"I write to you, young men,because you are strong,and the word of God lives in you,and you have overcome the evil one."( 1John 2:14b )
Last month, we promised details on the Proskuneo Project, a young adult movement we are working on. Thank you for reading on...
* wonderful world of twixters
"Legally, they're adults, but they're on the threshold, the doorway to adulthood, and they're not going through it," ~ Terri Apter, Cambridge University
In 2007, researchers published findings on how American parents play a role in the lives of their young adult children: "The years during which young people make the transition to adulthood has changed significantly in recent years--this transition now takes place over a longer period of time. We describe how young people experience these years; how they affect their parents and parent-child relationships; and how this time period is experienced by vulnerable youth." 1
Welcome to the wonderful world of Twixters. TIME Magazine's 2005 cover report observed this new vulnerable, young adult generation.
"The years from 18 until 25 and even beyond have become a distinct and separate life stage, a strange, transitional never-never land between adolescence and adulthood in which people stall for a few extra years, putting off the iron cage of adult responsibility that constantly threatens to crash down on them. They're betwixt and between. You could call them twixters." ~ TIME Magazine. 24 Jan 2005 2
One of many new words coined by sociologists, Twixters (also Millenials, Freeters, NEET, Gen Y-Z, Boomerang Generation etc.) describes the modern phenomenon of today's urban young adults facing the quarter-life crisis and refusing to grow-up into adulthood. The phenomenon have captured the imagination of media commentators, sparking a "Twixter"rebuttal to the flurry of media attention with (what else) their own Internet-TV series decrying the fifty-somethings stereotype of the twenty-somethings:
No matter how Twixters feel about the media portrayal, the phenomenon seems here to stay. Society continues to expect long years of scholastic preparation being reasonable and sufficient to equip newly-minted adults for graduating emotionally and spiritually into adulthood with the least inconvenience.
"... learned more real-world skills working in restaurants than he ever did in school. 'It taught me how to deal with people...'"
~ Matt Swann, cognitive science graduate. University of Georgia.
The reality is this presumption has sprung a fatal social trap. Our adult children may have reached the legal-age of adulthood with advanced academic diplomas and degrees, but their emotional and spiritual maturity are increasingly being delayed into stillbirth.
* a crisis of maturity?
The Barna Group stated in 2006 that, "despite strong levels of spiritual activity during the teen years, most twentysomethings disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years - and often beyond that. In total, six out of ten twentysomethings were involved in a church during their teen years, but have failed to translate that into active spirituality during their early adulthood." 3
Simply put, our current Christian young adults may already exhibit increasing reluctance integrating into main adult fellowship and apprenticing in lay ministry. These are quiet signs of struggle taking up spiritual adulthood in church and ministry. If we only take a little time observing and analysing our own young adults, we can detect Twixter-ish influences taking root among some of them. If these influences are allowed to bud and flower, they may gather momentum among our teens-turning-adults, towing them away from church life and service.
Today's young adults in our church are visibly different in thinking, values and expectations from prior classes of young adults. Barna Group's latest survey on American Christianity pointed out the generational difference between Christians aged 44 and higher, and those aged between 18 to 40's: "compared to older believers, Christians under the age of 40 are less satisfied with spirituality and less 'rule oriented.'” It also added that almost two-thirds of Christian young adults do not agree to measuring their spirituality with the following of Biblical rules, and "among the young, this signals a dangerous propensity to rethink the Bible’s standards, but it also shows unique responsiveness to grace and forgiveness." 4
Dangerous indeed. Church leaders should shudder at the thought of young adults rethinking the Bible's standards within today's inclusive, relativistic & no-moral-absolute (shun the abominable term "postmodern") culture. What foundation will their new Biblical standards stand on? Are our own Christian young adults already facing the same challenge as their American brothers/sisters?
* dairy vs. juicy steak
The Proskuneo Project is started to fill this need, seeking and delivering spiritual solid food to our young adults. It is a movement with the goal of calling young adults back to God and living out His Living Word as worship unto Him. Through seminar & ministry speaking, Biblical lifeskill talks & workshops, it promotes the primacy, sufficiency and effectiveness of God's Word to young adults as they begin living the reality of:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.( Hebrews 5:12-14 )
We have defended our children's spiritual heritage through the Sunday School system for decades. In recent years we witnessed the rise of dynamic pop-culture Teen/Youth ministries to engage the "MTV"(now Facebook) generation. And now, shifting social innovations and trends are hammering the sensibilities and security of our Christian teens-turned-young adults.
Counsellors, ministers and mentors may concur that our Christian young adults seem ill-equipped to fend off influences from the world while they are feeding on spiritual milk. Through early childhood exposure to the Bible (e.g. via Sunday School and Bible studies), they exhibit strong proficiency in recalling scripture verses, certain Bible characters and episodes. They may even correctly recite the basic doctrines regarding faith and grace, salvation, God's character, power over sin and death etc.
However, young adults appear bewildered when asked to recall Bible-based wisdom and answers that go beyond surface platitudes and deep-dive into the heart of their real-life problems. Barely coping with unsympathetic bosses & back-stabbing colleagues, molting puppy-love romances into marriages, caring for aging parents, these newly-graduated adults lack the sure-footedness and clarity to identify Biblical wisdom and teachings that is practial and relevant to their adulthood problems.
We are called by scripture to discontinue reruns of head knowledge teaching. Instead, we should have graduated to an intense and rigorous coaching of our young adults in applied Biblical living. We are demanded by commandment to feed our young adults spiritual solid food. Demonstrate and instruct them how to measure all things against the standards of the Bible. Strengthen their discernment of right and wrong, good and evil, in all real life situations.
There is an urgent need to relook, not at the Bible's standards, but at our young adults' malnutrition and hunger for spiritual meat which, if left unfed too long, will breed the disease of spiritual apathy, the corruption of spiritual reality and the falling away from the truth in the Gospel. By then, the true cost to the church will be too hefty to pay.
* living out the living word
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.( Jer 31:33 )And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.( Eze 36:26-28 )
The Proskuneo Project is started to fill this need, seeking and delivering spiritual solid food to our young adults. It is a movement with the goal of calling young adults back to God and living out His Living Word as worship unto Him. Through seminar & ministry speaking, Biblical lifeskill talks & workshops, it promotes the primacy, sufficiency and effectiveness of God's Word to young adults as they begin living the reality of:
- changed relationships
(lifepartners, parents & workplace)
Young adults face the most bewildering relationship changes at this stage compared to any other stage in their life.
They taste their first marketplace reality where structured syllabus, automatic promotion and academic tutors give way to swim-or-sink jobs, dog-eat-dog office politics and bottom-line-only superiors.
As grown-ups, capable of starting their own families, young adults need to find a new emotional vocabulary to relate back to their own aging parents in a dramatic role reversal.
They also struggle to bloom puppy love into a partnership of juggling mortgates, car-loans, child rearing costs and career hopes. Young adults start to question for the first time if that girl/boy friend is THE ONE for them, in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer, till death do they part (to be reunited again in heaven). They wonder if marriage is worth the enterprise with rising divorce rates amongst peers and even among parents of young adults. - uncertain security
(career & finance)
Young adults wistfully remember when they were kings/queens of the exam halls and sports fields. Now, their excellent academic transcripts and extra-curricular testimonies are failing to translate into a permanent full-time job and an equitable salary, let alone a fast-track to corporate stardom and astronomical bonuses.
They remember the financial liberty of student life, earning and spending for a care-free lifestyle. Now, they taste their first agony of taxes and retirement savings fund biting into purchasing power. They hum and haw over tithing and offering to God. Anxiety sets in regarding the self-denial needed to build up nest-eggs for their wedding, housing, child-rearing and old-age. - purpose of life
(self & social fulfilment)
Stepping into adulthood, a young adult will feel more acutely than before the desperation for purpose. Having the universe revolve only around them since birth, young adults begin to feel the pressure of living for parents, spouses, offspring and community.
For the first time, young adults are confronted by the demand to dislocate from personal fulfilment to familial and communal fulfilment. Without preparation, exposure and orientation to living for others and the greater good, they start to wonder if there is any meaning in life.
To ensure the project's relevancy to continuing social shifts, the project recognises the importance of keeping a finger on the pulse of contemporary young adult thinking and lifestyles. It intends to track trends and developments in young adult lifestyle and worldview through research, surveys & commentaries. Discoveries, insights and findings is shared with church leaders, mentors and even parents of young adults seeking a way into the hearts of their young adults. Churches and para-church organisations may also promote their young adult events, programs and courses through the project's platform and channel.
Proskuneo Project's purpose is to equip Christian young adults with God's Word written in their hearts, to diligently teach it to their future offspring, and to walk obediently according to His Spirit; its aim is for our young adults to overcome this age and this world; its goal is to release generations into the world walking in His ways through nations, so that by this all may know they are God's people and God is their Lord.
Proskuneo Project is a volunteer-based movement organised by Christian young adults for Christian young adults. It currently carries no full-time paid staff, but is a group of individuals shouldering the same burden and vision of generations bearing the Word of God as a testimony to Christ their Savior and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
REFERENCES:
- Parents and their young adult children: transitions to adulthood. Gitelson, Idy Barasch (IB) & McDermott, Dana (D). Child Welfare, Sep-Oct 2006
- Grow Up? Not So Fast. Grossman, Lev, Time Magazine. 16 Jan 2005
- Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Year. The Barna Group. 11 Sep 2006
- Many Churchgoers and Faith Leaders Struggle to Define Spiritual Maturity. The Barna Group. 9 May 2009
