Christianity Today asks sociologist Christian Smith: "Where are all the adult Christians in emerging adults’ lives? Might they be able to positively influence them as they face intense change and instability?"
Smith says: “We think that emerging adults are structurally disconnected from older adults who could be their mentors. The emerging adult world is self-enclosed. Older adults tend to be bosses with whom you have limited interaction, or professors with whom you are on performance terms. Even in some of the best churches, if an emerging adult happens to stay for Sunday school, it’s very likely to be in a post-college-age group. It’s hard for them to meet somebody who is 39 or 62 to get to know them and say, ‘Here’s what I’ve learned in life.’"
When my wife and I, newlyweds, moved to Arizona, we were befriended by numbers of adults in the church we attended. Constantly, in fact. We had no extended family in the Valley, and, often, neither did they. When I remember that time, almost 40 years ago, I can't help but think of how lean our own social calendar is now in terms of young couples like we were. The fact is, we don't "entertain" emerging adults the way we were lavishly entertained--coffee after church, etc. It just doesn't happen.
Why not? We're too busy probably--and we are made so, in part, by this machine in front of me now. I'm not saying that's a good excuse, but it's an actual answer to the question: we're too busy even to think about it old style Sunday night get-togethers. We've got work to do. And, here we've got family.
Christian Smith says he's not in the business of telling churches what to do, but "the two key words" for churches "are engagement and relationships. It can’t just be programs or classes or handing them over to the youth pastor. Real change happens in relationships, and that takes active engagement."
Probably more than that, "engagement" and "relationships" require a culture. How do you build that kind of caring culture when the world around you isn't? I don't know.
At a church pot luck a couple of weeks ago, we ate bountifully. Had to be one of the finest pot lucks I'd ever attended. I had to roll home. Good night, there was good food.
But we sat around tables grouped by our ages. We old farts had a great time, but we were purely segregated. By choice, we supped only with our own, in part because it's hard for me to believe that those young people sitting across from us care two bits about some old bald guy plopping himself down next to them. What do they care?--I'm saying. The truth is, honestly, I can't imagine some 30-something couple having any interest whatsoever in hanging out with an old couple twice their age.
Smith's most recent book, Souls in Transition, a study of what he calls "emergent adults," reflects thoughtfully on a generation not so much at risk as tryingly unsettled, living through what's become a decade or more of "adultolescence," a ever-increasing period of wandering, of trying to find themselves a place. What he and his researchers have found is itself unsettling--emerging adults probably need some kind of mentoring from adults who've emerged.
But in our world today, it doesn't happen--not at least like it did when we were "emerging" ourselves.
Smith says: “We think that emerging adults are structurally disconnected from older adults who could be their mentors. The emerging adult world is self-enclosed. Older adults tend to be bosses with whom you have limited interaction, or professors with whom you are on performance terms. Even in some of the best churches, if an emerging adult happens to stay for Sunday school, it’s very likely to be in a post-college-age group. It’s hard for them to meet somebody who is 39 or 62 to get to know them and say, ‘Here’s what I’ve learned in life.’"
When my wife and I, newlyweds, moved to Arizona, we were befriended by numbers of adults in the church we attended. Constantly, in fact. We had no extended family in the Valley, and, often, neither did they. When I remember that time, almost 40 years ago, I can't help but think of how lean our own social calendar is now in terms of young couples like we were. The fact is, we don't "entertain" emerging adults the way we were lavishly entertained--coffee after church, etc. It just doesn't happen.
Why not? We're too busy probably--and we are made so, in part, by this machine in front of me now. I'm not saying that's a good excuse, but it's an actual answer to the question: we're too busy even to think about it old style Sunday night get-togethers. We've got work to do. And, here we've got family.
Christian Smith says he's not in the business of telling churches what to do, but "the two key words" for churches "are engagement and relationships. It can’t just be programs or classes or handing them over to the youth pastor. Real change happens in relationships, and that takes active engagement."
Probably more than that, "engagement" and "relationships" require a culture. How do you build that kind of caring culture when the world around you isn't? I don't know.
At a church pot luck a couple of weeks ago, we ate bountifully. Had to be one of the finest pot lucks I'd ever attended. I had to roll home. Good night, there was good food.
But we sat around tables grouped by our ages. We old farts had a great time, but we were purely segregated. By choice, we supped only with our own, in part because it's hard for me to believe that those young people sitting across from us care two bits about some old bald guy plopping himself down next to them. What do they care?--I'm saying. The truth is, honestly, I can't imagine some 30-something couple having any interest whatsoever in hanging out with an old couple twice their age.
Smith's most recent book, Souls in Transition, a study of what he calls "emergent adults," reflects thoughtfully on a generation not so much at risk as tryingly unsettled, living through what's become a decade or more of "adultolescence," a ever-increasing period of wandering, of trying to find themselves a place. What he and his researchers have found is itself unsettling--emerging adults probably need some kind of mentoring from adults who've emerged.
But in our world today, it doesn't happen--not at least like it did when we were "emerging" ourselves.
And I'm saying why not? I loved it when I was an Arizona emergent.
Fascinating stuff--and sad.
Fascinating stuff--and sad.
5 comments:
Hi Jim!
I was at your table and enjoying it, but I have previously sat at "young" people's tables and had no sense that they didn't welcome me or were in any way unengaged. Why not try it next time?
A.
As a high school teacher who continues to age while the students remain the same age, I, too, am wary of wearing out my welcome with those charges. I grow more leery each year.
However, having attended your church as part of a thirty-something couple, I felt free to sit almost anywhere, pew or potluck table. It's one of the many things we still miss about our first "home church."
Sharing a potluck, renovating the church buildings, inviting us into their homes for Thanksgiving dinner (American and Canadian), your congregation helped us emerge. Next time we worship with you, we'd be very happy to share a table--you should be accustomed to the din of grandkids at supper by now :)
I'd sit by you.....you're fun for an old guy! :)
The rapid institutionalization of young people through the never ending cylce of "schooling" (I hear we are now talking K-16...) along with the rhetoric of "doing what you love" has led to a generation of young people who's imagination and will power have been crushed.
We increasingly strip youth of the opprotunity to engage in meaningful work - establishing the parameters of what we consider to be "normal" life (meaning a life strapped with debt from school loans so we are forced to find a job that "pays".) And we wonder why this thing called adolescence is begining to extend into the 30's!
As 20-somethings, Dave and I had an experience similar to shazam's at your church -- thanks be to God for that! When I think back to the people I miss most in your congregation, it's a pretty multi-generational crew. Now that I'm securely in my 30s, I'm thinking more about how to engage and relate to the university/20s crowd.... Like you, I guess, I should be thinking more about how I felt in their shoes as a young church attender. And yeah, you can sit at my table anytime.
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