four social forces which have created the emerging adulthood generation in a different way than previous decades. These are: the growth of higher education, delay of marriage, changes in economy and resulting career structure, and parent-subsidized freedom to explore prior to age 30(34 in some estimates). He summarizes:

These four social transformations together have helped dramatically to alter the experience of American life between the ages of 18 and 30. Studies agree that the transition to adulthood today is more complex, disjointed, and confusing than it was in past decades. The steps through and to schooling, first real job, marriage, and parenthood are simply less well organized and coherent today than they were in generations past. At the same time, these years are marked by an historically unparalleled freedom to roam, experiment, learn (or not), move on, and try again.

What has emerged from this new situation has been variously labeled “extended adolescence,” “youthhood,” “adultolescence,” “young adulthood,” the “twenty-somethings,” and “emerging adulthood.” I find persuasive Jeffrey Arnett’s argument that, of all of these labels, “emerging adulthood” is the most appropriate-because rather than viewing these years as simply the last hurrah of adolescence or an early stage of real adulthood, it recognizes the unique characteristics of this phase of life. These, according to Arnett in Emerging Adulthood, mark this stage as one of intense (1) identity exploration, (2) instability, (3) focus on self, (4) feeling in limbo, in transition, in-between, and (5) sense of possibilities, opportunities, and unparalleled hope. These, of course, are also often accompanied by big doses of transience, confusion, anxiety, self-obsession, melodrama, conflict, and disappointment.

The purpose of this analysis of emerging adulthood, however, is to reflect on the response of churches knowing this context for the 18-30 generation. I find his discussion of church and social attachment very interesting:

A matter related to religious and other beliefs worth pondering concerns emerging adults’ social attachments to churches. We have long known that, for a variety of reasons, religious participation for many young people declines significantly when they leave home. Going away to college seems especially likely to kill regular church attendance for most. Historically, marriage and parenthood have then marked the return for many to church and more active faith. Regardless of what one thinks of these facts per se, the following general observation holds. When the space between high school graduation and full adulthood was fairly short, as it was 50 years ago, the length of time spent out of church tended to be rather short. But with the rise of emerging adulthood in recent decades, churches are now looking at 15-year or even 20-year absences by youth from churches between their leaving as teenagers and returning with toddlers-if indeed they ever return.

These are just some of the questions that I have heard raised repeatedly through the network. I want to know the answers, as I’m sure you do. In Dallas, the observation was made that those of us who are young and in church are the exception to the rule- why? Christian Smith’s article begins to address some of the rationale for why our generation might behave as it does, but doesn’t come up with many answers. Obviously this will continue to be a topic for multiple discussions but what do you think? You are the generation, and as Baptists in particular we have the ability to say what we think and why in equal authority to the next person. So who are we as a generation? What makes us tick? What things do we envision for ourselves in the future?

Explore posts in the same categories: Emerging Adults, Texas Baptist Young Professional Network