Adults and Faith

How would you draw a map of the faith development in young adulthood? Would it show a flat terrain until death, or would there be hills and valleys along the way? Let's focus on some unique issues faced by young adults as they travel through their spiritual journey.

While young adults have many years to deepen and broaden their faith, the territory and direction of Christian growth in these years is hazy, especially if they have been in a strong youth program, which emphasized discipleship, and then move toward an adult ministry that is weak and inconsequential in contrast. They wonder if adult discipleship is just an adult version of the youth faith pilgrimage. Sometimes they need to overcome poor or inadequate faith presentations learned as children or youth.

Read the following description of God from a young boy's perspective (written by Bruce Barton in the 1925 best-seller The Man Nobody Knows):

The little boy's body sat bolt upright in the rough wooden chair, but his mind was very busy. This was his weekly hour of revolt. The kindly lady who could never seem to find her glasses would have been terribly shocked if she had known what was going on inside the little boy's mind.

"You must love Jesus," she said every Sunday, "and God."

The little boy did not say anything. He was afraid to say anything; he was almost afraid that something would happen to him because of the things he thought:

Love God! Who was always picking on people for having a good time, and sending little boys to hell because they couldn't do better in a world he had made so hard! Why didn't God take on someone his own size?

Love Jesus! The little boy looked up at the picture, which hung on the Sunday-school wall. It showed a pale young man with flabby forearms and a sad expression. The young man had red whiskers.

Then the little boy looked across to the other wall. There was Daniel, good old Daniel, standing off the lions. The little boy liked Daniel. He liked David, too, with the trusty sling that landed a stone square on the forehead of Goliath. And Moses, with his rod and his big brass snake. They were winners—those three. He wondered if David could whip Jeffries. Samson could! Say, that would have been a fight!

But Jesus! Jesus was the "lamb of God." The little boy did not know what that meant, but it sounded like Mary's little lamb. Something for girls—sissified. Jesus was also "meek and lowly," a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He went around for three years telling people not to do things.

Sunday was Jesus' day; it was wrong to feel comfortable or laugh on Sunday.

The little boy was glad when the superintendent thumped the bell and announced: "We will now sing the closing hymn." One more bad hour was over. For one more week the little boy had gotten rid of Jesus.

Here's a Thought: Reread that description of the little boy's faith. This time underline words and phrases that show immature faith. What challenges do young adult leaders have when confronted by biblical and theological ignorance and illiteracy? What kinds of misunderstandings do your young adults bring into the classroom?

With the provocative title What Prevents Christian Young adults from Learning? John Hull has given a fresh diagnosis of the central problem of today's church, namely why young adults have such a reluctance to be involved in church educational programs for them. According to Hull, young adults are taught as children that the Christian faith is something one grows out of. It is necessary, yes, for children and youth, because they are in a learning mode most of their growing up years. That is, they are in school, and Sunday School is appropriate for them. So, when they become young adults, over 18, they no longer need the trappings of youth or childhood. In fact, they define themselves as young adults in part by not needing schooling anymore. Young adults who think this way insist children and youth need religious training but they do not.

More than likely you have heard strong support for calling a children's minister or a youth director but not a minister to young adults. Part of this lack of attention to adult spiritual maturity can be traced to Hull's assumptions. "So it is that as young adults and parents we socialize our children into that for which we have a fond nostalgia but can no longer take seriously ourselves. Deep in their hearts many young adults believe that religion really is for children" (Hull, p. 8). Children and youth observe this as well. They conclude that if parents and other young adults are not really committed to their own growing discipleship, they can "look forward" to the days when they can stop growing spiritually as well—as young adults.

How then do Christian young adults face their own need to continue their spiritual growth? In Christian education settings they often give the safe, remembered answers they learned as children. They seek to preserve, not enhance, the faith once delivered to them long ago. These young adults pay a high price for their failure to go on growing in discipleship in their adult years. They have stopped learning. They know the church answers. They can recite the Sunday morning schedule for worship. They know the major Bible stories. They have "got it down," so to speak.

Ironically, though, these same young adults who have "got religion down" continue to grow and mature in other areas of their lives. They marry, have children, take on a career, get involved in civic life, and shoulder a host of other responsibilities. In family life and work they solve problems, seek answers, continuously retrain and retool. Then suddenly a crisis appears—unemployment, a death in the family. Anxious young adults then harness all the resources they can muster, including their faith. This becomes a crisis of faith, when they cannot solve the spiritual problems of young adulthood with a faith they left in high school.

What else keeps Christian young adults from learning? In most classes young adults want to preserve and enhance their self-respect and self-image. So they are careful not to admit that they do not know the answer to a question posed by the teacher. Many are reluctant to be involved in any exercise designed to assist in spiritual growth. In this case ignorance breeds embarrassment. Their greatest fear is having their ignorance discovered. They are afraid of giving the wrong answers because they are supposed to have learned all this information years ago as a child or youth. This is not the case for children and youth. Why? Because the childhood and youth years are times of education and growth. It is understandable that they don't know biblical truth.

We may feel uncomfortable with the little boy's thoughts about his Sunday School experience. And we would hope that future lessons would correct his impressions. However, many young adults retain these impressions well into adulthood. One cause is that they have become Sunday School dropouts and are not involved in Christian education during their youth years. Or they unconsciously pick up these childhood interpretations from society and bring them to the young adult Bible class.

The task of the young adult Christian education teacher is formidable—not only to teach current Bible truths but at the same time to shore up the shortcomings of years of childhood (mis)education.

Here's a Thought: Consider the group of young adults you lead. How can you help them develop a desire to develop their personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

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Written by Dr. Jim Walter, professor, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, at the time he wrote these articles. He is now the minister to median and senior adults at First Baptist Church, Pensacola, Florida.