On Wednesday evening I was at the book launch for The Faith of Generation Y which draws on the views of over 300 young people who have participated in Christian youth and community outreach projects around England over the last five years and which presents some fascinating and surprising findings for the wider Church to consider. A friend of mine, Sally Nash (Director of the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry), is one of the authors, along with Sylvia Collins-Mayo (sociologist of religion), Bob Mayo (parish priest in West London) with the Bishop of Coventry, Rt Revd Christopher Cocksworth.
The Faith of Generation Y (those born from around 1982 onwards) provides an empirically grounded account of the nature of young people’s faith – looking into where they put their hope and trust in order to make life meaningful. The book goes on to consider whether Christianity has any relevance to young people, and asks whether the youth and community projects in which they participate foster an interest in the Christian faith.
The findings from the study suggest that for most young people faith is located primarily in family, friends and their selves as individuals – defined as ‘immanent faith’. ‘For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living; our young people were not looking for answers to ultimate questions and showed little sign of “pick and mix” spirituality,’ says Sylvia Collins-Mayo. ‘On the rare occasions when a religious perspective was required (for example, coping with family illnesses or bereavements) they often ‘made do’ with a very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else. In this respect they would sometimes pray in their bedrooms. What is salutary for the Church is that generally young people seemed quite content with this situation, happy to get by with what little they knew about the Christian faith.’
Sylvia adds: ‘The Christian youth and community projects were an important source of Christian faith support for the minority of young people who were already actively involved in Church. For the majority, however, the Christian dimension of the projects had little impact on them beyond keeping the plausibility of Christian belief and practices alive.’
Although often unfamiliar with formal religion, Generation Y are keenly aware of ethical issues, as Sylvia comments: ‘Young people today have to grow up quickly and the study showed that they often face a wide range of difficult choices. Consequently they were interested in ethics. The young people drew moral guidance from family as friends, but they also recognised the potential of religion, including Christianity, to provide them with guidelines for living.’
The assumption that teenagers are alienated from their parents and hostile toward religion – a hangover from the 1960s and 70s – is a deep-rooted but flawed stereotype according to the study’s findings. ‘Generation Y have less cultural hang ups about the Church than did their predecessors… The challenge to the Church is to provide them with the opportunities to explore and to learn about a narrative of belief of which they know little.’
What I found most interesting about the research as presented at the launch was that many traditional aspects of Church such as ritual and sacrament connect with Generation Y; something which incidentally also seems apparent from aspects of the alternative worship movement. The argument emerging from the research finding was that the Church needed to be its authentic self in connecting with Generation Y as this generation, through their interest in ethics, are asking 'does it work?' as opposed to 'how does it make me feel?'
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Stacie Orrico - (there's gotta be) More To Life.
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