Please note ahead of time that a lot of what is written below is based on my opinions, my observations, and the things that I'm hearing from other Catholic young adults. Feel free to let me know areas that you may be confused by or disagree with. Anywho, let's begin.
Being a young adult in the Catholic Church and living in the United States, I am seeing and participating in ministry efforts aimed at young adults. As a participant and even sometimes as a leader in these endeavors, I have come to realize just how much of a "necessary problem" young adult ministries are.
"Necessary" in the fact that they are a necessity for teaching young adults elements of their Catholic faith and engaging them to grow in their relationship with God and the Catholic Church in their area.
"Problem" in the fact that they are naturally problematic, whether it's the kind of events that are attracting young adults, the separation between the groups and the parishes, the differences in young adults, or just how it divides the already limited free time between the young adult and the organizations they are a part of/ want to be a part of.
Young adult ministry is somewhat different from other ministry efforts mainly due to the independence of the young adult. They are no longer youths that are being directed by parental authorities who run other aspects of their lives, so they are not obligated to come to Mass and Catholic events in the way that youth in youth ministry organizations are. Since young adults are not middle aged or elderly people, a lot of the events and organizations at the parishes are not led by or geared toward targeting the young adult demographic.
Young adult ministry is somewhat complicated because it has to reach out to people of all different interests at various stages of life, including college students, single 20-somethings, single 30-somethings, married couples that don't have children yet, and young adults who are married AND have children...or even young adults who, due to complicated circumstances, are not married but have children, and everything in between, all at the same time.
Young adult ministry is problematic because young adults are probably the most varying when it comes to their faith lives. Some barely have any faith at all, others are super devout. Some only attend the Latin Mass while others sing/ play instruments in the band for their Novus Ordo Mass. Some pray the Rosary every day, others just do contemplative mental prayer every so often. Some know very little about Church history and teachings, others are super scholars and philosophers. So, trying to get a group of people together who are at varying ends of the Catholic spectrum (for lack of a better phrase), getting them onboard with the same events and speakers, and helping everyone grow in their faith at the same time is an amazing challenge, even though it's ultimately necessary at this point.
Young adult ministries occur on both the parish level and the overall diocesan level, though both are complicatedly hard to attract people to. Young adult ministry at the parish level is seen as an ideal, especially for people who are already deeply invested in their faith. It doesn't automatically work though because a lot of young adults these ministries are trying to engage are not either deeply invested in their parish or their faith life or both. Sometimes a young adult is only connected to their Catholicism by Sunday Mass and that is it.
However, just think about what Mass means to someone who's only invested on Sunday. They go in to Mass and see a bunch of senior citizens and middle aged parents with kids in tow. Most likely the people in the congregation for that Mass who are between the ages of 21-36 make up only less than 10% of the people in the pews that morning. The priest is most likely a generation or two older than a young adult and perhaps they are not strictly sticking to the words of the big important red book that contains all of the wordage needed for the Mass. The choir, if there is one, is singing a version of the Mass parts with funky timing and tone. Everyone's singing the same ten songs that were written in the 80s and 90s. The people around you are chatter boxes before, during, and after the Mass, and things like the Homily and the Intercessory Prayers feel like they're mainly geared towards the elderly and the families of the parish.
I'm exaggerating some elements, but that is still pretty close (in my experience) to the average experience of a Sunday Mass for a young adult, especially in a suburban or a rural environment. How can a young adult ministry possibly develop or thrive in that kind of environment?
Yet, if the young adult is lucky enough to live in an area that has a young adult ministry, chances are that that group is made of up 20-30 somethings from across the diocese. Not only that, but they meet in a public setting, specifically A BAR....WITH BEER AND FOOD AND STUFF! They may have a speaker coming to talk on a random topic or they could be doing a Bible Study, but who cares cause it's a place with alcohol and people your own age! Maybe some attractive single people will be there too!
That's one of the hitches regarding young adult ministries that meet in public places. A lot of people are attracted by the social elements, but perhaps not as many are attracted by the spiritual elements. Some of the biggest Catholic young adult meetings that I've seen have been a Theology on Tap, which is where a speaker talks about (random yet important spiritual issue here) at a bar, and people gather together in their packs of friends and just drink and chat together in their little circle of friends. Though some people are there to grow spiritually and are there to make new friends as well. Or other big meetings have been recreational events, where people are brought together by a shared passion for sports, the outdoors, and staying physically fit. However, if a young adult meeting doesn't have a speaker with a big recognizable name attached to the event or is more of a Bible Study rather than a fun topic of conversation, chances are that attendance will be lower.
I think one overall goal of young adult ministry can be, and even should be, to influence the attendees to use the spiritual growth they experience in the social events to influence their spiritual growth in the parish life, but it doesn't always end up that way. If people are coming just because the young adult event is fun or because the group is cool, then they are not receiving the fullness of the ministry's purpose. The purpose should be to inspire the young adults to dive deeper into the Mass and the Sacraments and every other spiritual good offered at their local parish. In a way, young adults in urban settings or areas with high Catholic populations have a bit of an advantage compared to their brethren in rural communities. Some young adults live in an area with just one Catholic parish within driving distance, where the community is made up of people of all ages and that parish community is their best resource and connection to their faith because there's not enough young adults nearby to create a ministry group.
Another problem with young adult ministry, when it comes to the diocesan level versus the parish level, is that it may hinder young adults from getting invested in other Catholic groups and organizations. I know that the Knights of Columbus, even at the local level in my area which is heavily Catholic, are trying to figure out how to attract young men into their organization, even going so far as to change some of their uniforms, which wound up being mocked by virtually everybody on social media.
Other parish groups, from the ladies' auxiliary to the choir, may struggle with finding young adults to join if the young adults are busy with other activities. This ultimately stems from the fact that young adults have very little free time. We are filling our time with work, house chores/ maintenance, the daily faith-building activities like prayer and Mass, time for family and friends, and even a little time for self-fulfilling hobbies like reading or journaling or artwork or whatever. We have limited free time but many options of how to spend that free time.
Yet, young adults are also apparently not committing themselves to their local parishes in general. Not everyone is registering for their nearby parish. Some are hopping from one parish to another each weekend, checking out the different Masses, seeing what priest or what style attracts them the best, and if Sunday is their only contact with the Church, then they can entirely ignore the church that is just right down their street if they desire to. I know that I refrained from registering with my local parish in St. Paul mainly because I had no clue how long I was going to be sticking around. If I was going to pack my bags and move somewhere else in the near future, why follow through with something that would require me to take root in my local community? I know it's somewhat flawed logic, but it's a reason that I and some other young adults are not registering if we are not living on our own.
I've spent a lot of time on why young adult ministry is a problem/ has problems, but not particularly focused on why it's necessary. Well, it's necessary mainly due to the plain simple fact that majority of Catholic young adults in America seem to know very little about their Catholic faith and what it means to have a personal relationship with God as His disciple. Even people who grew up going to Catholic schools their whole lives may feel like they only have a beginner, surface-level understanding of Catholicism and the Bible.They may still identify as Catholic, but as far as what it means to live life as a Catholic and how to daily practice the faith is something that they haven't quite figured out yet. A young adult ministry can help guide people to the answers that they seek and challenge them to live a life of Catholic prayer, fasting, and almsgiving on a daily and practical level.
One of the necessities of young adult ministry also has to do with the problem of young adults not being engaged at the parish level. If parishes are putting a lot of focus on families and older folks and you're a young adult, no longer at school or eligible for youth ministry, without kids of your own, then you may feel like nothing is geared toward aiding and serving you and your own relationship with Christ and perhaps that is another reason why some young adults are not committing themselves to their local parish.
Young adult ministries are also necessary because community is very important. It's much easier to build a community with people who not only share the same background and interests that you do, but also are around the same age that you are. Young adults need other young adults in their lives to support them and build them up. Sometimes it can also be easier to take challenging questions and concerns to someone you're close to who is of your own age rather than someone who is much older mainly because that older person may not be able to relate to your own situation that is causing questions and concerns in the same way your young adult peer can. And especially in a world that is becoming as relativistic and secular as American society is, which is only adding to confusion and mental/ emotional struggles, it's up to the young adults to step up their game to tackle these issues together.
The ultimate purpose of any ministry is to make itself obsolete. A ministry to the homeless can only exist if there are people who lack proper housing and steady resources for food. A youth ministry only exists because children are not being properly catechized at home and/ or school and only when children are growing up into fully faithful, fully catechized young adults will youth ministry no longer be necessary. Think of any other charity or nonprofit organization and most likely their mission is to eliminate a problem and once that problem is eliminated then that organization is no longer needed.
In the same way, young adult ministry is trying to make itself obsolete. It's attempting to reignite millennial Catholics in America to learn their faith more and to live out their call of discipleship more. I think for the most part deep down, even at a subconscious level, young adults are yearning to know God and to be in a relationship with Him, and so ministries are created to bridge that gap for a generation living in a confusing, relativistic, secular culture. Young adult ministry is a response to the urgency felt within the Church at large where many young adults either do not know the truths of their Catholic faith or they otherwise fall away because of this distraction or that temptation. Young adult ministry doesn't exist just because people are getting married later or having children later in life. I mean, that's a little part of it, but it's not the main purpose. It's because people are still seeking God after all this time and they need help in such a way that makes sense to them and is something they can relate to. That's why young adult ministry exists, that's why it's a problem, and that's why it's necessary.
