Smashing Boxes: Young Adult Ministry without Preconceptions
My latest column at Adventist Today.
Young Adult Ministry
Catholic News Service has an article about John Cusick of the Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the old-timers in Catholic young adult ministry. He asks some questions that could be asked in any denomination.
On Disappointing “Soul Mates”
Many young adults today are searching for their “soul mate,” their perfect companion. Over at Busted Halo, Christine Whelan says they need to come back to earth.
Cruise with a Mission
J Kijana Knight reports on the recent “Cruise with a Mission.”
What Would Luther Do?
Dan Kimball spoke to LCMS youth ministry sponsored event in Houston asking what Luther would do to reach young adults.
GYC
Janice Becca is reporting on GYC.
On Young Adults
After The Swarm Does Its Damage: Post-boomer Christians.
Church Planting and Young Adults
That’s the topic I’m speaking about this weekend, at a church planting rally we’re hosting. I’m going to be focusing on some census data which documents what I already understood, that our new churches tend to be in the suburbs, but young adults tend to live in neighborhoods like Westchase, Galleria, Montrose, and the Medical…
“The Odyssey Years”
David Brooks writes in the New York Times (via Greg Brothers): There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. Of the new ones, the least understood is odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently…
PBS: “Generation Next”
PBS has two documentaries about today’s young adults.
Young Adult Dropouts
Listening to Students About Leaving the Church. Why Young Adults Drop Out of Church and What Can Be Done to Stem the Tide.
Why Young Adults Leave … and Why They Stay
USA Today: “Young adults aren’t sticking with church.” Reporting a LifeWay study (and I thought they were just a bookstore). Hat tip, The Corner. More later, when I’ve had a chance to digest it (will come in handy for a presentation I’m giving this weekend).
Googling God
Mike Hayes of Busted Halo and Googling God has a new book: Googling God: The Religious Landscape of People in their 20s and 30s. Cheaper at Amazon.
“A More Generous View”
As a response to Phil Johnson’s poster parodies, Emerging Grace provides alternative posters which represent “a more generous view” of “emerging church” principles. Via Emergent Village blog. And I gotta say, I don’t see what’s really so controversial about most of this “emerging church” stuff, especially as summarized in Grace’s posters. Now, I’m coming at…
The Catholic Generation Gap
From the New York Post. An older person: Sally Maier, 56, of upstate Webster, said, “Older people, they might enjoy that [Mass]. But the younger people wouldn’t understand what’s going on.” And yet, from one of those “younger people”: “The Catholic religion is one of tradition. When we did away with the traditional Latin Mass,…
Research on Young Adults
Latest read for those interested in the study of generations or young adult ministry: Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before. There have been many books written about generations, most famous being those by Neil Howe and Bill Strauss, but Jean Twenge (Associate…
An e-mail I sent out
Here’s what I sent to my young adult ministry e-mail list: For nine years I’ve been director of the Office of Young Adult and Campus Ministry. We’ve accomplished some wonderful things together in these years. I’ll always be grateful for your friendship, support, prayers and the hard work you all provided to make a success…
Reflections on Nine Years in a Chancery
And so it ends, after nine years of heading a chancery department in a major archdiocese. I’ve said little about my job in five years of blogging, to keep this a personal page and to not give the impression that it was part of my ministry. I became Catholic in 1992, and after more than…
Jewish Young Adults
The latest newsletter of Synagogue 3000 has an interesting article, Synagogues That Get It: How Jewish Congregations are Engaging Young Adults (PDF), by Tobin Belzer and Donald E. Miller. Among other conclusions: Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish congregations that are successfully attracting young adults take similar approaches to engaging members of this population. Likewise, young…
Young Adult Catholics–frozen in time?
New book summarizes old research, and so gives rise a new book tour, and articles in the media. American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church is a rehashing of Gallup data from 1987, 1993, 1999 and 2005. The article makes lots of claims about young adult Catholics, but I for one…
WYD 2008
Flexible pricing has been introduced to World Youth Day for the 2008 event in Australia, based on the wealth of your country of origin, ranging from $395 to $50 for the week. No one can really complain, as even the $395 includes housing, meals, insurance, visa and in-country transportation. Not a bad deal. What’s going…
Unprotected
Anonymous, MD. Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals H ow Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student. Sentinel, 2006. Author has since revealed her identity as Miriam Grossman, MD, at UCLA. She was recently interviewed at NRO. Thanks to Joe D. for dropping it off to me today. I hadn’t heard of it–and I’m surprised…
