disclaimer: the title of this post shows what a pathetic comedian & geek I am, inspired by this meme
There is an interesting piece yesterday by David Brooks The Odyssey Years - New York Times (full text below) that really resonated with me. Here's the core premise:
There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. Of the new ones, the least understood is odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.
From Villi.Ingi
Brooks suggests we might be seeing a "new life phase" characterized by what he calls fluidity:
Young people grow up in tightly structured childhoods, but then graduate into a world characterized by uncertainty, diversity, searching and tinkering. Old success recipes don’t apply, new norms have not been established and everything seems to give way to a less permanent version of itself.
Brooks points to a new book by sociologist Robert Wuthnow "After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion," which uses statistical data and exhaustive numerical analysis to assess the social and cultural influences on the younger adult generation. What is more interesting is Wuthnow's discussion about how this generation of younger adults is shaping the churches in America today. Their so-called "life worlds" are defining how they spend their time, where they live and who they are, and, thus, the churches that they chose to -- or not to -- attend.
Today's generation of younger adults have spent at least some time in college, bounce around jobs more frequently than older generations, marry later and have children later, Wuthnow reports. This leads the reader to wonder:
Considering that a church's programs and services are mostly focused on married couples with children -- also noted in the book -- then isn't there a large percentage of the population that does not have the support of religious institutions?
I have no crystal ball to know what ministry with young people will look like the future - but I am certain that online will be a much more prominent component of how people work thru their souls with others. This post Teens Search Faith Online from digital.leadnet.org seems spot-on:
David Kinnaman, President and Strategic Leader of the Barna Group, acted as lead researcher in a study released two days ago entitled What Teenagers look for in a Church. The study gives credence to the fact people who are born over a certain period of time are influenced by a unique set of circumstances including global events, moral and social values, technologies, and cultural and behavioral norms. The result is that every generation has a different way of seeing life. The newest generation, the Mosaics, view online technology's intersection with their spirituality as normative.
As some of the nation’s first digital pilgrims, the research shows that one out of every four teenagers (26%) had learned something about their faith or spirituality online in the last six months. This was true of two-fifths of born again Christian teenagers (39%). Furthermore, one-sixth of teenagers (16%) and one-quarter of born again teens (25%) said they had "a spiritual experience" online where they worshiped or connected with God.
So many faith community I know view the definition of a young adult as someone who has a functioning prostrate, they view technology as a necessary evil, handled by an "amateur" who tends their website like a junk yard. Ministry with young people has gotta be more than hoping "they" will show up & like what "we" did. It's gotta be more than presence or program or purpose or even pathetic. It's gotta be more than apprenticing to join the borg that is churchianity. Brooks is dead on with he observes that:
some social institutions flourish — knitting circles, Teach for America — while others — churches, political parties — have trouble establishing ties.
What if we set off on an odyssey, with no certain destination, no expectation of who will join us, no "map drawn with ink", no products sponsored by some faceless industrialist - just an odyssey out into the wild.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Odyssey Years
There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. Of the new ones, the least understood is odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.
During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another.
Their parents grow increasingly anxious. These parents understand that there’s bound to be a transition phase between student life and adult life. But when they look at their own grown children, they see the transition stretching five years, seven and beyond. The parents don’t even detect a clear sense of direction in their children’s lives. They look at them and see the things that are being delayed.
They see that people in this age bracket are delaying marriage. They’re delaying having children. They’re delaying permanent employment. People who were born before 1964 tend to define adulthood by certain accomplishments — moving away from home, becoming financially independent, getting married and starting a family.
In 1960, roughly 70 percent of 30-year-olds had achieved these things. By 2000, fewer than 40 percent of 30-year-olds had done the same.
Yet with a little imagination it’s possible even for baby boomers to understand what it’s like to be in the middle of the odyssey years. It’s possible to see that this period of improvisation is a sensible response to modern conditions.
Two of the country’s best social scientists have been trying to understand this new life phase. William Galston of the Brookings Institution has recently completed a research project for the Hewlett Foundation. Robert Wuthnow of Princeton has just published a tremendously valuable book, “After the Baby Boomers” that looks at young adulthood through the prism of religious practice.
Through their work, you can see the spirit of fluidity that now characterizes this stage. Young people grow up in tightly structured childhoods, Wuthnow observes, but then graduate into a world characterized by uncertainty, diversity, searching and tinkering. Old success recipes don’t apply, new norms have not been established and everything seems to give way to a less permanent version of itself.
Dating gives way to Facebook and hooking up. Marriage gives way to cohabitation. Church attendance gives way to spiritual longing. Newspaper reading gives way to blogging. (In 1970, 49 percent of adults in their 20s read a daily paper; now it’s at 21 percent.)
The job market is fluid. Graduating seniors don’t find corporations offering them jobs that will guide them all the way to retirement. Instead they find a vast menu of information economy options, few of which they have heard of or prepared for.
Social life is fluid. There’s been a shift in the balance of power between the genders. Thirty-six percent of female workers in their 20s now have a college degree, compared with 23 percent of male workers. Male wages have stagnated over the past decades, while female wages have risen.
This has fundamentally scrambled the courtship rituals and decreased the pressure to get married. Educated women can get many of the things they want (income, status, identity) without marriage, while they find it harder (or, if they’re working-class, next to impossible) to find a suitably accomplished mate.
The odyssey years are not about slacking off. There are intense competitive pressures as a result of the vast numbers of people chasing relatively few opportunities. Moreover, surveys show that people living through these years have highly traditional aspirations (they rate parenthood more highly than their own parents did) even as they lead improvising lives.
Rather, what we’re seeing is the creation of a new life phase, just as adolescence came into being a century ago. It’s a phase in which some social institutions flourish — knitting circles, Teach for America — while others — churches, political parties — have trouble establishing ties.
But there is every reason to think this phase will grow more pronounced in the coming years. European nations are traveling this route ahead of us, Galston notes. Europeans delay marriage even longer than we do and spend even more years shifting between the job market and higher education.
And as the new generational structure solidifies, social and economic entrepreneurs will create new rites and institutions. Someday people will look back and wonder at the vast social changes wrought by the emerging social group that saw their situations first captured by “Friends” and later by “Knocked Up.”
Can I use your description of the definition of "young adult" among some of our "faith communities?" I love it!
Posted by: Bob G+ | Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 01:44 PM