ChaplaincyPlus (found at http://www.chaplaincyplus.org.uk/ ) provides pastoral support to and runs events for the business and professional community in Birmingham City Centre and City Lights, as part of this, is particularly focussed on Young adults. Deborah notes that young adults can be defined in various ways, on their website there is rough guideline of early 30s, but she also recognises when someone starts having children this can be a helpful definition as family life more significantly changes one’s outlook on their career. She holds various social events to gather young professionals to meet each other, has regular prayer meetings and also is involved in various one-to-one pastoral support.
These young professionals are very busy with work, with a heavy workload and lots of pressure to work long hours. City Lights exists to encourage and equip them to successfully their Christian life into their workplace.
One of the particular struggles with working with young adults, Deborah tells me, is that attendance to activities can often be poor for no particular reason and that like almost all membership organisations it can be hard to get any consistent commitment. Whilst, organising social events to bring together new graduates sounds like it would be a worthwhile idea to network and make new friends, it seems young adults are more interested with their old uni friends via Facebook. They seem to be finding their social satisfaction outside this working sphere.
Interestingly, instead of young adults wanting to meet with other young adults, they are particularly drawn to older, more experienced people. In a ‘God at Work’ course (slightly adapted) ran recently, success was found in the young people appreciating the wisdom and experience of older Christians they were mixing with. Nevertheless, there is still a divide in the types of activities the two generations are drawn to. Older adults are still happy to listen to a talk given from someone up the front, whereas this doesn’t draw in young adults in the same way. How we reconcile these two experiences is one question still being worked out.
Deborah is keen to be more experimental in how to best serve these young professionals. Recently, she undertook a social media experiment called “Birmingham Business Habits” on Twitter (@BBusinessHabits) to build a spiritual rhythm and new monastic community online. She tells me this brought in a fair bit of interest and engagement, though keeping up with social media requires a great deal of time. Furthermore, whenever she offers to receive requests for prayer, there is a considerable response, revealing the need for Christian support is certainly needed and appreciated.
This all raises some interesting questions on what young people are really looking for in Church and Christian community, the answers are still not clear, but there are increasingly more people exploring and experimenting. If you know anyone doing any interesting work with young adults do let us know.