Emurgency Pre-Conference
Jacksonville, FL | January 4th, 2011
Jim Dunn is giving opening remarks. Welcoming people from all-over. 75+ registered for the event and there are over 115 here. Trying to make room for everyone to have a seat.
Jeremy Summers
This is not a pre-conference where we want everyone to leave “happy”. We are praying that you will wrestle with some of the topics from this morning and that this dialogue will continue past this day. This is “a beginning” for us to move forward in discussing how we are to reach the “emurging adults”...
Dr. Chrisitan Smith
Souls in Transition: Understanding the Religious & Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults
Created after a VERY in-depth interview/survey process of 3,750 students
Emerging Adulthood - postponing “settling down” into adulthood
The Rise of Emerging Adulthood
- expansion of higher eductation in latter 20th Century
- Delayed age of first marriage and childbirth
- macro-economic changes requiring flexibility and mobility
- substantial parental support well into the 20s
- The Pill and other accessible contraceptives
- cultural saturation of mass-consumer entertainment
- influence of postmodern relativism and skepticism
Result = Emerging Adulthood (EA)
- Ages 18-29: a relatively new phase in the life course with own characteristic features
- not merely an extension of the teenage years, nor the early stages of “real” adulthood
- more complex, disjointed, confused, unstable, compared to same ages in previous generations
- extensive life transitions, identity exploration, instability, focus on self, feeling in limbo, and sense of vast opportunities and hope for personal life
- also plenty of transience, confusion, anxiety, self-obsession, melodrama, conflict, disappointment, and sometimes emotional devastation
Dominant cultural Structures of EA Religion:
- Not a Very threatening topic
- Indifferent
- The shared central principles of religions are good
- religious particularities are peripheral
- religion is for making good people
- Religious congregations are “elementary schools of morals”
- Not a place of real belonging
- friends hardly talk about religion
- Religious beliefs are cognitive assents, not life drivers
- “What seems right to me” is authority
- Take or Leave What You Want
- Evidence and Proof Trump “Blind Faith”
- Less Typical: “I’m Open to Some Kind of Higher Power”
- Mainstream Religion is Fine, Probably
- Less Typical: Mainstream Religion is a Problem
- Personal—not Social or Institutional
- No Way to Finally Know What’s True
Some Illustrative Quotes for Flavor:
“I think religions all go to the same path, you know I think all religions are a way of how to live your life and they all kinda lead to the same goal—that’s how I believe in it.”
“I believe that if you do right, then you will have good consequences, you know what’s right and wrong. It’s the same in all the religions.”
“I guess I am a religious person, but I’m not, like, dedicated. I don’t go to church every Sunday, read my Bible everyday. I think it’s more an inner than an outer thing. I think a lot people go to church and to be seen, so people in society are like, ‘Oh they are good people. They go to church.’ And I don’t want to be that person. I want to be a good person for me and for what I believe, so that I don’t think I take part in all the avenues of religion.”
Re: Belonging: “No, not a sense of belonging at Mass. I do feel a childhood, I feel happy thoughts and I feel safe, like memories. But not belonging.”
“I wouldn’t say belonging in the church I’m in now. I mean they’re Southern Baptist, but it’s run basically by really old people, basically conservative, wear a dress, wear a suit to church every Sunday kinda thing.”
Re: life choices: “I don’t think it’s the basis of how I live, it’s just, I guess I’m just learning about my religion and my beliefs. But I still kinda retain my own decisions or at least a lot of it on situations I’ve had, and experiences.”
“I think that what you believe in depends on you. I don’t think I could say that Hinduism is wrong or Catholicism is wrong or being Episcopalian is wrong—I think it just depends on what you believe and what you’ve been brought up to believe. I don’t think that there’s a right and wrong.”
“I mean there is proven [scientific] fact and then there is what’s written in the Bible—and they don’t match up. So it’s kind of whatever you wanna believe: there’s fact and there’s a book, and some people just don’t wanna believe the truth.”
“I’m not atheist. I guess maybe that there’s something – maybe there’s God, I don’t know, I haven’t decided or fully thought about everything, haven’t come to that junction in my life. I guess there very well could be someone, something out there. Spiritually, I guess I believe in God. Maybe there’s something out there that is a higher being, or something like that. But I don’t have any direct, religious reason to believe in God.”
SIX MAJOR TYPES OF EMERGENT ADULTS (EAs)
- Committed Traditionalists (15%)
- Selective Adherents (30%)
- Spiritually Open (15%)
- Religiously Indifferent (25%)
- Religiously Disconnected (5%)
- Irreligious (10%)
What religious change happens between the teenage and AE years?
- This analysis focused on combination of:
- Religious service attendance +
- Importance of personal faith +
- Frequency of prayer = one scale
- Focusing on 16-17 yr-olds, across 5 years
Figure 8.6 Growth cuves trackign the Six Most Important distinct trajectories of religious change among teens 16&17 years old in 2002.
Conservative Protestants, 16&17 years old.
Consistently Important Factors During Teenage Years:
- Personal faith commitment, devotion, experience
- prayer, importance of faith, religious experiences, read scriptures, have few doubts, believe in miracles
- Religiously committed and practicing parents
- Other supportive religious adults (not parents) in congregation (youth ministers, mentors, friends)
- Sexual chastity (behavioral)
- Being made fun of by others for religious faith
Key Influence of Parents in Teenage Years for EA Outcomes:
- Parents who attended religious services weekly+:
- 70 percent high stable group
- 39 percent of steep decline
- 11 percent of low stable
- Parents who reported their faith to be “extremely important” in their lives:
- 71 percent of high stable group
- 36 percent of steep decline
- 16 percent of low stable
Switching gears to LIVE Q&A with Dr. Smith...
...break...
Jeremy Summers
Deuteronomy 6 | Love the Lord Your God
Panel Discussion...
Moderator: David Drury | http://seminary.indwes.edu/Academics/Faculty/David-Drury/
Who’s Who On the Panel:
Some of the panel-comments/statements (as noted by Rev. Don Grant)
- Difference between engaging and retaining instead of the same.
- EAs have a lot more questions than we would think.
- EAs need to have the keys to the car to leadership in the church.
- What about ministry to the parents of EAs.
- The church has a tendency of the church teaching and the parents reinforce instead of the parents teaching and the church reinforcing.
- Non-Christians don’t respect anyone who claims to be Christians but not read their Bible.
- Willing to give more sacrificially?
- Raise the bar in what you are asking of your EAs and students.
- EAs have a high sense of commitment, volunteering, highest education achievement, most creative, higher commitment than their parents … need creativity in our churches to reach YAs.
- Church needs to change from what makes “me” happy to what is necessary of how to reach the lost.
- EAs need to see authenticity and trust…telling it like it is…reality. (hurt, junk in their life, etc.)
- Authenticity is the catalyst that helps them engaged but they are not equipped though narcissists as they have been told they can do anything.
- EAs have a tendency to not want to do what their parents have done as they believe their parents have not done a good job.
- EAs need a place of community and belonging that they can call home ... careful of languaging outside of just family
- Be intentionally intergenerational!
- EAs and students are the now generation not the next generation … everybody is part of the now generation and …
- In an urban situation be willing to respect the indigenous wisdom.
- We will have to trust people who are younger than those making the decisions.
- We need to step away from some of the things of the past … this is a risk as some will not be happy … we need to concentrate on all our churches not just the larger ones and the church plants.
- Intergenerational community is necessary … not always what we want but is best for people. Need to look for youth pastors who will mobilize the church … the parents … not just the teens. The smaller churches can deal with this better than the larger ones.
- What kind of Jesus have we been presenting in our churches? … One who meets our needs or one who causes us to lay down our lives?
- Transition to membership … me to we!
..BREAK..
Jeremy Summers
5 Essentials for Every Emerging Adult
1. SCRIPTURE: Biblical teaching is important to them.
What does SCRIPTURE say - not a certain author or program.
2. MISSIONAL: service/outreach
3. DISCIPLE: the “with” factor - they want to be mentored/discipled.
4. MULTIPLICATION: discipleship issue
We’re good at proclaiming/endorsing but not listening. We need to deploy.
5. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT/TRAINING: happens when we release power/trust and sit back and facilitate. Give vision, but allow others to cast vision.