It's Not Easy Being Young!

The young adults that you lead or seek to reach are struggling with many issues. Have you asked young adults about key challenges they face? You will be surprised at what you will learn. For instance, young adults struggle with the pressure that it is not OK to be "just ordinary people." The ways we are to look, feel, and think are constantly being redefined by the media. The standard is a few freaks of nature who have all the right body parts in all the right proportions. It seems that "more" is never enough! Young adults have been raised in three primary places: schools (filled with unproductive peer pressure), in front of television and movies (filled with the values of a few), and at the mall (just hanging out, surrounded by stuff). It is simply not OK to be just ordinary.

Young adults also struggle with the pressure to be supersexed. For most of them, the world has always considered sex as a sport. The issue, however, is not one of sex but one of identity. The church has traditionally responded in one of the following three ways:

1. Silence: "Say nothing and hope it will go away."
   
   
2. Legalism: "We are the moral police, and this is what we say!"
   
   
3. Ignore it: "It is their decision. They have to make their own mistakes. It is simply none of our business."

Young adults also struggle with the pressures of loneliness and isolation. Loneliness is not "aloneness." It has been said that loneliness is most abusive when it meets us in a crowd. Loneliness (isolation or the lack of a developed identity and real intimacy) has captivated today's young adults. They live in a world of alone activity: TV viewing, Internet surfing, and so on. Too often the church's response is busyness when what is needed are opportunities to build community. Koinonia is a real, measurable, accountable sense of partnership between an individual believer and God and between believers. The building of community will not be easy for several reasons:

1. The idea that we are just fine the way we are means many young adults do not recognize their need for community.
   
   
2. "Cocooning" has isolated people more and more.

The issue is not related to quantity of activities but rather to the quality of community-building activity taking place.

Young adults also struggle with the pressure to find security. Change threatens security, and change is normal for today's young adults. Change impacts our lifestyles, our emotional life, our self-esteem, and even our physical health. Insecurity leads to the "If only . . ." diseases of young adult life: "If only I'd married." "If only I'd stayed single." "If only we had waited to have children." "If only I'd taken that job." "If only I'd turned down that transfer." They constantly second-guess everything.

Young adults are insecure regarding relationships, the future, money, safety in our culture, and so much more. There are at least two consequences to the insecurity of young adult life:

1. People rushing through life, driven by something outside themselves. The idea is, I've got to do it all and have it all—now!
   
   
2. A preoccupation with the need to be somebody. That is, we substitute external things for internal issues. We do therapy, jog, and even "do" church.

Being a young adult is not easy. Strugglers can best be helped by those who have struggled through the same pressures and survived. Have you? Will you?

Here's a Thought: Consider the pressures individual young adults in your group face. What are the implications for your ministry to each person?

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Adapted by Randy Millwood from Young Adult Ministry: Step-By-Step for Starting or Revitalizing Your Ministry with People Ages 18 to 35 (chapter 3) written by Terry Hershey (Colorado: Group Publishing, 1986). Dr. Millwood, associate professor, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, at the time he wrote these articles. He is now a consultant specialist for the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware and director of the Church Health Center, Maryland/Delaware.