Tag Archives: emerging adults

Ministering to emerging adults during a Global Pandemic

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Not many of us had any idea what 2020 and the Covid virus would mean for our churches, our schools, our communities.  Due to major shifts in the lifestyles of emerging adults including:  high unemployment, closed campuses, and social distancing – the ways in which we minister to emerging adults must also shift.

Here are a few things that may appear simple, but will prove more essential than getting them to attend your Zoom hangouts.

  1.  Help them process.

I was on a mission trip with 20 college students in the mountains of Virginia working on construction projects.  Throughout the week, college group after group were forced home early due to their campuses and all activities being shut down.  Even separated in the mountains from the news of Covid, and lack of social media – the students were scared.  They had never experienced anything like this before – and neither had I.

They had a ton of questions (What about my classes?  My grades? My internship? My parents? My financial aid?  My graduation?) The practical questions came first – and nobody had answers at the time.  Even without answers, voicing their questions allowed them to be heard, and provided the empathy that they needed. Although they asked the same questions over and over, they needed this repetition to process the changes.

Processing these questions together on a service trip helped build community.  They no longer felt alone in facing these changes, but they knew that they had others around them to listen and support them. Processing their losses (through lament), and finding things to celebrate together is crucial for them to keep moving forward.

2.  Provide companionship.

This season of social isolation has been difficult  because social isolation erodes our emotional health.  Combining social isolation with other losses and disappointments is a double whammy to emerging adults.  High school seniors lost spring sports, graduations, and proms.  College seniors also missed many events – and have now graduated into a struggling economy with high levels of unemployment.  As those who work with emerging adults – we need to be ready to provide sympathy and understanding when they fret over their college loans coming due this fall.  

Companionship is crucial when facing uncertainty.  You can provide companionship by acknowledging their losses, and reminding them that they are not alone.  This doesn’t mean you need to function as their therapist, job recruiter, or educational consultant (although stepping into some of those roles is sometimes needed), but they need consistent check-ins.  Regular communication with emerging adults you are close to – can help them feel grounded and not alone. Their typical modes of communication (email, social media, text, phone) may have shifted over the last few months, so make sure that you know how best to reach them.

3.  Point to faith, not fear.

In these times of uncertainty, we all need to turn to faith and not allow our fears to direct our decisions.  In the midst of fear, emerging adults may make bad decisions and turn to addictions, old routines, or unhealthy patterns (like spending or eating).  In this chaos, we must constantly be providing a steady voice in their storm (even if we feel unsteady ourselves at times).  We provide a voice that calls them to faith in a God who is with them and knows the future.

What have you found helpful to ministering to emerging adults during social isolation?  Leave your comments below.

Asking Good Questions

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Asking good questions is critical for building a relationship – this is especially important in mentoring relationships.  Yet many of us struggle to form questions that allow people to answer without feeling judged.  One of the questions that emerging adults dread is “How’s school?”  This question is especially heinous to emerging adults who are not attending college, or have dropped out.

Good questions are open-ended, and lead to reflection rather than to pat answers.  As a mentor, you don’t want to answer their questions and make decisions, but to guide them as they reflect on their lives, and make their own decisions.

  1. So how has that been working for you?
  2. Where do you think that this is going?
  3. What have you learned about yourself, about God, about the world?
  4. What can I do to support you?
  5. Does the Bible offer any direction for you?
  6. What do you think that you need to hear from God?
  7. What’s keeping you from _______________?
  8. What other resources do you have?
  9.  What do others think about this?  friends, parents, and other relationships?
  10.  What happened the last time that you did this?
  11.  What is the next right step?
  12. How will this matter in 5 years?  in 10 years?

I hope these encourage and guide you.   Please leave your favorite question in the comments below.

Dr. G. David Boyd is the Managing Director of EA Resources.  He loves being a dad, and shepherding emerging adults.  If he can help your faith community, please contact him. 

Four Obstacles to a Mentoring Relationship

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In order to build an atmosphere where a mentoring relationship can flourish, you must avoid these obstacles.

Constrained Time

Relationships do not develop overnight, but require time and attentiveness.  We cannot rush the process, but must allow enough space in our lives for a  relationship to develop.  Communities confined by a Sunday School hour, a weekly bible study, or events will simply remain programs without authentic community.  Quality relationships with emerging adults rarely develop within the confined timeframes of your programs.  If you want to build a community, you must be create space where time is not a factor, and moments seem to stand still.

Lack of Purpose

Your time together should go beyond simply “hanging out.”  Refuse activities where we simply exist in the same room (even superhero movie marathons – which are AWESOME), but that involve minimal personal engagement.  While watching movies can build bridges, leaders must be purposeful about building relationships.  We must regularly reach beyond the day-to-day business of life and move towards intimacy.

Limited Empathy

Empathy is a crucial skill for mentoring environments.  Other important social skills involve the ability ask questions, listen, encourage, and produce laughter.  When building a team, we must look for people with those skills which will naturally develop mentoring relationships. Empathy for those of other generations develops as you understand the challenges they face.  Webster Younce stated, “The best way to reach anyone or any generation is to take their views and perspectives seriously.”  If you don’t understand the challenges faced by emerging adults, then how can you expect to possess empathy for them?

Assigned Busywork

In order to build a mentoring environment, find meaningful work to them do.  Parks states, “The importance of giving young adults opportunity for genuine adult work and a felt sense that they are recognized as having the capacity to share shoulder-to-shoulder work with other adults cannot be overestimated.”  (Parks 2000)  We must invite emerging adults to the table so that we can do work side by side.  Look for work which will build community, and allow different generations to work side-by-side.  When a group has a common vision and truly labors towards that goal, you will be amazed at the relationships that will develop.

Other Links about Mentoring Environments:

Dr. G. David Boyd is the Managing Director of EA Resources.  if he can help your community reach understand the needs of emerging adults, please contact him.

Parenting Emerging Adults – Podcast by Steve Argue

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Equipping parents for each stage of their child’s development is important.  EA Resources is designed to gather resources for parents and churches who want to minister to the needs of emerging adults.

Here is a podcast by Steven Argue, who is an expert on emerging adulthood and faith.  He is also the parent of three emerging adults.

Click Here for the Podcast!

If you work regularly with Emerging Adults, connect with Steve and many others through joining the EA Network on Facebook.

Steve joined the Fuller Theological Seminary faculty in June 2015 in a hybrid role as assistant professor of youth, family, and culture and as an applied research strategist with the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI). He is a thought leader and researcher with decades of on-the-ground ministry experience.

Vocation Group for Emerging Adults

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If churches want to engage young adults, it is crucial that they understand the needs of emerging adults.  One challenge facing emerging adults is to establish a vocation.  Here is an article that discusses how a community has developed a program to minister to emerging adults.

Samuel Group is a discernment group for young adults, ages 18-39, who meet together once a month from September through March in order to study, pray, and discover their individual vocations or lifetime call from God. The purpose of the program is to equip young adults with the tools they need to approach vocational discernment with peace, joy and confidence.         

The program has a three-fold goal for each candidate:

— to know oneself

— to know Jesus

— to know one’s role in the church and in the world

 

Here is the rest of the article.

The First Two Weeks

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© 2014 Kevin Dooley, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

During the first two weeks of college, your child is facing much bigger issues than getting lost on campus, and running out of clean underwear.   Kara Powell and Chap Clark in their book Sticky Faith say, “Over and over, students have told us that the first two weeks at college are when they make key decisions about drinking and other high-risk behaviors, right along with choosing whether to go to church or to a campus ministry.”  (Powell and Clark)

In a college setting, social groups are quickly formed often based on where you live, and involvement (sport teams, music groups, or other interest groups).  The warm friendly smiles that you receive on campus while visiting, quickly fade as people are no longer looking for more friends.  Petrified of being left alone, students often make decisions based on their need for social connection.

Students quickly learn that their decisions about alcohol and other behavior will quickly ostracize them from others.  It doesn’t take too many evenings left alone in the dorm before feelings of loneliness can overwhelm even the deepest resolve.

How do you prepare a student for those first two weeks?

1.  Teach them to walk across the room and extend a hand.  Teaching your child basic skills in how to make new friends is crucial for this new phase of life.  Many adolescents face little change in their circle of friends during high school, and have forgotten how to make new friends.  Encouraging your adolescent to always be looking for new friends will help them keep their social skills, and prepare them for the future.  As a child moves away from home, emerging adults meet their first test, whether than can develop their own community.

2.  Teach them how to find a Spiritual Community.  Most adolescents have never picked out a church before.  They don’t know what questions to ask, or what to look for?  Your child might be overwhelmed by the available options, and not try.  According to Sticky Faith Research,  “40% of students feel prepared to find a new church.”  Parents need to prepare their child for find a new Christian community.

Use on-line tools to help your student check out churches around their campus.  LiveAbove.com is an outreach of the Youth Transition Network: a coalition of youth, college and military ministries working together to transition students from high school to college/career  (For more information about YTN go to www.youthtransitionnetwork.org).

3.  Remember last minute cramming, isn’t very helpful.  One emerging adult said, “I really appreciated that they didn’t give me a bunch of last minute “advice” about how to live life on my own. I feel like the drop off is not the time or place! If they want to give me life lessons, giving nagging reminders as they drop me off isn’t the best!”

It is not the absence of information that causes students to make poor decisions, it is often the lack of will.  The prophet Isaiah makes this point when he says,  “Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”   Even though you are not with them, your child will hear your voice as they are making their own decisions.

First2Weeks_v1 (1)4.  Pray, and ask others to join you during this time.  Pray for godly influences including:  friends, ministries, and other adults.  Encourage your church community to do a prayer campaign for college students during the fall as students are leaving for school.  Join our prayer campaign.

Ultimately, you have no control over the first two weeks or any week of your child’s experiences at college.  You can only surrender yourself, and your child to the Lord in prayer.  This is what makes the first two weeks so very difficult.

Resources

Powell, Kara and Chap Clark.  Sticky Faith:  Everyday ideas to build lasting faith in your kids.

The Difference Between Church-Based College Ministry and Campus-Based

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I read this article over the weekend, and thought it had some good thoughts for those working with emerging adults.  The author, Arliss served as Baptist Campus Minister at Arkansas State University for 32 years. He now serves as Leadership Development Consultant for the Collegiate Ministry office at Lifeway Christian Resources.

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I spent 41 years doing campus based college ministry.  I recently started my second stint as an Interim Church Based College Minister.  One of the things I have believed in both positions is that a church based ministry should not look just like a campus based one.  There is and should be a difference in the two.  I would even go as far as to say that some churches are not doing a church based college ministry, but rather are doing their version of a campus based ministry.  The church I serve started the campus based BCM ministry on the local campus many years ago and continues to be one of it’s leading financial supporters.  So, we want it to succeed and we do not want to do anything that might harm what it is doing.

Read the rest of the article on Arliss’ website.

If you work with either church or campus-based ministry, join the EA Network. 

We need to come together for the sake of God’s Kingdom!

 

More Young White Evangelicals are Showing Support for Marriage Equality

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Here nullis an article that came out in June – that should be of interest to those who work with Emerging Adults.   According to the Pew Research, 47% of white evangelical adults born after 1964 favor same-sex marriage, up from 29% in March 2016.

Support for marriage equality is rising among all Americans, according to two new national surveys. And despite efforts to hinder it, this sea change is also touching an important demographic within the evangelical Christian community: young people.

Young white evangelicals are increasingly showing support for same-sex marriage, according to recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and PRRI. The data signals a significant departure from the overarching views of the evangelical community among younger generations.

 

Here is the entire article from the

Huffington Post.

Making assumptions about what emerging adults believe on any topic can be dangerous for your relationship with them.  Instead of making assumptions, get to know them, and listen to their stories, and attempt to understand the road that they have traveled.

Dr. G. David Boyd is the Managing Director for EA Resources, a nonprofit that seeks to equip parents and churches to minister to emerging adults.  If Dr. Boyd can help your community, you can contact him at gdavid@earesources.org.

 

 

Creating a Mentoring Community for Emerging Adults

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The three developmental tasks of adulthood are to discover vocation, establish autonomy, and develop community.  These tasks cannot be accomplished overnight, and emerging adults require support to accomplish these tasks.

In her book, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams, Sharon Parks states that one place where emerging adults can find this support is a mentoring community. Parks describes a mentoring community as “an environment or milieu that provides the right mix of support, challenge, opportunity, and inspiration.” (Article)  Mentoring communities can be formed in many social settings including: a classroom, laboratory, athletic team, residence hall, neighborhood or church. Regardless of the form, here is an overview of Park’s list of essential aspects for a mentoring community.

Park’s list of essential aspects for a mentoring community.

1.  Support

When developing a mentoring community, you must create an atmosphere where emerging adults feel supported through words and actions.  Although spiritual direction and encouragement are central to your ministry, your support must go beyond quips and Bible verses.  Your support must be abundantly clear, resulting in tangible acts.  Emerging adults must have their basic human needs met to focus on the developmental tasks of adulthood. (Read more about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as it pertains to adulthood.)

2.  Challenge

While providing support, you must also challenge emerging adults.  We must promote questions in order to cause growth and to stir them towards autonomy of beliefs and actions (Raising Expectations on Emerging Adults).  Good questions from mentors include: How is this working for you?, What do you think?, How would you respond?, and How does that apply or affect your life?

3.  Opportunity

Mentoring communities must provide opportunity.  Mentors seek to give meaningful work, training, and service opportunities to emerging adults.  These opportunities provide experiences and sharpen job skills which prepare emerging adults for future vocations.  Within your community, create opportunities where emerging adults can both serve and lead.

4.  Inspiration

Inspiration is essential to a mentoring environment.  Emerging adults must be “invited to imagine a future that can hold significance and purpose – both for self and for the larger world.”  (Article)  Inspiration produces hope, inspires dreams, and sparks motivation.  The living Word of God contains endless passages which can inspire emerging adults.

Each week as your community meets, evaluate whether or not you adding enough of these ingredients to help emerging adults grow and flourish.

If Dr. G. David Boyd can help your church design a community for emerging adults, you can contact him at gdavid@earesources.org.  If you work with emerging adults (18-25), check out the EA Network.

Resources:

Big Questions, Worthy Dreams by Sharon Parks

New Jersey Raises Smoking Age to 21 Years Old

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I saw this article over the weekend, and wanted to share it with my readers.  While I am usually a strong supporter of autonomy and the right of adolescents and teens to make decisions.  When it comes to addictive substances, like tobacco, I believe this law will help emerging adults by making it illegal to smoke during later adolescence when peer pressure is so strong.

New Jersey just raised the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21, joining California and Hawaii.

The new law was signed by Gov. Chris Christie and is set to take affect on Nov. 1. The law includes the sale of all tobacco and electronic tobacco and smoking products.

New Jersey’s smoking age was already higher than most states after it previously made the minimum age to buy tobacco products 19 in 2005.

Read the entire article here.

What are your thoughts?  Do you think that your state should follow the trend?