Musings & Younger Perspectives:
Do Young Adults Exist?
By The Rev. Emma Donohew | Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (See links below)
As a young Millennial pastor (1980-2000), when another young person enters the church often there is an assumption that I must know this other young person, because of course I know all of the young people in the city of Seattle. The assumption being made here is that all young adults are the same and connected by some vast social network where we know everything about everyone else (I digress). While I am fortunate that we have a young adult population in the area I serve, many churches are not as lucky and young adult visitors are either pounced upon, ignored or asked if they are the Sunday school teachers (no really, I have seen this happen on numerous occasions). Even in the face of this deeply embedded ageism I am still deeply passionate about serving the younger population, and yet I realize how challenging this can be. So I will pose a question.
Young adults are a diverse population.
Although Methodism defines this category as folks between the ages of 18-40, imagine all the different places and life situations young adults are within this huge swatch of an age group.
Do young adults actually exist? My short answer is that there is no such thing as a young adult, or at least as one homogenous category. I make a joke with my colleagues that if the trends keep continuing in the church (dwindling populations under the age of 50) that they will keep upping the age category of what it means to be a “young adult” and I might be able to stay young forever. Although humorous, those jokes are a painful reminder of both our declining membership and also our future if we keep trying to keep people stuck in one-size-fits-all categories young OR old.
Church at its best is intergenerational,
and welcomes everyone regardless.
Period. End of statement.
Young adults are a diverse population. Although Methodism defines this category as folks between the ages of 18-40, imagine all the different places and life situations young adults are within this huge swatch of an age group. We are not the same. We are students AND professionals, we are single AND in relationships, we live at home AND we live on our own, we are Gay AND we are straight, we have children AND we have pets, we favor modern AND traditional worship, and most importantly we are not of one mind. Now imagine how each of these life situations would lead to a unique type of faith and need within the church. Just shoving all “young adults” in to one category ignores the nuances and challenges of being present in a church that is becoming largely uniform in age and belief (Baby Boomers I am looking at you). Each young adult has a unique story that can contribute much to the church’s ethos and future, if only we would stop to hear them and let them be heard in our communities of faith.
Church at its best is intergenerational, and welcomes everyone regardless. Period. End of statement. Young adults are not going to save the church, partially because they do not exist as a uniform category, but their stories do need to be heard. Some of their ideas and stories will be challenging, Jesus was a young adult and dare I say many of his stories were rather radical. So instead of trying to lump us into one well defined group onto which you can peg all our hopes and dreams on, lets listen to their stories, hear what type of church will speak to them, and work together to find the reality of a truly intergenerational community where all are heard.
The Rev. Emma Donohew serves as pastor of Green Lake UMC (Seattle, Wash.)
This article will be featured in Channels #71, March 2014 (COMING SOON!).
Links:
Any time an age category is large enough to reasonably include parents AND their children, it has gotten too big to be useful at all 🙂
Thank you for laying it out so plainly, Emma! The more we try to expand the demographic category of “Young Adult”, the less we are able to target ministries for “young adults”. Conceptual groups, like college students, young couples, people adjusting to living on their own/career entrance, and new parents, might work better, but forcing any of this into age brackets hinders the work of ministry.
Thanks for reading, Mary. I’m going to let Pastor Emma know you checked out her article! -JNL
Jesus was (is) a man, not a young adult. The Young Adult concept we have today would have been incomprehensible, and likely laughed at, in the ancient world.