Devin Strong, Spirit of Peace Lutheran

It’s hard to be a young adult in church. Graduation season is upon us, and that got me thinking about the people in our church who are no longer kids but not quite adults.

 In our small congregation, we have one graduating from high school this year and two that are in college and therein lies the problem. Young adults tend to fall away from the church in droves. You can’t blame them. They have aged out of whatever junior and senior youth programs that the congregation offers, but they don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time hanging around people who look like their parents and grandparents, so lots of them just stop going to church, which means for the faithful few who remain, almost nobody in worship looks like them or is in their stage of life.

For churches, too this is tough. These disappearing young adults are often beloved daughters and sons of the congregation, but many are away at college, while others are working a ton of hours as they begin their careers, so they are not in worship often, and most congregations don’t have either the staff or the resources to reach out to them where they are. If we are not careful, all these post-high school, pre-marriage folks are forgotten.

I have a soft spot in my heart for young adults because I used to be one! In addition, I had the privilege of serving as the Lutheran Campus Pastor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta from 2013 to 2018. It was the easiest, strangest job in ministry that I’ve ever had! We had a worship service on Tuesday nights that was part rock concert, part conversation and part Holy Communion at which I gave a short homily, but this was one of the few recognizable ministry tasks. I was not successful getting students to come to Bible study or participate in activities. The best-attended programs from my time at Georgia Tech were a free coffeehouse that we offered to everyone on campus, in an effort to promote deeper conversation and a free dinner on Tuesday nights where area churches would come in and feed the kids. Much of the rest of my work involved hanging out and listening as the young people had lots of questions, even if they didn’t know it. My brilliant Georgia Tech engineers were all trying to figure out how their faith connected to their academics, to their relationships, to their fabulous job prospects, and to their life goals. It was a blessing to walk alongside them in their discernment.

This is the challenge for our local congregations. We need to build and maintain meaningful relationships with our not-quite-adults. We need to be there for them as sounding boards, cheer leaders, mentors, and challengers, and we need to let them set US on fire. Many young people are powerfully idealistic, and they desperately want to see God’s church look more like Jesus. The church needs to let young adults show us older folks how to embrace change, reach out, and engage with the world.

Let’s raise a glass to all of our high school and college graduates this time of year, but let’s also love on them, learn from them, and not let them slip through our fingers.