Why is a relationally based youth program important to Christian formation? Becauseour young people tend to experience and express faith in a culture that stresses individualism and youth. They have too few opportunities to observe how other people—especially those older than they are—are living out a faith commitment. So they can end upindifferent, lonely, or alienated. They can be strengthened as they see their own efforts inrelation to those of others, and as they see themselves on a journey with others, too.
According to U.S. experts on youth and religion, who last fall gathered to discussChristian formation of youth, there are five ways that teens experience faith today.
Whateverism. That’s the word that describes how most young people in the United States experience faith, according to the National Study of Youth and Religion, a large-scale survey of young people in the United States. Young people aren’t hostile to religion, and they’re not going out in droves to experiment with Wicca or with alternative spiritualities. They just don’t give it much thought. Religion is a part of their lives “sort of like wallpaper,” said Christian Smith, the study’s director and a professor at Notre Dame University. Religion “hangs in the background and doesn’t really do anything” for these young people, he said.
Hurting and Yearning. Many, many young people experience their whole lives through a prism of pain, said YOUTHWORKER JOURNAL Senior Editor Chap Clark. They feel “systematically abandoned by the culture,” he said. They long for healing, but they’re not finding it in religion or in faith, he said. And they aren’t interested in journeying through a variety of religious expressions (or lack of them). Many want to be a part of their family’s home church. Too often, though, they’re not finding in those places support for embracing a faith identity, said Frank Rogers of Claremont School of Theology.
Survivors. Some of these hurting young people are under severe pressure because of the limited economic means of their families and communities. For some of these young people, the church is “a family,” said Anne Wimberly of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. Wimberly is the director of the Youth Hope-Builders Academy, an organization that works with African-American teens. In the communities she works with, the church is a supportive network. But it is often full of people who are just as stretched thin as are the young people in their midst. “Just getting them to have hope for the future is huge,” Wimberley said.
Certitude. Some young people appear to others to be certain of their faith and of its implications for their own lives and for the lives of others. These are some of the most visible and vocal young people around. But these young people, too, may be hurting, yearning, surviving—or journeying.
Journeying. Unfortunately, the seeming certainty of the few can be unsettling to the young people who are drawn to faith but are much less certain about its claims. As Jennifer Haworth of Loyola University Chicago argues, some young people by their late adolescent years have gone through several stages of exploration with differing religious identifications, or identification with no religious tradition. It’s not that they finally find the right answers to burning questions, however. Haworth said this process is less about encountering new ideas and more about young people experiencing the world through their own observations and emotions. She describes this process as “See. Feel. Change.”
Finding a way to weave narratives and practices of faith into young peoples’ reflections on their own spiritual journeys is key. Spending enough time to know young people, to hear their stories, and to help them grasp their own experiences in relation to afaith commitment is a great challenge. But for those who want to participate in youngpeople’s faith formation as it lasts throughout their lifetimes, it’s worth it.
