Young Adult Faith Formation
5 Reasons Millennials Stay Connected to Church
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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.
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Best Practices in Young Adult Faith Formation
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This article presents eight practices, drawn from research and field experience, that congregations can use to develop more holistic and comprehensive faith formation with young adults today. The article offers practical suggestions for utilizing each practice in young adult ministry and faith formation.
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Building Young Adult Network
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First-person story of a young adult minister’s involvement in building a denominational young adult network across multiple churches in a large metropolitan area. The example references Episcopal churches and polity in New York, but the concluding best practices should be effective across denominations and regions. (Vital Practices for Leading Congregations, March 2013)
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Church for the Under 40: Attracting Younger Adults to Congregational Life
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This article describes how First Church in Cambridge (UCC) became a church that was attractive to younger adults? FCC develop an approach that was 1) flexible while honoring the importance of commitment, (2) welcoming but not desperate-sounding, and (3) overt about theology while making room for doubt. (Congregations Spring 2010, Number 2. Alban Institute)
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Churches Emerging Adults Like?
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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.
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City-Wide Young Adult Ministry
in Charlotte NC
Naomi Schaefer Riley
Engaging Young Adults Effectively
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How can a congregation effectively engage younger adults? The Faith Communities Today (FACT) study provides some clues. As part of the largest ongoing religious research project in the U.S., the study focused on the active involvement of young adults in participating faith communities and involved a multi-year examination of ten congregations with a sizable presence of young adults between the ages of 18 and 35. These ten congregations were diverse in every aspect, including size, ethnicity, and faith tradition. These case studies and other qualitative data revealed some key lessons in how to attract and engage younger adult populations.
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Faith Formation in Christian Practices with Youth and Young Adults
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Don Richter offers thoughtful commentary and practical ideas for developing Christian practices faith formation with young adults based on his experience with the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith and his work on the book, Way to Live.
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Faith Formation with Emerging Adults
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How can churches address the distinctive spiritual and religious needs of emerging adults? What does faith formation with emerging adults look like? To answer these questions Part 1 of this article presents research findings on what young adults are seeking in a congregation and what congregations are doing to address their religious and spiritual needs. Part 2 presents a variety of congregational examples of approaches, ideas, and practices in faith formation with emerging adults.
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Faith Formation of Young Adults
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In this article Joan Weber blends theory and practice by offering insights into young adult development and faith growth, characteristics of faith formation with young adults, pastoral approaches and strategies for faith formation with young adults, and opportunities for faith formation in existing programs and ministries.
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A Guidebook Promising Practices - Facilitating College Students' Spiritual Development
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The idea for this guidebook grew out of a national study of students’ spiritual at UCLA and reported in Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives. In this guidebook colleges submitted examples of promising practices in spiritual development with college students: undergraduate degree programs, majors, and minors to specialized courses and seminars dealing with many of the “big questions,” which touch on issues of morality, love, suffering, social justice, and social transformation.
(http://spirituality.ucla.edu/publications/promising-practices/default.php) |
House for All Sinners and Saints: Ancient Liturgy for Scruffy Hipsters with Smartphones
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This substantial case study profiles a Lutheran church plant in Colorado and especially its innovative pastor. Be on the lookout for the many ways Bolz-Weber and the members of House for All Sinners and Saints thoughtfully integrate technology into their prayer, study, service, and pastoral caring. Few readers will ever belong to a church like this, but many will be able to adapt some of the community’s practices to other contexts. (www.cpx.cts.edu/newmedia)
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Increasing Young Adult Participation in Churches and Other Faith Communities
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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.
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The Influence of the Digital Information Age on the Values of Young Adults
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Today’s young adults require intentional discipleship by a Church that understands their culture and the influence of technology on their lives. This article will look at how the digital information age influences the values of young adults and how they contrast with the values of God’s Kingdom, which depends on a people willing to follow the Spirit’s leading.
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Intentional Christian Communities
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Intentional Christian communities provide a test kitchen for human flourishing. Could congregations seeking to engage young adults take part in a growing movement of campus-based intentional communities?
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How to Reach Young Adults
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The author has eight suggestions for reaching Generation Next, starting with the reminder: We're not just another social club or civic group. (FaithandLeadership.com)
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Justice Cafes - Community + Justice + Spirituality + Young Adults |
Justice Cafés are discussion groups for young adults who wish to build community, act for justice and deepen their spirituality. During the third week of every month, Justice Café groups meet at local cafés to share coffee and conversation. Participants dialogue about issues of global concern and reflect on ways they can act for change. After the Justice Café, participants can use this website to find resources and media related to the month's topic. They can also connect with young adults from other locations to share reflections and insights (http://ipjcjusticecafe.ning.com)
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The Latte Factor
Tim Muldoon
Looking Forward: Theological Education, Young Adults, and the 21st-Century Church
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This article examines the intersection between young adults called to ministry and the realities of the theological institutions designed to educate them. This article is an attempt to outline some of the major themes found in the interviews with young adults, and offers their advice to us “Baby Boomers” and older folks who largely control the agenda of theological education today.
(Congregations, Spring 2006. Alban Institute) |
Ministry among Millenials: The Spirituality of Young People
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While religious affiliation amongst young adults is down, it is intriguing to find that studies show significant numbers of unaffiliated young adults pray daily and meditate weekly. This article addresses this opportunity.
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The Proper Care and Feeding of Emerging Adults: Parenting Strategies for Launching Kids into Adulthood
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“Emerging adulthood” has been recognized as a separate developmental life-stage for more than a decade. So what does this mean for parents and mentors? How can we best support emerging adults and stay connected? This article look at three common big questions about emerging adulthood and their implications for parents and mentors who want to stay in healthy relationship with the newly winged.
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Religious Idealism: Serving Others in the Name of Faith
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Mission trips are acts of spiritual agency as well as vehicles of faith. In that sense, service mediates between a personal and a collective sense of social purpose and moral responsibility. Based on interviews with returned and prospective mission participants, this article looks at how mission participants develop faith in the light of engaging with others, with self, and with God. This paper focuses on short-term missions as a ritual and the consequences that this experience has for student participants. (Practical Matters, 2009)
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Resurrected Lives: Relational Evangelism with Young Adults
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The fact that nearly every major denomination is aging and losing members has been a concern for the last thirty years, yet institutional efforts to reverse these trends and to capture the religious imagination of young adults have been limited. What then is the role of evangelism with young adults today? What are some of the ways that the Christian church can better respond to the spiritual questions of young adults in a religiously pluralistic age? (Congregations, Spring 2010, Number 2. Alban Institute)
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Revitalizing Ministry with Young and Young Adults
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During the last fifteen years, the Lilly Endowment has awarded a series of strategic grants to help pastors and church leaders assess, re-imagine and enhance their ministries for young people. This article provides a broad overview of the findings from these projects that address new discoveries about the religious lives of young people and suggested approaches to ministry with youth and emerging adults. In addition, it offers an extensive bibliography of works on youth and religion broadly and youth ministry in particular.
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The Seeker Next Door
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Congregational leaders are well aware of the SBNR (the spiritual but not religious) people. These are people who mix and match spiritual beliefs and practices through a wide range of spiritual disciplines and religious beliefs. Linda Mercadante explores more deeply about this phenomenon and discovered that many people who regularly or irregularly show up for a worship service consider themselves to be spiritual but not religious. The author contends that the spiritual but not religious not only stay away from church—but they’re also dabbling in it as well. “SBNRs represent an opportunity for churches to reinvigorate their ability to speak and think theologically.”(The Christian Century, May 30, 2012)
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Synagogues That Get It: How Jewish Congregations are Engaging Young Adults
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This article, focusing on Jewish Synagogues effectively engaging young adults, is part of a larger multi-faith research project: “Congregations That Get It: Understanding Religious Identity in the Next Generation.” An article summarizing the results of the research project appears in Passing on the Faith: Transforming Traditions for the Next Generation of Jews, Christians, and Muslims (James Heft, editor, Fordham University Press, 2006). This study explores the experiences and attitudes of young adults who are actively participating in congregational life, and how congregations are engaging with them. (Synagogue 3000)
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Taking a Coalition Approach to Young Adult Ministry
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There is an experiment happening in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland called The Coalition with Young Adults (C-YA). Its purpose is to create an intentional network of community leaders and young adults who work collaboratively to reveal a Church that is relevant to today’s young adults. Young adult ministry was not to be concerned with sustaining current structures as much as it would be about forming people who are open to and sustained by the Holy Spirit.
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Theology Pub (2.0) in Ashland, Oregon
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Substantial post by Presbyterian pastor outlining the planning and execution of a Theology Pub young adult ministry in Ashland, Oregon. Gives Cleaveland’s reasoning behind his choices in location, advertising, format, and topics. (Pomomusings, August 2012)
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