Are you wanting to increase your outreach to young adults? Current research reveals some of the key needs of this people group for more information take a few moments and look into five ways to minister to young adults.
roughly twice the amount of anxiety and stress as teens.”
“…according to our nationally representative survey, young adults report
In the last several months, numerous publications have sounded the alarm concerning the alarming increase in young adults reporting feelings of anxiety and depression. In this article, Five Ways to Minister to Young Adults Struggling with Anxiety, I hope to open your eyes to an opportunity for growth for yourself and your ministry.
This article is a must-read if you are a pastor or ministry leader passionate about reaching the next generation. Here I summarize ground-breaking research conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and highlight alarming statistics about young adults with an eye toward creative ministry opportunities today.
We’ll look at the rising tide of mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, that so many young adults are struggling with and identify five crucial issues facing this emerging group of adults. By understanding these trends, pastors and ministry leaders can better adjust their approaches to reaching young adults with the truth of the Gospel. Five ways to minister to young adults struggling with anxiety is designed to help you understand five of the challenges that this people group face and give you five ways to positively impact those five concerns.
Are your attempts to reach young adults based on the “way we’ve always done ministry”? Or is your dream and strategy for reaching the next generation fueled by a combination of the Great Commission and solid research?
If you answered yes to the second part of the question, continue to read.
The Impact of Anxiety on Young Adults
In October of 2023, a survey conducted on young adults in the United States revealed a concerning statistic regarding mental health. The survey, released by Harvard, highlighted how young adults are experiencing significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to teenagers. According to the report, 36% of the surveyed young adults reported experiencing stress, while 29% reported symptoms of depression.[i] Here is a link to the entire report.
This alarming data sheds light on the growing concerns surrounding mental health among young adults. It emphasizes the need for increased awareness and support systems to address these issues effectively. Understanding and addressing the factors contributing to these high rates of anxiety and depression is crucial in developing strategies to promote overall well-being.
While these struggles are not new, as a society and as a church, we have done little to support these emerging adults. Young adults need easy access to supportive communities, and fewer and fewer are finding that in local churches, even as we’ve seen the mental health challenges of young adults continue to rise over the last several decades.[ii] Perhaps those of us in various areas of ministry have surrendered our roles to the modern-day “priesthood of mental health professionals” rather than finding ways to share the eternal, life-saving truths of Scripture.
I do believe the church has an opportunity to be a beacon of hope for young adults who are struggling with life issues. To understand the five ways to minister to young adults we need to look at the five reasons for their anxiety and depression.
Understanding the Five Reasons Behind Young Adult Anxiety and Depression
Let’s take a moment and look at the five major concerns this Harvard report identifies as the top drivers of mental health challenges in today’s young adults.
1. A lack of purpose, meaning, and direction: 58% of respondents reported lacking “meaning or purpose” in their lives. Half of the young adults reported their mental health was negatively impacted by “not knowing what to do with my life.“
2. Financial concerns and achievement pressure: 56% reported financial worries, and 51% stated that achievement pressures negatively impacted their mental health.
3. A perception that the world is falling apart: 45% of the young adult respondents reported a general “sense that things are falling apart” undermining their mental health.
4. Relationship deficits: 44% of young adults reported a sense of not mattering to others, and 34% reported feeling lonely.
5. Social and political issues: 42% reported the negative influence on their mental health related to gun violence, 34% cited climate change, and 30% cited concerns that our political leaders are incompetent or corrupt.[iii]
Go back and take a look at these clearly stated needs! I believe that the truth of the Gospel is the answer to the needs identified in this study. Our traditional program-driven ministries will only be successful if we commit ourselves to engaging this particular people group on a one-on-one level as much as possible.
Go back and take another look at that list, research tells us that these are five ways to minister to young adults at their point of need.
Possible Approaches to Addressing Anxiety and Depression in Young Adults
Let’s look at the most pressing needs, according to this study:
The first is a need for more meaning and purpose
I recently watched a news segment about a young adult who graduated from college with a business degree and went to work at a corporate job. Much to her surprise, she learned that the life she thought she’d live, working from home, going out with “the girls,” and “living the life,” quickly evaporated as she faced the daunting reality of a 9 to 5 with an hour commute.
The pain of her real-world experience left her asking the question that every generation asks. Is this all there is?
Before you judge her, think about it for a minute. She grew up with a device in her hand. She may have experienced a couple of her formative teen years attempting to go to school on Zoom. In addition, she, like millions of others, spent part of her adolescent years living under the restrictions of the pandemic. And like so many people, she may have spent too much time on the highlight reels of TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram because of social isolation.
A faith-based response.
How can the church help this young woman? Hint: an eight-part sermon series on “How to Find Purpose in Your Life” will only partially meet this need. It may help, but there is so much more we could do to engage her more meaningfully.
As a Christian, I know that part of God’s purpose for us is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But how do we help her see that truth? How do we help her find meaning and purpose? How do we provide targeted, life-altering discipleship to this young woman?
What can we do as a church? What can you and I do as individual believers? Here are three ideas to help you think about this issue.
1. Facilitate meaning and purpose in young adults by including and engaging them in caring for others and participating in relevant service projects.
2. Help young adults develop meaningful and lasting relationships with peers and mentors.
3. Assist young adults in realizing that a well-lived life is more than a sum of personal achievements.
The second concern is a combination of financial problems and achievement pressure.
The second concern is a combination of financial problems and achievement pressure.
Over the past several years, Americans have been immersed in a culture of consumerism. Young adults grew up with this buy-and-consume mindset impacting every part of their lives—a constant barrage of consumer culture targeting them daily with messaging to the tune of You must have these clothes, these shoes, and these accessories to be significant and noticed.
With the rise of inflation, housing, and education costs, and an alarming increase in credit card debt and school loans, many young adults feel they will never make it.
I believe the church and we as believers can model and teach biblical stewardship principles. With this knowledge, we can help young adults avoid debt, build a solid financial future, and ultimately become cheerful givers.
Another portion of this stressor is the concept of achievement pressure.
In her book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It, author Breheny Wallace discusses the pressure adolescents and young adults face today to succeed.[iv]
In her book, she indicates that achievement pressure can come from older adults, who are conduits for broader cultural anxieties, such as growing income inequities and job market competitiveness triggered by globalism and economic shifts.
A faith-based response.
The church may have contributed to this achievement pressure in some cases, mainly if you grew up in a faith group where attendance or performance equaled godliness.
As we minister to these young people, let’s focus more on the idea that faith justifies us, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9). While we as believers will do good works, that is not the basis of our salvation but the fruit of it.
The church has so much to offer young adults in financial stewardship and living a more balanced life with the help of the Holy Spirit. Here are a couple of programs you could consider; David Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, or Crown Financial both offer exceptional, faith-friendly training in stewardship. With that in mind, what thoughts and ideas come to mind as you seek to assist young adults in this area of their lives?
The third concerns a perception that the world is coming apart
Suppose you scan the headlines of any news source from MSNBC, CNN, Fox, or social media. In that case, you might feel like the world has entered an unusual time of turbulence. Or could it just feel that way because of the twenty-four-hour news cycle? I recently read a story of a small group of women in the U.K. called “Birthstrikers”—women who refuse to have children until climate change ends.[v] This type of extreme thinking reveals the desperation some feel about the current state of affairs.
A faith-based response.
As people of faith, we understand that time as we know it will come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that we become fearful. Instead, we return to a baseline that God is in charge of time and that our faith and relationships sustain us.
For through him, God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
Colossians 1:16-17 NLT
The church can be a place where young adults can build faith based on God’s Word and not the latest news feed.
The fourth concern is relationship deficits
According to a recent report on NPR, “There is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States, and lacking connection can increase the risks for premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”[vi]
Please take a moment and consider all the changes so many of us have been through in the past ten years. Job changes, moving away from where we grew up, technological advances, and even the pandemic have brought about multiple transformations.
Across all generations, people are spending less time with each other in person than ten years ago. In an advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General, this loneliness was most pronounced in young people between 15 and 24, who had 70% less interaction with their friends.[vii] The sad truth is that more of us are using social media as a substitute for eyeball-to-eyeball and skin-to-skin relationships, which is detrimental.
Loneliness is an unsurprising symptom of an individualistic society.
A faith-based response.
This loneliness epidemic has created an enormous opportunity for churches to emphasize connectivity and community.
Jerry Linneman, a pastor in Columbia, penned an excellent article, How Your Church Can Respond to the Loneliness Epidemic. In this article, he lists five ways churches can help people become more connected.
Here is his short list:
1. Establish Belonging through Membership
2. Prioritize Life-Giving Community
3. Commit to Shared Leadership
4. Teach and model Friendship and Community
5. Be Devoted to One Another
The fifth and final concern has to do with political and social issues
This should come as no surprise, as we have seen an unprecedented rise in political and social divisiveness in the past few years. According to author and theologian N.T. Wright, “What we are left within the United States is a serious level of anxiety and anger on many fronts. Lifetime friends have divided over the past year or so with no plausible reconciliation pathway.”[viii]
In January 2019, Lifeway Research surveyed why so many young adults drop out of church. One of the alarming statistics was that 70 percent named religious, ethical, or political beliefs for dropping out. Of those, 25 percent said they disagreed with the church’s stance on political or social issues. In comparison, 22 percent said they only attended to please someone else.[ix]
If you want to do a deeper dive into this subject, I would recommend reading this scholarly, thoughtful article: Politics, Conscience, and the Church: Why Christians Passionately Disagree with One Another over Politics, Why They Must Agree to Disagree over Jagged-Line Political Issues by Jonathan Leeman and Andrew David Naselli.
Ministry leaders face the daunting reality of today’s political issues and their impact on the church. As ministry leaders, we need to operate with an informed mind, a focus on the Kingdom of Heaven, and an awareness of how to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those we serve. We need to be able to have serious, life-giving conversations with the young adults in our care, hear their concerns, and provide a balanced biblical perspective. I believe that you can take this information can empower you to explore five ways to minister to young adults on a practical level.
Conclusion: Taking Action to Address the Mental Health Crisis Among Young Adults
As a church, we need to be a place of hope, healing, and sound information. In nearly fifty years of being involved in ministry and human service, I have heard three common and incorrect themes concerning mental health in the church. Unfortunately, these mindsets have directly or indirectly caused harm.
1. Anxiety is a failure to trust God.
2. Depression is a sin.
3. You need to pray and read your bible to deal with any mental health concerns.
One of the consequences of original sin is that the Fall negatively impacts the entire universe, our minds, and our bodies. Because of sin, we have disease, discord, and despair.
The church is supposed to be a place of refuge and support. It is a place where the brokenhearted can be supported and healed. It is a well-known fact that people often seek a ministry leader before they seek professional help. The church has a unique opportunity to offer a supportive community to help young adults struggling to manage their emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Would you agree that the church should be a place where a person can experience a safe and supportive environment? A place where they can express their feelings and receive help without fearing judgment? A place where biblical discipleship infuses the total person and not just the “church” department?
As the church addresses mental health and well-being issues compassionately and responsibly, it will help young adults develop healthy, faith-friendly coping skills and improve their overall well-being. By being a welcoming community that exhibits faith, hope, and love, your church will discover at least five ways to minister to young adults.
Remember Galatians 6:2, “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ” (NLT).
Here are some things your church can do :
1. Research various competent, faith-based, or faith-friendly mental health resources. You can check out Focus on the Family Christian Counseling Network to assist you in this. You can also network with other ministry leaders to see who they refer to.
2. Consider a teaching series on Mental Health from the Scriptures. With some work, I believe you can find several excellent resources from the book of Psalms to Philippians that will provide valuable, practical, and psychologically sound principles, tools, and skills that will help those whom you shepherd.
3. Educate yourself through ongoing continuing education, online classes, and podcasts. Here are some hyperlinks to some of my favorite podcast resources to get you started.
Thank you for taking a few moments to read my article; I trust you found it helpful. May the Lord bless you as you seek to expand five ways to minister to young adults. For more information about me, click johnthurman.info and johnthurman.net.
Blessings,
John Thurman, M.Div., M.A., LPCC,
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[i] Richard Weissbourd, Milena Batanova, Joseph McIntyre, and Eric Torres with Shanae Irving, Sawsan Eskander, and Kiran Bhai, “On Edge: Understanding and Preventing Young Adults’ Health Challenges,” Harvard Graduate School of Education, Making Caring Common Project, October 2023
[ii] According to a study by Twenge and colleagues (2019), there was a 71% increase in young adults experiencing severe psychological distress in the previous 30 days from 2008 to 2017. Another study using data from over 300,000 college students found that over 60% of students met criteria for one or more mental health problems in 2020-2021, a nearly 50% increase from 2013 (Lipson et al., 2022).
[iii] Richard Weissbourd, Milena Batanova, Joseph McIntyre, and Eric Torres with Shanae Irving, Sawsan Eskander, and Kiran Bhai, “On Edge: Understanding and Preventing Young Adults’ Health Challenges,” Harvard Graduate School of Education, Making Caring Common Project, October 2023
[iv] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/09/how-achievement-pressure-is-crushing-kids-and-what-to-do-about-it/ Accessed November 10, 2023
[v] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/mar/12/birthstrikers-meet-the-women-who-refuse-to-have-children-until-climate-change-ends
[vi] https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1173418268/loneliness-connection-mental-health-dementia-surgeon-general
[vii] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html
