Tag Archives: extended adolescence

church, thinking..., youth ministry, youth work

escaping neverland (extended adolescence article)

3 Comments

some weeks ago, i spent an hour on a phone with a reporter for World Magazine who was doing an article on extended adolescence. i’m often a bit skeptical about what sort of reporting someone’s going to bring to this subject, since i usually disagree with the “why can’t this narcissistic generation grow up?” perspective i’ve seen so often. my belief is that adolescence has extended because we (adults, culture at large) have:

  • isolated teenagers (and now young adults)
  • increasingly treated teenagers like children
  • removed opportunities for teenagers and young adults to spend time with adults in the world of adults
  • ceased pretty much all practices of giving teenagers an opportunity to be “apprentice adults”
  • removed opportunities for responsibility and expectation
  • and, removed all the onramps to adulthood

not to mention the “it’s all about me and my needs” worldview that today’s teenagers and young adults have seen modeled for them their whole lives by baby boomer parents.

so i did the interview, mostly because i wanted to offer what i assumed might be a different perspective. i also suggested the writer connect with rick dunn (author of Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults), and i’m glad she followed through on that. the result, i think, is a good article. what do you think? responses, thoughts, reservations or disagreements?

******************
peter panEscaping Neverland, by Caroline Leal

If the fictional character, Peter Pan—“the boy who would not grow up”—was alive today, he’d have little need to run away to the magical isle of Neverland to escape manhood.

“You no longer have to shut your eyes and pretend you are in Neverland—it is all around you,” wrote sociology professor Frank Ferudi in online publication Spiked. “Our society is full of lost boys and girls hanging out on the edge of adulthood.”

Meet Generation Peter Pan, the ever-expanding band of twenty-, thirty- and even forty-somethings living in a state of extended adolescence, avoiding the trappings of responsibility—marriage, mortgage, children—for as long as possible. Sociologists traditionally mark the “transition to adulthood” by the milestones of completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying, and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had passed all five milestones by age 30. But among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so.

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in December 2011 found 53 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are living with their parents or moved back with them temporarily during the past few years. In 2012, another Pew poll found that in 1993, 80 percent of parents with children age 16 or younger said they expected them to be financially independent by age 22. As of 2011, only 67 percent of parents agreed.

With more people embracing the Peter Pan promise to “never grow up,” researchers and psychologists believe a new life phase—emerging adulthood—has developed as social and economic forces make maturing more difficult in the 21st century. But Christian leaders contend otherwise, saying prolonged adolescence is avoidable through discipleship, service-oriented ministry, and higher expectations for today’s wandering “kidults.”

“Extended adolescence is a culturally created phenomenon we must respond to,” said Mark Oestreicher, author of Youth Ministry 3.0. “Culture is obsessed with perpetually infantilizing young people, so we’re creating the low expectations. The first step is to stop coddling them.”

With an extensive background in youth ministry, Oestreicher is a partner in The Youth Cartel, an organization that provides consulting and resources to help churches and businesses connect with young people. He believes the solution is not “adult” youth groups ghettoizing twenty-somethings from the rest of the church, but rather discipleship and mentoring with an intergenerational focus.

Oestreicher cites a real-life example reflecting his ministry vision: When he was a junior high pastor, the church usher team consisted entirely of men over 60 until an usher began involving his developmentally challenged grandson. The boy learned ushering and participated in the group’s barbecues and prayer sessions, and soon other ushers started involving their grandsons. Then the grandsons invited their junior-high friends to join. “Eventually the usher team became a group of old guys gently mentoring these junior-high boys, not just in ushering, but in life and spirituality,” Oestreicher said. “These young men were offered a chance to become apprentice adults. It’s a vision for how we can view young adult ministry.”

Some churches are already working to make that vision a reality. At Fellowship Evangelical Church in Knoxville, Tenn., 65 percent of the congregation is under 35. Its pastor, Richard Dunn, co-authored the book, Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults, and believes ministry to extended adolescents isn’t rocket science: “It’s just discipleship.” At Dunn’s church, young adults are intentionally given opportunities to use their gifts in leadership positions alongside older adults who function as role models.

Fellowship Evangelical also has weekly “college life” groups of about 800 students. The young people split into groups with leaders for Bible study and mentoring. Some of the twenty-somethings in these groups have already been divorced, and a large portion are sexually active. “That brings a whole new set of complications for ministry to this demographic,” Dunn said. “We have to address those issues and be willing to walk with them in authentic, mentoring relationships. If you’re going to be successful, you need patience and a long-term focus.”

Greg Matte, who began as a campus minister at Texas A&M University, now serves as senior pastor at Houston’s First Baptist Church. He carried his philosophy for young adult ministry to the church, which has a singles group of about 1,000: “That’s where we see more of the prolonged adolescence happening,” Matte said. “But we’re intentional about not segregating them.” The singles are involved in many different activities in the church, regularly leading worship, teaching Sunday school, and working with seniors. And every Saturday, single young men join older men to serve different widows in the community, changing light bulbs, doing yard work, or pressure washing their houses.

“This kind of approach is relational and serving,” Matte said. “We don’t define our young adults by their marital status. We don’t babysit them. They mature in productivity and leadership.”

Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX)—the largest national Christian fraternity in the United States—also reaches out to the “kidult” crowd through activities designed to help them launch. Formed at The University of Texas at Austin in 1985, BYX is active on 28 campuses nationwide. Brian Lee, chief development officer for the fraternity, says young people today lack motivation, often defaulting to graduate school after college or moving in with their parents. “Because it’s culturally appropriate now, with no negative stigmas or a sense of failure attached, the pressure to grow up just isn’t there anymore,” he said.

BYX counteracts the extended adolescence trend through the rigorous process of service and commitment. Prospective members do community service projects like yard work, house remodeling, and other physical activities. During small group meetings, members share their struggles and hold each other accountable, a difficult process that spurs spiritual and emotional growth, Lee said: “If a freshman comes to college and wants to play video games for twelve hours and attend class for two, he’s not going to make it with us. They learn how to give, work and sacrifice, so they develop maturity and are prepared for a successful life outside of college.”

Young adults’ mental and emotional growth depends on their spiritual development, which is why Christian leaders should be on the frontlines of helping them transition from mediocrity to maturity, Matte said: “If you choose culture over Christ, you’re going to become an extended adolescent. Ultimately, the maturity of your faith determines the maturity of your life.”

youth ministry, youth work

emerging adults and middle schoolers, twins separated at birth?

20 Comments

last november, at the youth cartel’s extended adolescence symposium, jeffrey arnett was describing “emerging adults”, and i kept thinking to myself, “man, those descriptions totally sound like middle schoolers!” (i’ve often thought, through the years, that junior highers and college students have more in common than either do with high schoolers. the world is all new for both young teens and college students — they feel like they have a whole new level of freedom, and they’re exploring, sampling.) anyhow, back to last november: during a Q&A time, i mentioned this similarity, and asked arnett for his response. he looked at me like i was an idiot, and dismissed the idea. shut down.

but, i forgot that i’d clipped this quote from Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults (by Rick Dunn and Jana Sundene), when i’d read it last fall.

check it:

In his seminal work Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett identifies five distinguishing features that universally characterize the post-adolescent journey:
1. It is the age of identity exploration.
2. It is the age of instability.
3. It is the most self-focused age of life.
4. It is the age of feeling in-between, in transition.
5. It is the age of possibilities, when hope flourishes, when people have an unparalleled opportunity to transform their lives.

ok, i know it’s not a perfect match for middle school. but, really, can’t you see the similarities? where my middle school peeps at?

talk to me…

church, news, the youth cartel, youth ministry, youth work

exciting stuff happening at the youth cartel

1 Comment

i’ve been thinking i need to write a summary of some of the cool new things going on in the youth cartel. but then i noticed that adam posted one the other day. so being the lazy slacker that i am, i’m going to repost what he wrote!

Lots of cool things happening with The Youth Cartel. Here’s some new things to point out.

Middle School Ministry Campference – Save the date. We’re doing it again. This time we’ve moved a few hundred miles south to Seymour, Indiana. And I’m using inclusive language because I’m going to be a part of it this year! link

A brand new look for the website. Simply put we had outgrown our first look/feel. That’s not unusual for a start-up. The plan all along has been to flex as we grow. Well, this new site has some serious design muscle to flex, at least I think so. link

Launching a job page. This week I started a job page for our site. Our hope is to connect revolutionary youth workers with revolutionary churches. link

Our first book in the iBookstore. On Tuesday, our Extended Adolescence Symposium ebook went live in Apple’s iBookstore. It’s been prominently featured on the Religion, Christianity, Health, and Psychology pages. We’ve got lots more planned in this department. link

We have a very busy events calendar. Marko and I have a lot booked in the category of youth worker training and family ministry. Like the iBookstore, we are dreaming about lots of cool stuff in this department right now. link

We’re continuing to serve ministry organizations. About half of my time each week is invested in serving behind the scenes with some amazing youth ministry organizations. I’m totally loving this part of what we do. link

Long story short, these are exciting days for our brand new little start-up. We are growing like crazy. Marko and I just keep looking at each other in awe– holy smokes this is a blast!

Pray for us as we deal with the realities of our growth. We have many massive decisions in the coming weeks/months.

blogs, church, the youth cartel, youth ministry, youth work

summary of the extended adolescence symposium

3 Comments

adam and i were thrilled with how the extended adolescence symposium played out. we had a nice intimate turn-out that lent itself to robust dialogue and engagement. the speakers dove in, and kara powell did a great job of translating and fielding questions.

the ‘launch ministry’ blog has a great three part summary of the day:

part 1 – short overview. a snippet:

While in agreement on the general characteristics and trends of young people, the two presenters had vastly different responses to the data. Dr. Arnett views himself as a researcher and is very hesitant to create prescriptive responses to emerging adulthood. When pressed, he seems to indicate that this new stage of life is an unavoidable reality. This is the way things are now and are likely to be in the near future. As a society, we need to begin thinking about how to change our systems and structures to adjust to this new reality. He used the example of young adults being able to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26 as one positive idea for what this might look like.

Dr. Epstein, however, views himself as an agent of social change. He believes that emerging adulthood is a problem to be fixed. T0 him, the immaturity and delay of adulthood means that our social structures are broken. We need to change our parenting methods and our educational system to stop infantilizing young people and make them take responsibility for their actions while teaching them the competencies they need in order to make it in the world.

part 2 – framing a response. a snippet:

As I wrote at the end of the previous post, while I appreciate Dr. Epstein’s ideas about stopping the infantilization of young people and instilling competencies, the reality is that even if as a society we fully engaged his suggestions, we would still have generations of emerging adults that are experiencing difficulties. Because of this, I believe our response must include a directed response toward emerging adults and those that soon will be as well as a component that seeks to prevent the more destructive elements of this life stage.

Additionally, since this is a broad sociological issue throughout (primarily) western culture, our solutions and responses must include both activity within the church as well as beyond the walls of the church. My quadrant, then, will include reflections regarding earlier prevention as well as a direct response working with the current generation of emerging adults both inside and outside the church.

part 3 – implications for churches. a snippet:

A role in the community is something that young adults need and lack. This is especially true of emerging adults that do not attend a four year college. Those that do have a culturally defined role of ‘college student’ that has certain expectations around it. Those that do not, however, are left floundering in a weird in-between place where there is no role that helps define who they are. Could churches intentionally engage emerging adults, creating opportunities for leadership within the church and in the community? Maybe there could be post-high school internships or leadership development programs than intentionally seek to provide a role for emerging adults. Perhaps in some contexts there is room for a specific emerging adult ministry (a more mature youth group for college aged young people?), though I think that this could be problematic if the group does not intentionally find ways to connect emerging adults with older adults in the church.

church, the youth cartel, youth ministry, youth work

why churches should care about extended adolescence

2 Comments

i wrote a short piece on extended adolescence for churchleaders.com recently, on why churches should care about extended adolescence. here’s a snippet, from the middle of the piece:

Churches are realizing two things: teenagers leave after youth group, and there are no young adults in our church. Sure, there might be a lame and weird little young adult group of some sort; but in many churches, you know your average high school graduate wouldn’t be caught dead going to that group.

In response, churches around North America are creating young adult youth groups. Really, that’s what they are (of course, they wouldn’t call them that). And this, my youth worker friends, is only perpetuating and extending some of the very problems we’re discovering about how we’ve approached youth group for the past 40 years or so. Isolation isn’t the church; homogeneity doesn’t have much of a scent of the Kingdom of God. And creating these pockets of isolation only further removes the onramps to adulthood that teenagers (and now “emerging adults”) so desperately need.

Here’s why I care about this: just like I don’t want my 13 year old son to have the same faith he had when he was 8, I hope he isn’t stuck with his current faith when he’s 26. And, I feel the same for every teenager in my church. To be honest, I feel the same about every teenager in your church.

go here to read the whole thing.

join us in atlanta on november 21 for the extended adolescence symposium, where we’ll wrestle with these important issues with the help of three of america’s leading experts on the subject.

church, the youth cartel, youth ministry, youth work

extended adolescence on the immerse journal blog

Leave a comment

i wrote a bit recently about why youth workers should care about extended adolescence for the immerse journal blog. here’s a bit from the middle of the piece:

Do you realize that adolescence in America is now considered almost 20 years long? The onset of puberty has dropped; but the bigger change is on the upper end. Adolescent researchers now consider adolescence to extend all the way through the 20s for most.

There’s a complex set of reasons for this, and they’re not all bad (I’m sure you can think about it and come up with several of those reasons). But here’s the tricky part for me, as someone who’s passionately called to youth ministry: my calling is not about keeping teenagers in adolescence! My calling (and I assume yours) is about raising up young adult disciple of Jesus who understand and own their faith. Really, my calling (and yours) is about raising up adult disciples, if we take the long view. I have no interest in investing my life into the idea of keeping teenagers where they are. Discipleship is about going somewhere!

How should this new reality impact our work with teenagers (let alone 20-somethings)?

What does this mean for the spiritual lives and faith formation of teenagers?

If creating a new ‘youth group’ for young adults, prolonging their isolation from the adults in the church isn’t in answer, but those students have no interest in going to cold and dry adult worship service, what options do we have?

How can we do ministry in the real world teenagers live in, but still be counter-cultural, providing onramps to adulthood?

click here for the rest of the article

and, join us as we wrestle with questions like this at the extended adolescence symposium in atlanta, on november 21.

blogs, church, thinking..., youth ministry, youth work

what’s your theology of development?

3 Comments

i wrote a web article for the immerse journal blog back in july. then i forgot about it. so it was a nice surprise to see it show up there today! and, the funny timing is: i wrote this before we’d decided to do the extended adolescence symposium. it’s proof i’ve been stewing on this for a while!

here’s a selection from the article:

I was on the phone with a well-known author the other day, talking about extended adolescence. He was asking me questions—in a healthy, skeptical way—about my slowly evolving contention that while we need to acknowledge cultural realities and do ministry in their context, the juggernaut of extended adolescence is something we can and should undermine, at least in our own homes and churches.

After almost 30 minutes of conversation, we arrived at a key crossroads. He made a statement I find to be indicative of the majority opinion of American adults: “It seems to me that the problem you’re referring to comes down to the self-centeredness of young adults today. They’re extremely selfish and have no interest in taking responsibility or becoming adults.”

I paused and took a breath. Then I responded (trying to use “yes, and” language rather than “you’re wrong” language), “Yes, I can totally see why you would say that. Today’s young adults do tend to have a level of narcissism that wasn’t as dominantly present 20 years ago. But that begs the question of why. I suggest they’re narcissistic because they’ve spent their entire lives in families and classrooms and churches and marketing messages that consistently tell them, that everything is all about them. To blame young adults for being narcissistic is like blaming an attack dog for biting. We have isolated teenagers, and now young adults, and then told them their culture is better than ours. Why would they ever want to grow out of that stage of life? How could they?”

click through to read the rest. there’s some good stuff in the comments section, btw.

click here to check out the info on the extended adolescence symposium.

news, the youth cartel, youth ministry, youth work

only three days left to order your ‘extended adolescence symposium’ mp3 or ebook

3 Comments

i’m stoked. i wasn’t sure it would happen. but it did, thanks to some very gracious supporters who believe in what we’re doing.

so, yes, it’s official: the extended adolescence symposium is officially on.

i’m still a little in shock.

first, i thought it was such a crazy long shot that we could get our first pick of presenters. dr. robert epstein is a freakin’ grenade launcher. he has messed with my mind over the past year when it comes to thinking about adolescence and youth ministry and parenting. then there’s dr. jeffrey arnett, the dude who literally wrote the book (and came up with the phrase) on emerging adulthood. i think i’m a decent moderator; but when both epstein and arnett said they’d love to be a part of this thing, i knew we needed someone with much more significant mental chops. enter dr. kara powell. yup, her.

seriously, i designed this event for me! i want to learn from these people. i want to understand what’s going on in american adolescence. i want to more deeply think about the questions of why? and so what? i want to be challenge to rethink things. and, to be honest, i’m hoping to see a few sparks fly!

but the second shock was that people rallied to our kickstarter page and we have the majority of the funding we need to make this puppy a reality. i’ll try not to be hurt that no one opted in for the $500 steak dinner with me (sniff). i am a little surprised that no one wanted the $250 ‘lunch with one of the speakers’. heck, i think an hour with epstein or arnett or kara would, literally, be worth 5 times that, easily. but, hey, i’m not complaining. and mucho, mucho thanks to those who have pitched in, especially when getting the swag wasn’t your primary motivation (i know of many who just wanted to play a role in seeing this conversation take place).

next week, adam and i will launch a page on our website with regular ol’ ticket sales for this ain’t-been-done-before-and-might-not-be-again event. but, in order to get this thing approved on kickstarter, we had to come up with a couple non-event thingies. that’s where the mp3 of the event and the abridged ebook of choice quotes came from. but i only asked permission from the speakers to use their stuff for people who paid for it during the fundraising efforts on kickstarter.

in other words: the mp3 of the entire event, and the abridged ebook of selected content from the event will only be available until our kickstarter deadline this saturday, september 17. after that, we hope you’ll attend the event, but there won’t be any other way to get that stuff.

oh, and the regular ticket price will be $100. on the kickstarter site, you can still get ‘pre-sale’ tickets for $75. that price won’t be offered anywhere else.

so i’m just, ya know, givin’ you a heads up. (and, full disclosure, the money we’ve raised still won’t cover our actual costs.)

news, the youth cartel, youth ministry, youth work

help the youth cartel with the extended adolescence symposium

1 Comment

some time ago, i started to read and learn about the phenomena of extended adolescence. the short story is that adolescence, in the united states, is now considered to be close to 20 years in duration, from about 11 on the young end, all the way to about 30 (on average) on the upper end. of course, with the loss of high school graduation and the marker of turning 18 as fairly accepted ending points, the ‘normal distribution’ is very wide — there are young adults who are fully functioning as adults in their early 20s, and others who stay in adolescence into their 30s.

the inertia on this thing is around commodifying this ‘new developmental life stage’ — the upper end commonly referred to as ’emerging adulthood.’ culture at large, as well as businesses and churches, are quickly buying into this as the new normal. some are even saying it’s good.

but there are a few voices (in the minority) who are saying, “what a minute; maybe this isn’t good, and maybe it doesn’t have to be this way.”

i started to dream about an event where we could explore this tension, particularly around it’s implications for youth ministry and the church. i talked about it with my partner in the youth cartel, adam mclane, and he had a bunch of energy around it also.

we put together an A-list of who were would love to have — long shots, really. and we thought about how great it would be to offer it in atlanta the day after the YS national youth workers convention (monday, november 21). with the blessing of YS, i went after our long-shot A-list: Dr. Jeffrey Arnett, the author and academic who coined the term ’emerging adult’; Dr. Robert Epstein, author of Teen 2.0 and a leading dissenting voice; and Dr. Kara Powell, a brilliant youth ministry academic who we felt would rock it as a moderator (and youth ministry interpreter). somewhat to our surprise, they all said they would love to be a part of it!

so the EXTENDED ADOLESCENCE SYMPOSIUM was born… kind of.

the plan is for a one-day event, rich with presentations, dialogue, and moderated debate.

but we still had a significant problem: how to fund the thing. we’ve enjoyed seeing how kickstarter has become a very cool platform for people trying to fund creative ventures. steve taylor’s film adaptation of don miller’s book blue like jazz was, for a period of time, the highest funded project on kickstarter, after the film lost its funding and fans came to the rescue.

we’re not blue like jazz, or don miller, or steve taylor. but then, we don’t need to raise a quarter million dollars either. we only need to raise $6000.

we’re hoping you’ll help us. there are a cool variety of sponsoring levels, each with their own benefit to the donor. you can get an mp3 of the event, an abridged ebook of some highlights, a reduced price ticket, lunch with one of the speakers, a nice steak dinner with me and adam (!), or even become an official sponsor of the event.

but we only have a few weeks to nail down the funding, as the speakers have all graciously agreed to wait until then to see if we can pull it together. so september 17 is our deadline.

click through to our kickstarter page to learn more about the event and the various donation levels. spread the news — please — via your own networks (email, facebook, twitter, G+, etc).

we really think this thing could be significant in helping us all wrestle with this juggernaut of extended adolescence, and its implications for us in the church who care about teenagers and young adults.

will you help us? better yet, will you join us?

youth ministry, youth work

push-back on adolescent brain development and extended adolescence

3 Comments

sometime last year, the managing editor of immerse journal emailed and asked if i would write a feature article on adolescent brain development and the plethora of new findings that have poured out in the last ten to fifteen years. i agreed, and found out it was slated for may of 2011. so i didn’t think about it for another half year. finally, i wrote the piece (which is now online): this is your brain on adolescence. but by the time i got around to writing it, i didn’t feel i could merely write a summary of adolescent brain development. i felt an obligation to push back — because i’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with the assumptions and conclusions coming out (both at a professional and popular level), referencing teenage and young adult brains.

here’s a snippet from the article:

I have a problem with the assumption that has quickly become accepted truth about teenage brains: that teenage brains are underdeveloped in a couple of critical areas and that teenagers are, therefore, biologically inferior and less than capable. So it might be helpful to step back a few years and fill you in on the nexus and my journey of trying to understand scientific findings about teenage brain development and the implications for youth ministry.

here’s another bit, after i provide an overview of “findings” from the last decade:

…we are quickly moving to calcify extended adolescence and remove more and more of the on ramps to the adult world that teenagers and young adults need.

My two cents: I’m interested in pushing back. While I have no interest in living with my head in the sand, I want to see teenagers live into their capabilities, and I want to see young adults move into adulthood.

one of the things i like about immerse journal is that the often provide a follow-up piece, reflecting on an article, but written by a different author. i was pleased last week to see paul sheneman’s response to my article: “going deeper with mark oestreicher’s: this is your brain on adolescence“. paul does a nice job of summarizing some of what i wrote and providing some additional thoughts. a nice “sidebar”, in a sense.

anyhow, i’m glad the article and “going deeper” bit are both online now, so i can point to them. happy reading. and let me know what you think…