Written by Bonhoeffer Scholar and BibleMesh Institute Research Fellow: Dr. Brant Himes.
In addition to my ongoing work as a university professor, for the past year and a half I’ve had the privilege of leading the Young Adults ministry at my church in Bend, Oregon. Now, serving as a professor is certainly ministry, but my engagement with fully online students admittedly is different than the experience of being immersed in a diverse group of people connected to each other through a growing church-community. And it’s this up-close-and-personal journey with the young adults of Central Oregon that has given me a new-found hope for what God is doing in and for the world.
In our hyper-connected, algorithm-driven culture, it has become too easy to sit in cynicism. We can doom scroll to our heart’s content, and in so doing become convinced that hope is naïve, grace is irrelevant, and the future is bleak. But get around a group of young adults who are pursuing Jesus (at least the ones that I get to hang out with), and you may see a world that is colored with the truth and beauty of the gospel.
So, what is it about young adults that gives me hope? Recently, I’ve been reflecting on seven characteristics of this group that fuel a deep sense of wonder, peace, and hope for the coming generations.
1. Young Adults Lead with Authenticity
I think the coronavirus pandemic traumatized most of us—and particularly young adults—enough into admitting that everyone goes through hard things in life, and the point of community is not to act like everything’s always okay. There’s a vulnerability now, and vulnerability can lead to authenticity because young adults realize that they are not alone in going through whatever real difficulties they’ve faced. There’s also a magnetic dynamism that comes as they learn to lead from a place of authentic vulnerability. This isn’t a shallow voyeurism, where people gawk at each other’s hardships; but rather an honesty that says, “you don’t have to pretend to have it all together in order to be part of this community. We can figure it out together, under the grace of God.”
2. They Respond to the Work of the Holy Spirit in Their Lives
The young adults that I get to share life with are all at different places in their lives. They range in age from 18 to over 30, they may be college students, professionals in a career, wanderers looking for their next adventure, single, married, new to town, never left town, and so many other things. And while each person has their own story and is on their own journey, I see them seeking the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They are realizing that following Jesus has to mean an openness to being surprised by God’s work. Young adulthood is all about trying to figure out life. But it gives me hope to see a generation of young people who realize that they will really only figure out life if they allow the Spirit to take the lead.
3. They Care about Community
Loneliness is now considered an epidemic. And young adults feel it. They are trying to launch independent lives in the midst of great economic challenges, and what feels like the void years of 2020 to 2022 trained them to live in isolation. They feel the weight of trying to make it in the world, and the muscles of community atrophied during the pandemic. Loneliness and isolation are real and significant challenges. But because they have experienced the sadness and even depression of loneliness, they see the necessity of community. They know that being alone isn’t healthy, and so they are that much more committed to doing their part to build communities where they can gather as their authentic selves and experience the joy of living life together.
4. They Love Following Jesus
Young adults are discovering that what the world offers them is insufficient for a truly abundant life. Even those who seemingly have it all together can come to a point where the grace of Jesus just overwhelms them. They may not have realized they were even looking for Jesus, but when they meet him, they fall in love and realize that life only makes sense if they learn to follow him. Jesus changes everything. He always has, and he always will. Jesus is transforming the lives of young adults around me every day. And when Jesus is there, we can’t help but feel an abiding hope for the future.
5. They want to Learn
Young adults are working to build a faith that is all their own. They are at a place in life where the beliefs of their parents are not enough—they need to figure out what following Jesus means for themselves. And so they have a lot of questions, they are eager to learn new things, and they realize that exploring faith is less about squelching doubts and more about allowing those doubts and questions to fuel an authentic relationship with Jesus. Being a disciple means being a learner, and learning is an act of hope.
6. They want God to do Big Things for His Kingdom through their Lives
Young adults are eager for adventure, and as they learn to love and trust Jesus more, they realize that God wants to use them to change the world. They see an open future, one that is often too open and too scary for them to try and navigate alone. But then they see the bigger gospel-scheme of a life centered on Jesus, and they realize that God is calling them to be part of his story of hope and redemption. Their lives can be part of showing God’s grace, goodness, acceptance, and love to those around them. And that’s the best adventure of all.
7. They Don’t Expect Themselves or Each Other to be Perfect, but they Believe in the Depth of God’s Transformative Grace
These young adults, who have experienced so much, and who are yearning to experience so much more, are learning that life in community and in the grace of Jesus is not about a faith-performance. They want to be authentic, and they want others to be authentic, because then they can celebrate the transforming work of Jesus all around them. And gospel-centered transformation is contagious—it draws others into community who also need to experience the grace of God. And if God’s grace is not a reason to hope, then I don’t know what is.