Hungry for Hope: Letters to the Church from Young Adults (Jeremy Paul Myers & Kristina Frugé) - Review
As a pastor who served
congregations largely composed of members sixty and above, I have heard many
congregants ask why young adults no longer come to the church (especially young
families). I don't have good answers to such questions that will suddenly turn
things around, but there are numerous reasons why youth and young adults are
absenting themselves from churches. Even though younger adults tend to be more
liberal than older adults, it appears that more progressive churches often struggle
to attract younger adults. Nevertheless, these churches might offer a home if
young and old can engage with each other in such a way that the concerns of
younger adults are considered.
In Hungry for Hope: Letters to
the Church from Young Adults, which is edited by Jeremy Paul Myers, the Bernhard
M. Christiansen Professor of Religion and Vocation at Augsburg University and
executive director of the Christiansen Center for Vocation, and Kristina Frugé,
director of Congregational and Community Initiatives with Augsburg University's
Riverside Innovation Hub, readers are provided eleven "letters" that raise
some of the questions younger adults are asking of the church. As Jeremy Myers
writes in the preface, this "is a book of wisdom from young adults about
issues that are incredibly important to them. It is a book in which young
adults call the church to look these issues square in the eye, even if we find
them haunting and daunting, until we are able to see the hope" (p. xi). Hungry for Hope is the product of conversations initiated by the editors through
the Riverside Innovation Hub that brought together a group of fifty people at
Augsburg University, half of whom are essentially forty and over, while the
other half are under forty (primarily late twenties and early thirties). Out of
this conversation emerged eleven themes, which became the foundation of this
book.
The book’s eleven chapters address
these themes, each of which is co-written by a team of two people, one of whom
is a young adult and the other a "thought leader." The chapters are
the product of ongoing conversations between the authors. Several of the young
adult contributors are clergy. The authors represent a diversity of identities,
including gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and more. The anticipated
audience for Hungry for Hope is participants in Christian Churches who
have a love for young adults. However, as Amanda Vetsch (a young adult
participant) and Kristina Frugé (co-editor) point out in their introduction,
this is not a book about young adults, nor is it a book about how to attract
young adults to our churches. Rather, it is intended to serve as a book of
wisdom for the church in conversation with young adults as it navigates the
world in which we live.
The eleven themes/chapters include
a focus on Courageous Curiosity (Amber Kalina and Reesheda N. Graham
Washington). By that, they speak of both the need for openness, while
recognizing that it can bring with it uncertainty. Therefore, being open to the
future will require courage. That involves getting over the fear that the
church can’t do what is required by curiosity. With courageous curiosity as a
necessary foundation, the next chapter, authored by Baird Linke and the Rev.
Kristen Glass Perez, speaks about the problem of “Tokenism of Young Adults.” How
often do churches include young adults in conversations but fail to listen to
the wisdom they might bring to the table? Therefore, to get beyond tokenism, authentic
relationships need to be built.
The first two chapters/themes speak
to foundational concerns. As we move to the third theme, we begin to encounter
some of the important issues that concern young adults. The first of these
concerns is discussed under the title "Deconstruction and Re-Creation."
Written by J.D. Mechelke and the Rev. Talitha Amadea Aho, this chapter focuses
on young adult concerns about an impending climate apocalypse. This is an
increasingly important conversation as we witness a backlash against climate
science. So, are we listening? The fourth chapter is titled "Lament
Embodied in Community." This chapter deals with the healing of grief that
takes place within the community. The authors of this chapter, Shaya Aguilar
and Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, note that lament is something the church often
struggles with, but finding communities that allow for sharing grief is
something young adults are seeking. The fifth chapter/theme is titled
"Health and Wholeness: Trauma, Anxiety, and Our Call to Mental Health."
This chapter, which was authored by Sarah Brock Iverson and Jia Johnson, deals
with questions relating to mental health, including anxiety and trauma. They
write that “Our call to mental health is to be healed and made well. Wellness
is holistic healing—spiritual, physical, social, and economic” (p. 117). The
sixth chapter/theme is titled "Why are You So Angry?" Authored by the Rev. Drew Stever & Rev. Dr.
Eric Law. This chapter isn't really about anger, but rather about power and why
historically powerless communities might be angry, and why this creates fear
among historically powerful individuals. Again, we see this playing out in the
backlash against “DEI.” Chapter 7 is titled "Liberating the Sanctuary."
This chapter, authored by Abby Grifno & Dr. Jimmy Hoke, seeks to move the
conversations in the church beyond marginalization, intersectionality, and
inclusion, all of which are important, to reach liberation. The call here is to
remove harmful structures that exclude the marginalized from both the church
and the larger society. One of the big issues in Christian circles has to do
with sex, whether same-sex relationships, premarital sex, or more. While this
is an "issue," the church rarely engages in fruitful conversations.
But it is an area of concern that gets attention in chapter eight, which is titled
"Sex Is a Gift." Authored by Rev. Madeline Burbank & Kara Haug,
the latter of whom is a sexuality health educator who advocates for sex
education, this chapter calls for a rejection of shame by the church in favor
of curiosity.
With Chapter Nine, we move to
discussions of some of the needs felt by younger adults when it comes to the
Church. This chapter is titled "Gather at the Table: A Call for
Communities Marked by Love and Belonging," which is authored by Amar
Peterman and Nicholas Tangen. While this chapter has a eucharistic element, the
focus is on the creation of a community centered in Jesus that includes liturgy
but also includes faith formation, which many younger adults seek. Then, in Chapter
Ten, which is titled "Beyond the Walls: The Church’s Call to be in the
World," Kayla Zopfi & Dr. Jeremy Paul Myers discuss the fact that too
often, the church becomes focused on its own context, while many young adults
have a vision that extends beyond the walls. These young adults wish to share
that vision for the world beyond the walls of the church with the church. What
this means is that they want to stress the importance of the public church.
Finally, we come to the eleventh and final theme. This chapter deals with the
desire of younger adults to see the church move from a sense of scarcity to one
of abundance. The chapter titled "Reclaiming 'Enough': Away from Scarcity
Toward True Abundance" is authored by Catalina Morales Bahena & Dr.
Cherice Bock. The focus here is on the perceived challenge of settler
colonialism, a concept that might be new to many, but which is increasingly
under discussion. Thus, with this in mind, the authors discuss how settler
colonialism led from abundance to scarcity. As for what is needed in response
is a reversal, such that we move back to a vision of abundance by recognizing what
is enough.
As the editors inform us at the beginning of Hungry for Hope, this is not a book that will tell churches how to attract young adults or build young adult ministries. There are other books designed to do that. Rather, the book invites the church to truly listen to young adult voices, such that young adult voices are no longer simply token voices. If the young adult voices presented in the book are representative of their generation, and I believe they are, we will hear the disconnect that exists between what they value and the voices that represent the current backlash against what is called "Woke." This includes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, the current political backlash against gains made by LGBTQ persons (especially Transgender persons who have been made the center of political attacks on their persons), along with the efforts to end efforts aimed at curbing climate change. While it is true that many young adults embrace voices that run counter to the ones represented in Hungry for Hope, there are many others, probably a majority of younger adults, who would affirm the message of this book. Therefore, the messages shared in the book, many of which are quite personal, should resonate with those willing to listen. This will require courageous curiosity on the part of older members of our churches, so that they might listen to younger voices, not as tokens but as full participants. While this isn’t a book designed to help churches reach young adults, listening to these voices won’t hurt those efforts.
Copies of Hungry for Hope may be purchased at your favorite retailer, including my Amazon affiliate and Bookshop.org affiliate.
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