No matter what expert we consult, the
bottom line is that young adults are faced with a tremendous list of tasks
as they walk from childhood to adulthood. A campus pastor discusses the
important role of the church and particularly campus ministry in the
formation of healthy and faithful young adults.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,
by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern
what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans
12:1–2)
I am truly blessed. Members of the ELCA pay me to
reach out to college students, and usually there are significant numbers of
young adults around to talk with. I am amazed by the depth of their faith
commitments and their willingness to organize much of their lives around
Lutheran Campus Ministry: planning worship and activities, making phone calls to
friends and acquaintances, and generally being present. I often feel that they
are deeper and clearer about their faith than I was at their age ... and I was a
Lutheran preacher’s kid!
I asked several college students at the
University of Texas what motivates them. They answered: “To be successful.” “To
make money.” “Honestly, I want to make my parents happy.” “I want to be happy.”
“I want to leave a mark, to do well in school and get a good job.” “I want to
learn more as a student and from being with other people.” “I really need a job;
and love, the romantic kind.”
In our desire to reach out to young adults and in
our bewilderment at their frequent absence from our congregations, we may assume
that they are both different now than in the past but also basically very much
the same.
Tracking Trends
Generational research can be helpful in our attempts to understand differences.
One recently reported trend is a return to materialism. An Associated Press
story by Martha Irving from January 22, 2007, gives the latest results:
UCLA’s annual survey of college freshman ...
found that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in 2006 thought it was
essential or very important to be “very well-off financially.” That compares
with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980 and 42 percent in 1966, the
first year the survey was done.
Another recent poll from the Pew Research
Center found that about 80 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds in this country
see getting rich as a top life goal for their generation. 1
On the other hand, we have the fascinating
results from the major 2004 study The Spiritual Life of College Students,
by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, surveying 112,000 students
at 236 colleges and universities. An important work, due to its scope and focus,
the survey documents the deep interest college students have in spirituality.
College students show a high degree of
spiritual interest and involvement. Three-fourths say they are “searching
for meaning and purpose in life” or that they have discussions about the
meaning of life with friends, and similar numbers have high expectations
that college will help them develop emotionally and spiritually. Nearly half
(of college students) consider it “essential” or “very important” to seek
opportunities to help them grow spiritually. Eight students in ten attended
religious services during the past year, and similar numbers discussed
religion with both friends and family. 2
We clearly should not despair that college
students are somehow not interested in spirituality and meaning, despite the
fact that they do not always look for nourishment in religious institutions. I
believe that college students care deeply about faith and about God but that
they seek some experiential validation and foundation for their beliefs, not
just lukewarm responses they have repeatedly heard.
In my years of campus ministry, I have found
generational research helpful. It reminds me of the differences between young
adults’ and my own experiences. More helpful, however, is staying cognizant of
the developmental tasks of young adults. I turn more toward classic reminders of
the agendas of young adults in my search for clues to effective ministry.
Life Stages
Many of us are familiar with Erik Erikson’s work on human development. Erikson
described eight stages of psychosocial development and the tasks that need to be
resolved through successful negotiation of inherent conflicts:
Basic Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame,
Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role
Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, and Ego
Integrity vs. Despair 3
Young adults and most traditionally aged college
students are centered in those basic tasks of forming an identity, or “Identity
vs. Role Confusion,” and forming love relationships, or “Intimacy vs.
Isolation.” “What major should I choose?” “Who will my friends be?” “Should I
get drunk with the guys down the hall?” “Do I want to make a lot of money, or
just find something to do that makes me happy?” “How much should I express my
sexual feelings?” “What will I do when I graduate?”
The quests for both identity and intimacy are
important in the young adult years. I find the work of Arthur W. Chickering on
identity to be most helpful. His classic Education and Identity describes
“seven vectors” of undergraduate college student development. Chickering
essentially expands and gives needed detail to Erickson’s task of Identity
Formation. These areas of development remain as important now for understanding
the needs and drives of young adults and of college students as they were when
originally published nearly forty years ago.
| Chickering’s seven vectors of college
student development are: |
- Developing Competence: including
intellectual, physical-manual, and interpersonal;
- Managing Emotions: including
awareness, self-expression and self-control;
- Moving through Autonomy toward
Interdependence: including achieving emotional and instrumental
independence and then accepting interdependence;
- Developing Mature Interpersonal
Relationships: includes appreciation for and tolerance of difference
together with developing a capacity for intimacy;
- Establishing Identity: ultimately
resulting in a formation of a solid sense of self;
- Developing Purpose: including
vocational plans and interests, personal interests, and
interpersonal and family commitments;
- Developing Integrity: congruence in
balancing values and behavior, and self-interest with the interests
of others. 4
Gifts of Community
A healthy church community, the body of Christ, can play an extremely
important role in negotiating these tasks. We can walk with students as
their adolescent faith is challenged by the academic rigors of the
university and by skeptical or non-Christian friends. A peer group of
other young adults provides a wonderful testing ground for students
trying out various interpersonal roles. We as the church can provide a
healthy balance with and respite from the constant academic demands and
expectations of demanding universities.
A supporting Christian community can
offer sage advice as young adults become aware of various emotions as
well as of the consequences and results of either expressing those
emotions or keeping them to themselves. What other context could provide
better safety for experimentation than a caring, forgiving, open
Christian community? As young adults become autonomous and then
consequently experience the necessity of and gifts of interdependence,
what better context for this than a healthy and vibrant faith community?
If our Christian communities have at
least a critical number of young people with whom to form mature
interpersonal relationships, others will be attracted to and open to us.
Ultimately young people are led to an effective and clarified sense of
self in the context of others. God’s grace empowers and sustains them on
this path.
Perhaps the greatest gifts our community
offers occur in the areas of “purpose” and “integrity,” where Christian
ideals of love for neighbor and concrete examples of people living with
integrity provide key models for young people to emulate. What better
witnesses can we give than seasoned spiritual leaders who “walk the
talk” in daily work and play? How better can college students be
challenged to their highest callings and potential than in exposure to
the spiritual depth and the varied resources of a committed Christian
community?
| The University of Puget Sound
similarly lists developmental tasks of the typical college
student. I like this alternative yet specific listing as it
reminds us of “how busy college students are simply with
growing up”: |
- Achieve intellectual
competence for academic success
- Develop social and
interpersonal competence for relating to others
- Resolve parent-child
authority relationships
- Learn to manage emotions
- Adjust to growing sexual
impulses
- Reduce dependency on others
- Become self-sufficient and
goal-directed
- Learn interdependence and
collaborative skills
- Clarify personal values
- Solidify sexual identity
- Select moral and ethical
positions for oneself
- Answer the questions “Who am
I?” and “Where am I going?”
- Learn tolerance for a wide
range of persons, their beliefs and cultures
- Develop mature interpersonal
relationships with peers
- Establish the capacity for
mature intimacy
- Set appropriate educational
and vocational goals
- Choose one’s life work
- Choose one’s life style
- Decide upon a personally
valid set of beliefs
- Establish congruence between
personal values and behavior
- Learn to tolerate ambiguity
in life 5
We, church leaders and
congregations, need to reeducate and remind ourselves of the
varied yet basic tasks of becoming adults. I suggest that the
church’s key response to these monumental developmental tasks of
young adults is to stay connected and present with them as they
maneuver through these tasks and negotiate the twists and turns
of so many complex challenges.
Staying connected with young
adults is not categorically different now than it was in the
past. The same basic tasks underlie today’s students’ using a
new laptop, text messaging on a cell phone, or listening to
favorite music selections on an iPod as I faced as a young adult
using a manual typewriter to produce a term paper or talking on
the telephone with friends.
In the centennial year of
Lutheran Campus Ministry in the United States, the church can do
nothing better than to recommit funding and staffing to campus
ministries across the country, prioritizing those with the
greatest potential for reaching the largest numbers of students.
We need youth groups in congregations and relevant synodical and
national youth gathering experiences. We need the broad sense of
the body of Christ and the energy and commitment to refer these
now young adults to our Lutheran Campus Ministries for the next
stages in their psychosocial and spiritual development. If we
are not present with our young people, we can be assured that
others will be — with their own agendas of the marketplace or,
possibly, of highly sectarian and reactionary religion.
Paul S. Collinson-Streng
is campus pastor at the University of Texas, Austin.
| Endnotes |
- Martha Irvine,
“Material Kids: Wealth Is a Top Priority for Today’s
Youth,” Associated Press, January 22, 2007.
- Spiritual Life of
College Students, Executive Summary, pp. 4–5,
available at
www.spirituality.ucla.edu/reports
- See Erik Erikson,
Childhood and Society (New York: W.W. Norton,
1952), page number unknown.
- See Arthur
Chickering, Education and Identity (San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969). The vectors of
development are widely available in many secondary
resources, online and in print.
- See
www.ups.edu/x12692.xml
| Resources |
- Arthur
Chickering, Jon C. Dalton, and Liesa Stamm,
Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality
in Higher Education. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 2006.
- Chap Clark,
Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s
Teenagers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2004.
- Robert J.
Nash, Religious Pluralism in the Academy:
Opening the Dialogue. New York: Peter
Lang, 2001.
- Vachel
Miller and Merle Ryan, eds., Transforming
Campus Life: Reflections on Spirituality and
Religious Pluralism. New York: Peter
Lang, 2001.
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