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Young Adult Research Studies: Reports & Books

Reports

Are Emerging Adults "Spiritual but Not Religious"
Patricia Snell Herzog

The “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) category has been an interesting group for congregations to study despite its not being a statistical majority. Sociologically, however, it is far more intriguing to concentrate on the entire range and consider the membership implications of each of the four types of emerging adults.

Countering Commodification: A Review of Recent Research and Writings On Youth, Young Adults and Religion
Anabel C. Proffitt

In her survey of recent research on youth and youth ministry, Profitt notes that many of the works arising from this study "name rampant consumerism and the attendant commodification of everything and everyone as an insidious problem in American Christianity.” Consequently, they “point to the need for congregations to reassess both the way they understand and how they present their faith, not only to young people, but to all people, since all, young and old, are subject to the market forces that are encroaching on every aspect of human life.”

5 Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts
Barna Research

The Barna Group team explores the lives of young people who drop out of church. The research provides many insights into the spiritual journeys of teens and young adults. The findings are revealed extensively in a new book called, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith. The research uncovered five myths and realities about today's young dropouts.

5 Reasons Millennials Stay Connected to Church
Barna Research

About one-quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds are practicing Christians, meaning they attend church at least once a month and strongly affirm that their religious faith is very important in their life. A majority of Millennials claim to pray each week, one-quarter say they’ve read the Bible or attended a religious small group this week, and one in seven have volunteered at a church in the past seven days. Research points to five ways faith communities can build deeper, more lasting connections with Millennials.

6 Reasons Young Christians Leave Church
Barna Research 

A five-year project headed by Barna Group president David Kinnaman explores the opportunities and challenges of faith development among teens and young adults within a rapidly shifting culture. The findings of the research are included in a new book by Kinnaman titled You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Church. No single reason dominated the break-up between church and young adults. Instead, a variety of reasons emerged. Overall, the research uncovered six significant themes why nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.

American Millennials: Generations Apart Religion
Marist Millennial Poll 

The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion conducted a survey of Americans, and specifically American Millennials, young adults ages 18 to 29. The research report presents a profile and comparison of the spirituality of Americans and Millennials. The study examines the moral values, world views, religious experiences, and social issues that are important to each of them.

Emerging Adults: Research Profiles
Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults Project

The Changing SEA website has 15 essays on a range of topics related to the lives of emerging adults, written by highly regarded scholars, which synthesize an array of academic articles, summarizing key points and making them accessible and useful for your ministry. 
  1. Emerging Adult Participation in Congregations - 
Conrad Hackett
  2. Engaging Emerging Adults in Civic - Casey Clevenger
  3. Faith and Spirituality Among Emerging Adults - Penny Edgell
  4. Friends and Friendships in Emerging Adulthood - Carolyn McNamara Barry and Stephanie Madsen
  5. Marriage and Family, Faith, and Spirituality Among Emerging Adults - Annette Mahoney
  6. Media in the Lives of Young Adults: Implications for Religious Organizations - Jill Dierberg and Lynn Schofield Clark
  7. Mental Health in Emerging Adulthood - Jennifer L. Tanner
  8. Money and Debt Issues of Emerging Adults - Joan Gray Anderson and Barbara M.  Newman
  9. Old School, New School, No School: Changing Paths Into, 
Through, and Out of College - Elizabeth M. Lee
  10. Racial and Ethnic Dynamics Among Contemporary Young Adults - Gerardo Marti
  11. Refashioning Family in the 21st Century: Marriage and Cohabitation - John P. Bartkowski and Xiaohe Xu
  12. Sex in Emerging Adulthood: A Decade in the Sexual Gap - Marla E. Eisenberg
  13. Sexual Behavior in Young Adulthood - Mark D. Regnerus
  14. Trends in Political and Civic Behavior in Emerging Adults - James Youniss
  15. Work and Careers - Penny Edgell

Emerging Adults: Churches Emerging Adults Like
Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults Project

What kinds of churches do emerging adults attend? Why do they go? How involved are they? How do churches engage emerging adults in meaningful ways? In October 2009, six Research Fellows began studying churches in various regions of the country that were clearly reaching the emerging adult population, and have written essays identifying the best practices they observed. 
  1. The Emerging Church Movement and Young Adults 
  2. Engaging Young Adult Catholics in D.C.
  3. Clay United Methodist Church
  4. Consolidated Baptist Church
  5. The Crossing: Worship, Community, and Action in Emergent Episcopal Ministry
  6. Diversity and Spirituality Drive Young Adults at New Life Fellowship
  7. Engaging Young Adults at a Catholic Mega-Parish
  8. Middle Collegiate Church
  9. St. Peter’s Catholic Student Center
Anthony Pogorelc on the "Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults" Project - An Interview by Louis Weeks (www.resourcingchristianity.org)

A Generation in Transition: Religion, Values, and Politics among College-Age Millennials
Robert P. Jones, Daniel Cox, and Thomas Banchoff

This 2012 new national survey of college-age Millennials (Americans ages 18-24) provides an in-depth portrait of younger Millennials on faith, values, and the 2012 election. (Public Religion Research Institute & Georgetown University’ Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affair)

Hemorrhaging Faith: Why and When Canadian Young Adults are Leaving, Staying and Returning to Church 
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James Penner, Rachael Harder, Erika Anderson, Bruno Désorcy and Rick Hiemstra

This research project focuses on Canadian “raised Christian” who are 18- to 34-year-olds. For every five Catholic and Mainline Protestant kids who attended church at least weekly in the 1980s and ’90s only one still attends at least weekly now as an adult; for those raised in Evangelical traditions it is one in two. The study has new insights on when they are leaving and why; and why some have stayed and others have returned, and which groups do a good job of keeping them. 

Increasing Young Adult Participation in Churches and Other Faith Communities: Profiles & Case Studies
Faith Communities Today Research 

The emerging consensus of research shows a growing percentage of young adults are not connected with any religion, although many younger Americans express an interest in spirituality. This reality raises concern about young adult participation in religious communities. What is the involvement of young adults in local congregations of all faiths across the United States? And how are faith communities with significant proportion of young adults distinctive? For these resources, a congregation is considered to have significant young adult participation if 21% or more of its participants were 18 to 34 years of age.  Across all faiths, a total of only 16% of all congregations were in this category. The resources below explore patterns and practices of churches and other congregations with significant young adult involvement. 
  1. Summary of Best Practices
  2. Profile of Churches
  3. Congregational Engagement of Young Adults
  4. Profile: Christway Community Church
  5. Profile: Herriman Utah LDS Ward
  6. Profile: Houston Bahai Center
  7. Profile: Kirkwood United Church of Christ
  8. Profile: Life Center
  9. Profile: New Life Covenant Church
  10. Profile: Old St. Patrick's Church
  11. Profile: St. Mary Orthodox Church
  12. Profile: Temple Micah
  13. Profile: The Well

Millennials: Confident, Connected, Open to Change
Pew Research

This report profiles the roughly 50 million Millennials, ages 18 to 29. The report examines their demographics; their political and social values; their lifestyles and life priorities; their digital technology and social media habits; and their economic and educational aspirations. The report also compares and contrasts Millennials with the nation's three other living generations.

Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next
Tom Ferrick Jr. 

This article by Tom Ferrick presents the story and key findings in the Pew Research Center’s in-depth survey of a new generation of 18- to 29-year-olds, which found them confident, self-expressive, upbeat and open to change.

Millennials in Adulthood: Detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends
Pew Research

The Millennial generation is forging a distinctive path into adulthood. Now ranging in age from 18 to 331, they are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry— and optimistic about the future. They are also America’s most racially diverse generation. In all of these dimensions, they are different from today’s older generations. And in many, they are also different from older adults back when they were the age Millennials are now. 

Myths and Realities of Emerging Adults
Jeffrey Arnett

Many myths about adolescence have been refuted by research, but similar myths have grown up in recent years around emerging adulthood. This essay addresses three of those myths: the claim that they suffer from a normative “crisis”; the accusations that they are “selfish”; and their alleged reluctance to “grow up” and become adults. For each issue, evidence is presented showing that the myths exaggerate or falsify the true experience of emerging adults.

Nones on the Rise: One in Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation
Pew Research 

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling. In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults.

Poll of Emerging Adults: Thriving, Struggling & Hopeful
Jeffrey Arnett and Joseph Schwab

Surprising results from this 2012 survey include emerging adults’ “actually quite traditional” beliefs about sex and their increasing ambivalence about social media as the cohort ages. This report provides a rich overview of emerging adulthood. 

Religion among the Millennials 
Pew Research

By some key measures, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans. Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents' and grandparents' generations were when they were young. Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation are unaffiliated with any particular faith. This research report explores the degree to which the religious characteristics and social views of young adults differ from those of older people today, as well as how Millennials compare with previous generations when they were young. 

The Rise of the Exiles
David Kinnaman

You Lost Me, describes three ways people get “lost” on the journey of faith: 1) Prodigals disavow their faith entirely,; 2) Nomads wander from the institutional church and put all of their church connections and relationships on ice; and 3) Exiles feel that their faith does not fit in the world they inhabit. They feel stuck between the comfortable, predictable world of faith and the culture that they hope to influence. The exiles’ spiritual journeys only happen in the midst of profound cultural change. Because of the profound social, technological, and spiritual conditions in our culture today, modern-day exiles will be the ones who significantly shape the future and experience of Christianity. 
  • Video: Prodigals, Nomads, and Exiles - David Kinnaman

Spiritual and Religious: What Can Religious Traditions Learn from Spiritual Seekers? 
Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture - December 2013 Forum 

Organized religion faces a critical challenge: Americans increasingly identify as seekers who are not bound to a single tradition but are open to insights from multiple religious and spiritual sources. Some call themselves spiritual but not religious, others multi religious. Still others are grounded in one faith tradition, but embrace spiritual practices from another. 

Theory of Emerging Adulthood
Jeffrey Arnett 

Emerging adulthood is proposed as a new conception of development for the period from the late teens through the twenties, with a focus on ages 18-25. A theoretical background is presented, Then evidence is provided to support the idea that emerging adulthood is a distinct period demographically, subjectively, and in terms of identity explorations. How emerging adulthood differs from adolescence and young adulthood is explained. Finally, a cultural context for the idea of emerging adulthood is outlined, and it is specified that emerging adulthood exists only in cultures that allow young people a prolonged period of independent role exploration during the late teens and twenties.

Transition to Adulthood
Princeton-Brookings

The issue of the Future of Children journal explores the sharply revised schedule for coming of age in the United States and more broadly throughout the industrialized world. Over the past decade there has been a growing body of research showing that young people are taking longer to leave home, attain economic independence, and form families of their own than did their peers half a century ago. This issue explores the issues and forces behind the transition to adulthood.

Three Spiritual Journeys of Millennials
Barna Research

Recent surveys by the Barna Group have shed light on 18- to 29-year-olds who used to identify themselves closely with faith and the church, but who have since begun to wrestle with that identity. In fact, between high school and turning 30, 43% of these once-active Millennials drop out of regular church attendance—that amounts to eight million twenty-somethings who have, for various reasons, given up on church or Christianity.

Young, Emerging, Lost or Arrested? A Review of Recent Research on Young Adults and Religion
David F. White

The Church’s ministry with young adults should be crafted with care and a deep understanding of the particularity of young adults’ experiences and the shifting social conditions that determine their lives. This article surveys recent research on the status of young adulthood, especially the religious commitments of young adults, and will hazard some general conclusions for the Church’s ministry with young adults. 

Books

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After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion
Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University Press, 2007)

Robert Wuthnow has produced an essential and important resource for understanding the lifestyles and beliefs of young adults and the impact they are having on religion. Wuthnow interprets new evidence from scores of in-depth interviews and surveys to answer the questions: What are their churchgoing habits and spiritual interests and needs? How does their faith affect their families, their communities, and their politics? Wuthnow devotes chapters to examining seven key trends in the world of young adults, who participates in congregations, recent trends in religious beliefs, spirituality and spiritual practices, faith and family, religion and public life, ethnic diversity, religious uses of the internet, and vital congregations. This book is filled with information, analysis, and implications that can shape the church’s ministry with young adults for years to come.
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Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith
Mathew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma, & Rob Warner (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013)

What impact does the experience of university have on Christian students? Are universities a force for secularisation? Is student faith enduring, or a passing phase? Universities are often associated with a sceptical attitude towards religion. Many assume that academic study leads students away from any existing religious convictions, heightening the appeal of a rationalist secularism increasingly dominant in wider society. And yet Christianity remains highly visible on university campuses and continues to be a prominent identity marker in the lives of many students. Analysing over 4,000 responses to a national survey of students and nearly 100 interviews with students and those working with them, this book examines Christianity in universities across England. It explores the beliefs, values and practices of Christian students. It reveals how the university experience influences their Christian identities, and the influence Christian students have upon university life. 
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Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students' Inner Lives
Alexander Astin, Helen Astin, & Jennifer Lindholm (Jossey-Bass, 2011)

Cultivating the Spirit is based on a national study of undergraduates. Findings show that religious engagement among students declines somewhat during college, but their spirituality shows substantial growth. Students become more caring, more tolerant, more connected with others, and more actively engaged in a spiritual quest. The study identified a number of college activities that contribute to students’ spiritual growth. The authors also found that spiritual growth enhances other outcomes, such as academic performance, psychological well-being, leadership development, and satisfaction with college. Cultivating the Spirit also incorporates findings from a national survey of faculty along with insights gleaned through interviews with students and professors. (www.spirituality.ucla.edu, http://cultivatingthespirit.com)
  • Read "Attending to Students' Inner Lives," and "How Spiritual Traits Enhance Students' Lives—and Maybe Their Grades." 
  • A Guidebook Promising Practices - Facilitating College Students' Spiritual Development - Jennifer A. Lindholm, Melissa L. Millora, Leslie M. Schwartz, and Hanna Song Spinosa. In this guidebook colleges submitted examples of promising practices in spiritual development with college students. 
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Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Recently the lives of people from age 18 to 29 have changed so dramatically that a new stage of life has developed, emerging adulthood, that is distinct from both the adolescence that precedes it and the young adulthood that comes in its wake. Rather than marrying and becoming parents in their early twenties, most people in industrialized societies now postpone these transitions until at least their late twenties, and instead spend the time in self-focused exploration as they try out different possibilities in their careers and relationships. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett identifies and labels, for the first time, this period of exploration, instability, possibility, self-focus, and a sustained sense of being in limbo. Marrying later and exploring more casual sexual relationships have created different hopes and fears concerning long-term commitments and the differences between love and sex. In contrast to previous portrayals of emerging adults, Arnett’s research shows that they are particularly skilled at maintaining contradictory emotions—they are confident while still being wary, and optimistic in the face of large degrees of uncertainty. 
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The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens after High School
Tim Clydesdale (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

Based on his analysis of 125 in-depth interviews and a year of field research, in The First Year Out sociologist Tim Clydesdale describes the day-to-day lives and shared culture of American teens who graduated from high school between 1995 and 2003. Clydesdale reveals how day-to-day life consumes teens’ attention. When high school graduates make the transition to college freshmen, they must learn to adjust their lives for self-dependence and personal responsibility. Most teenagers handle this process well, learning to balance personal relationships, assimilating into popular American culture, working to fulfill financial needs and meet post-secondary educational requirements. Though teenagers are becoming self-reliant, Clydesdale explores the deeper problem teenagers face from becoming too preoccupied with their daily lives. Students have many obligations within their daily lives, and to manage these responsibilities, Clydesdale observed teenagers push aside political, religious, and racial identities in order to mold into American culture. 
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Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them
Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley, Jason Hayes (B&H Publishing, 2009)

In Lost and Found the research team analyzes three Lifeway Research studies to identify four types of unchurched young adults in their 20s and four key markers of young adult ministry: community, depth of content, social responsibility, and cross-generational connections. Lost and Found also researches 149 churches that are reaching extraordinary numbers of young adults by paying close attention to the four key markers identified in the research. The stories and insights from these churches will provide direction for faith formation that develops authentic faith in Christ in emerging adults. 
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Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood
Christian Smith with Kari Christofferson, Hilary Davidson, & Patricia Snell Herzog (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Life for emerging adults is vastly different today than it was for their counterparts even a generation ago. Young people are waiting longer to marry, to have children, and to choose a career direction. As a result, they enjoy more freedom, opportunities, and personal growth than ever before. But the transition to adulthood is also more complex, disjointed, and confusing. In Lost in Transition, Christian Smith and his collaborators draw on 230 in-depth interviews with a broad cross-section of emerging adults (ages 18-23) to investigate the difficulties young people face today, the underlying causes of those difficulties, and the consequences both for individuals and for American society as a whole. Smith identifies five major problems facing very many young people today: confused moral reasoning, routine intoxication, materialistic life goals, regrettable sexual experiences, and disengagement from civic and political life. 
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The Millennials: Connecting to America's Largest Generation
Thom S. Rainer & Jess W. Rainer (B&H Books/Lifeway Research, 2011)

At more than 78 million strong, the Millennials - those born between 1980 and 2000 - have surpassed the Boomers as the larger and more influential generation in America. Now, as its members begin to reach adulthood, where the traits of a generation really take shape, best-selling research author Thom Rainer and his son Jess present the first major investigative work on Millennials from a Christian worldview perspective. The Millennials is based on 1200 interviews that aim to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually. Chapters report intriguing how-and-why findings on family matters (they are closer-knit than previous generations), their desire for diversity (consider the wave of mixed race and ethnic adoptions), Millennials and the new workplace, their attitude toward money, the media, the environment, and perhaps most tellingly, religion. The authors close with a thoughtful response to how the church can engage and minister to what is now in fact the largest generation in America’s history.
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Souls in Transition: The Religious & Spiritual  Lives of Emerging Adults 
Christian Smith with Patricia Snell (Oxford University Press, 2009)

How important is religion for young people in America today? What are the major influences on their developing spiritual lives? How do their religious beliefs and practices change as young people enter into adulthood? Christian Smith’s Souls in Transition explores these questions and many others as it tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults, ages 18 to 23, in the U.S. today. This is the follow-up study to the landmark book, Soul Searching. Based on interviews with thousands of young people tracked over a five-year period, Souls in Transition reveals how the religious practices of the teenagers portrayed in Soul Searching have been strengthened, challenged, and often changed as they have moved into adulthood. The book describes the broader cultural world of today’s emerging adults, how that culture shapes their religious outlooks, and what the consequences are for religious faith and practice in America more generally.
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You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith 
David Kinnaman (Baker Books, 2011)

Millions of young Christians are disconnecting from church as they transition into adulthood. Now the bestselling coauthor of unChristian reveals the results of a new nationwide study of 18- to 29-year-olds with a Christian background. Discover why so many are disengaging from the faith community, renew your hope for how God is at work in the next generation. You Lost Me exposes ways the Christian community has failed to equip young adults to live "in but not of" the world - to follow Christ in the midst of profound cultural change. This wide-ranging study debunks persistent myths about young dropouts and examines the likely consequences for young adults and for the church if we maintain the status quo. The faith journeys of the next generation are a challenge to the established church, but they can also be a source of hope for the community of faith. Kinnaman, with the help of contributors from across the Christian spectrum, offers ideas to pass on a vibrant, lasting faith, and ideas for young adults to find themselves in wholehearted pursuit of Christ.
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Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church
Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, Jonathan Hill, and Kari Christoffersen (Oxford, 2014)

Studies of young American Catholics over the last three decades suggest a growing crisis in the Catholic Church: compared to their elders, young Catholics are looking to the Church less as they form their identities, and fewer of them can even explain what it means to be Catholic and why that matters. Young Catholic America, the latest book based on the groundbreaking National Study of Youth and Religion, explores a crucial stage in the life of Catholics. Drawing on in-depth surveys and interviews of Catholics and ex-Catholics ages 18 to 23--a demographic commonly known as early "emerging adulthood"--leading sociologist Christian Smith and his colleagues offer a wealth of insight into the wide variety of religious practices and beliefs among young Catholics today, the early influences and life-altering events that lead them to embrace the Church or abandon it, and how being Catholic affects them as they become full-fledged adults. Beyond its rich collection of statistical data, the book includes vivid case studies of individuals spanning a full decade, as well as insight into the twentieth-century events that helped to shape the Church and its members in America.
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