Never has the task of becoming an adult in our society been more challenging than now. The journey from late adolescence to young adulthood is paved with pitfalls and obstacles of significant proportions. Today’s adolescents struggle with the complex issues of identity, sexuality, intimacy, vocation, purpose, and spirituality. They are on their own, yet still dependent; they are free to choose, while shackled by overwhelming choices. They are scrutinized and ignored, coddled and neglected, encouraged and demeaned, empowered and impaired.

Faced with such bewildering and distressing concerns, young people in our North American society are redesigning the first movements toward adulthood. Disguised as adults in a culture that has emotionally or developmentally ill equipped them for the tasks of adulthood, many people in their twenties—and early thirties—have sought a variety of ways to “buy” themselves time to work on the recipe of embracing the requirements of adulthood. Fearful of making long-term commitments and decisions on the basis of short-term insights, the “provisional adult” (as Gail Sheehy called them in New Passages [New York: Ballentine Books, 1996]) takes a job, goes to school, joins the military, or finds another form of temporary distraction while agonizing quietly with a restless discomfort over not feeling ready for the long-term commitments of adulthood.

These “tentative” adults also know that many “settled” older adults are neither settled nor as certain about themselves as they appear. The new adults have lived in families where marriages have collapsed, jobs have ended, dreams have dissolved, and vocational goals apparently have failed to deliver their promised fulfillment to prior generations. Wars and “rumors of wars” also appear to be a way of life rather than an unusual news item.

In such a time of troubled family stability, the local church seems poised either to play the role of a family of origin in which young adults can no longer function, or to assume a crucial supportive role as a steady family in bewildering days. The body of Christ—distracted itself by its own struggles with change and identity—has an opportunity and challenge today to provide an environment in which developing adults may safely navigate the perilous waters from late adolescence to full adulthood. Whether the church of the twenty-first century will offer assistance to beleaguered young adults—or become irrelevant in the conversation—remains to be seen. One thing is certain: important issues need to be identified and addressed in order to care for and sustain young adults transitioning from late adolescence to the experience of young adulthood.

What are the major issues defining and challenging young adults today? In what ways can we help young people sift through the confusion of messages they are hearing—to listen to whatever promptings are of benefit and value in this delicate journey of becoming? How can communities of faith and institutions of learning help—and not harm—young people pursuing pointers and purpose as they seek to “grow up”? The following pages are an attempt to identify some of the unique challenges confronting today’s emerging young adult. They are also an attempt to distinguish between fact and fiction as adolescents “come of age.” This exciting and fragile transition is one of self-discovery, self-scrutiny, and self-preoccupation, requiring discernment, patience, and wisdom; it should not have to be made alone.

The first pages of this study identify the unique struggles of today’s young adults in regard to self-development (imagining, seeking, striving and choosing), vocation, personal choice, and spiritual definition. The next set of pages attempts to identify common myths that distract would-be adults as they contemplate the movement to maturity. The final section of this book explores the pastoral care of persons in this transition as they experience the challenges of confusing options, unclear identity, late adolescence, commitment deferment, dysfunctional family messages, vocational choices, and “spiritual winters” on their way to adulthood. An addendum to the study will suggest ways in which institutions of learning, including the church, may empower, enrich, and bless the journey of young adults.

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