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Holy Week resources and reflections

Serving our young adults

Many Presbyterian churches are developing programs to serve young adults.  Many are investing in young adult coordinators in order to help grow their church.

 

However, there is another reason for churches to focus on young adults -- the critical needs of the early young adult population in our nation. 

 

The violence at Virginia Tech last April perpetrated by a disturbed young adult is a tragedy beyond belief. It calls attention to the challenges faced by an often overlooked age group.

 

While American society has appropriately focused on the needs of teenagers in recent years, we should not lose sight of the needs of young adults as well.

Many Presbyterian churches are developing programs to serve young adults.  Many are investing in young adult coordinators in order to help grow their church.

 

However, there is another reason for churches to focus on young adults — the critical needs of the early young adult population in our nation. 

 

The violence at Virginia Tech last April perpetrated by a disturbed young adult is a tragedy beyond belief. It calls attention to the challenges faced by an often overlooked age group.

 

While American society has appropriately focused on the needs of teenagers in recent years, we should not lose sight of the needs of young adults as well.

 

The 1999 Columbine High School shootings were carried out by teenage students, Dylan Klebold, age 17, and Eric Harris, age 18, who shot a teacher and 12 students, and then shot themselves. 

 

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old from Centreville, Va., carried out a similar rampage at Virginia Tech, taking the lives of 32 classmates and professors before committing suicide. 

 

The parallels symbolize what many in the research community see — some of the same problems we used to worry about for teenagers are now in crisis mode for young adults. 

 

Social researchers have recently pointed out that teens are getting into less “trouble” than they used to. Federal and state policies and changes in attitudes have helped reduce teen pregnancy by 31% since 1991. According to the Foundation for Child Development’s national Child Well-Being Index (CWI), violent crime involvement, teen pregnancy, and cigarette, alcohol and drug use among teenagers have fallen over the past generation. As a result, the CWI’s “safety and behavioral” indicator was 36% higher for teenagers in 2005 than in 1975. Dr. Ken Land of Duke University says that part of this improvement can be explained by increased protectiveness by parents who shield their children from risks.

 

While teen pregnancy rates may have fallen, there is a silent epidemic of an increase in unwanted pregnancies among Americans aged 20-24. According to Kelleen Kaye of the New America Foundation, “Childbearing by singles has grown by over one-quarter since 1990, and young adults account for roughly 60 percent of this increase.  Births to young, single adults surpass even the ‘epidemic’ levels of teen childbearing, with 550,000 births annually (71 per 1,000 single women ages 20-24). “

 

While drug and alcohol use among teens overall has declined, binge drinking among college students puts vulnerable young adults at risk, and many young adults go through college unprepared for the behavioral challenges and pressures placed on them.

 

American parents have increasingly focused on protecting their teenagers.  Many have kept their children away from the dangers of unsupervised activity through schedules and indoor programming. According to Dr. Land, this tendency to stay indoors has contributed to the epidemic of overweight children, but has kept them out of some trouble. However, children grow up in a world with lots of stress, and in their efforts to protect, parents must be sensitive to the additional pressures they may add. 

 

It is enough to make us question how we protect and prepare young adults to deal with dangers they will face when parents and home churches are no longer there to help on a daily basis. 

 

Are our families, schools, and churches sufficiently preparing our young people to make good choices when they leave the relative support systems of their homes and home churches? How do parents prepare their children to make good decisions when they leave the nest? 

 

Can the pressure that parents put on teenagers to keep them safe and help them succeed lead to unintended emotional and behavioral consequences when they become young adults? 

 

What are the appropriate supports civil society and churches should put in place once young people reach age 18?  

 

Should institutions of higher learning find ways to better identify and address emotional, spiritual and mental health disturbance among young adults?  

 

How can our churches help teach the values and guide their young adults so that they receive the critical care and decision-making skills that will serve them, the church and our nation?

 

How should churches reach out to universities and to young adult communities to provide them support?

 

The needs of our teenagers are great and America must make better efforts and investments to improve the well being of our children, including teenagers. 

 

Yet young adults should not be forgotten. 

 

There are concrete steps that churches can take to make a difference for this age group. 

 

First, they can emphasize young adult ministry as a mission area in addition to being an evangelism field.  Too often young adult ministry is seen as area of evangelism. Every mainline Protestant church that I know of is asking itself, “How can we attract more young people?” to help address declining membership. The assumption that young adults are well off and a group to be sought after by evangelism committees misses what research is revealing — that young adult ministry is a mission field. Churches that look to support and meet the needs of young adults will be providing an important social function and are more likely to bolster attendance.  

 

Secondly, the needs of young adults are significant enough to be considered at a presbytery level. There are a lot of best practices that young adult ministers have to share with each other and presbyteries would do well to bring them together to examine how the presbytery can leverage resources to best serve this age group. In our presbytery, we are planning a retreat next April to focus on the needs and interests of young adults. 

 

Third, churches should follow up with their college age students when they leave for school. Many early young adults do not easily find a church home in college, graduate school, or during their early transient years. One Presbyterian church in Ohio sends food and letters to its college students to let them know they are praying for them and another holds a weekend get-away each year for its young adults who are back for the summer. 

 

Finally, individual churches must invest in campus ministry. I know from my own experience with loss as a college student how valuable campus ministry can be to young people at critical times. Campus ministers at and near Virginia Tech responded admirably to the needs of students during the tragedy. For many young adults, campus ministers are often on the front lines of identifying needs and connecting young adults with help before a crisis occurs. At a time when support for campus ministry at a national church and at a presbytery level is being cut, those who minister to young adults on campuses depend on their local churches even more to keep their ministries going.  

 

Chances are that your church is not far from some college or vocational school or graduate community that needs your support. The support of local churches for young adult ministries within churches and on campuses has never been more important.

 

Jesus said that if we make the tree good then the fruit will be good. By investing in programs that serve the needs of young adults, churches can extend branches of care that connect young adults to their faith roots in ways that can bear good fruit at a critical time.

 

David Gray is an associate pastor at Georgetown Church in Washington, D.C., and directs the Workforce and Family Program at the New America Foundation.

 

 

 

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