The Challenge - and Opportunity! - of Discipling Today's 20-Somethings

By Dane Alexander

(6 minute read)

Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.- George Orwell

When you’re in your twenties, it’s easy to feel like you know more than you really do. You think money will be simple once you land a job, love will be effortless once you find the right person, and adulthood will mean total freedom. But as time progresses, reality pushes back. Paychecks disappear into rent, bills, and taxes. Relationships turn out to require more sacrifice and communication than we ever expected. Freedom comes tied to responsibility, deadlines, and people depending on us.

The same can be true about faith. What once felt like a clear set of rules or simple beliefs becomes seasons of questions, doubts, and wrestling. Maturity has a way of showing us that life isn’t as straightforward as we imagined.

Nothing stands still as we age; the world evolves just as we do. If I’ve learned anything from the progression of Genesis to Revelation, it’s that each generation co-writes a new chapter in the shared story of life on earth; but how we get there, the values we hold, the way we form community, the hopes we cling to, can look very different generation to generation. Discipleship, then, isn’t static either. It’s always an intergenerational journey, where we can learn just as much from young people as we expect young people to learn from us.

Discipleship alongside Young Adults is less about introducing the answers to life and life’s problems, and more about walking with them as they discover how to live faithfully in a complicated world. Navigating the uncertainties of life can feel like constant improvisation when the experiences are brand new. In those moments, what young people need most someone who will walk with them in the trial-and-error of figuring things out. That’s why our 20’s is such a defining decade. The question becomes: where can we encourage young people with the wisdom we’ve gained, and where can we make space for their experiences which are unprecedented even to us? Are we making space in our discipleship efforts for younger generations to flourish?

Burnout and Belonging

Many of us are hit with burnout from years of pushing ourselves too hard, whether it’s from school, work, personal expectations, or even our own faith communities. The constant pressure to achieve, succeed, fit in, do the right thing, or simply keep going can lead to an overwhelming sense of fatigue, a loss of belief in what we’re doing, and a crippling doubt of our faith, self-worth, and ability. We’ve all felt these, but young adults are often feeling them earlier, faster, and deeper. Young adults, with so much life ahead of them, are hitting burnout in what should be the most forming decade of their lives.1

One reason? Too many expectations with too few resources and support structures.

Faith burnout is a very real thing. Sadly, churches can sometimes hold young people to high expectations without providing optimal support. Though we present ourselves as welcoming communities, we communicate, often unintentionally, that belonging is conditional. “You need to change so you can belong” becomes an unspoken mantra among many faith circles. Young adults are longing for someone to step into their lives who listens, understands, and makes space for their questions. The communities they expect to find this support sometimes fails them, and for justifiable reasons, it leaves them “church-suspicious” yet still spiritually interested.

This is a huge opportunity: stepping into Relational Discipleship with the young adults who are spiritually interested.

A Helpful Discipline: Empathy

The great spiritual thinker, Henri Nouwen, connects discipleship and discipline as the same word. Once we’ve chosen to follow Jesus, we ask ourselves “What disciplines will help me remain faithful to that choice?”

One of the most overlooked disciplines in discipling young adults is empathy.

Empathy isn’t agreement or rushing toward quick solutions. Empathy is the discipline of entering someone’s world to understand the way they are doing things and why; their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs; how they think about the world; and what is meaningful to them. Empathy builds relationships with those we are trying to understand. Nouwen goes on to say, “In the spiritual life, the word discipline means ‘the effort to create some space in which God can act.’”2  When we listen first, we create space for God to move.

Young adults are often open to discipleship, but only after we’ve earned the right to speak into their lives through genuine relationship. Empathy as a discipline opens the door for God to move people along in their faith journey. It involves being present, taking ownership, and offering support without rushing to change the situation. Without empathy, our urgency to share Jesus can feel like noise. With empathy, our lives reflect a savior who first took the time to walk with, eat with, and understand the people he came to save.

A Helpful Mindset: Faith as a Verb

One practical way that has helped me in the discipline of empathy is to change my perspective on “faith” the noun into “faith” the verb, or what I’ve heard called “faith-ing.”

Steve Argue of Fuller Youth Institute describes this well: faith as a noun can become something static, like a trophy we set on a shelf. Faith as a noun feels like something we either have or don’t have. But faith in scripture is also a verb. It’s active. It’s believing, trusting, persevering, wrestling, and maturing. It’s not just something we have but something we do.3

This is where discipling young adults gets both challenging and exciting. They are constantly “faith-ing”; making sense of new experiences, questions, and information. A painful breakup, a philosophy class, a family crisis, or new cultural insight may come as a challenge or “loss of faith.” What once held their understanding of God and the world no longer fits, and they are forced to rebuild. Failure? No. Formation. This is the process of faith-ing.

As disciple makers, we could panic when young adults say, “I’m not sure I believe anymore.” Instead, empathy invites us to walk with them through the uncertainty, helping them reconstruct a faith robust enough to hold their new questions and experiences.

Discipling young adults is about helping them practice “faith-ing” in real time, trusting that God is present in both the dismantling and the rebuilding.

Where We Land

Remember:

• Less pressure, more presence. Show up, listen, and invest relationally before trying to fix or instruct.

• Fewer expectations, deeper empathy. Young adults will open up only when they know we care enough to understand their world.

• Implement a “faith-ing” perspective. Encourage them to faith actively, wrestling, questioning, and practicing trust with God in real-life circumstances.

• Create space for growth and questions. Recognize that young adults are constantly accommodating new experiences, rebuilding their faith as they mature.

• Shared discipleship. Walking alongside them reminds us that this journey is not one way. Discipleship is a relational, intergenerational process, and we can learn just as much from them as they may learn from us.

Young adults need followers of Jesus willing to walk in the messiness with them. When we lead with empathy, patience, and relational presence, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we help young adults construct a resilient, lived faith, and in doing so, shape the future of discipleship itself.

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Footnotes:

1 - Anna Medaris, Gen Z Adults and Younger Millennials are “Completely Overwhelmed” by Stress, https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/generation-z-millennials-young-adults-worries

2 - Henri Nouwen, Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry

3 - Steven Argue, From Faith to Faithing, https://fulleryouthinstitute.org/blog/from-faith-to-faithing