TC: I would say it was how open teens were to talking to a sympathetic adult listener. It was as if they yearned for a sounding board—a listening and engaged ear—and once they found it in the interview room, they poured out their hearts. Neither their parents nor their peers provided an unfettered place in which the teens could talk; it seems that the adults in teens’ lives were more interested in telling them something than they were in listening to them, and that friends were likewise so caught up in their own concerns they didn’t listen very much either. This reveals something about American culture—that we nurture individuals so consumed with themselves that we as a culture are losing our desire if not our ability to listen. Even well-meaning folks like teachers, parents and youth pastors get so caught up in conveying a set of ideas that they rarely let up on the barrage of information. Teens are drowning in competing claims for allegiance, and no one, it seems, is providing the time and space to sort through all of this.
CPYU: You write, “Few and far between are teens whose lives are shaped by purpose, who demonstrate direction, who recognize their interdependence with communities small and large, or who think about what it means to live in the biggest house in the global village.” Did you notice any difference with Christian students you interviewed, or would you say that this is true for most teens, regardless of religious affiliation?
TC: I found this to be true of most Christian students, even those who say their faith is “very important” to them. It seems most Christian students want to keep their faith in a nice safe box: they attend church, they read the Bible & pray, but they largely pursue the same work-spend-borrow-consume lifestyle that their non-Christian peers do. The majority of Christian teens are content to sprinkle their suburban middle-class aspirations with evangelical faith (again, not unlike most adult evangelicals). I did find some Christian teens (say 10-25 percent) who are open to questioning whether these suburban aspirations represent the life of radical discipleship to which Jesus calls his followers. Such teens want to think deeply about their faith and engage it with the wider world. Unfortunately, few of these youth possess the mentorship that nurtures this sort of faith development, and without it, the tug of work-spend-borrow-consume may ultimately prevail.
CPYU: “College transition” is currently a hot topic in youth ministry these days. Churches are reporting that more and more students walk away from the faith during the college years. What do you think are the implications of your research for youth pastors as they prepare students in their youth groups for college?
