Tony Campolo kicked off the early day of the Youth Work Summit with a general introduction. He quoted Pew research that has discovered three things that young people look for in religion, but usually don’t find:
- Spirituality
- Authenticity
- Hopeful Eschatology
If we want to reach young people with the gospel, if we want our youth ministries to be effective, this is what we need to offer.
1. Spirituality
Young people are becoming more and more spiritual, but less and less religious, claimed Tony Campolo. Spirituality is a term that’s used in all kinds of contexts these days, however, so it’s important to define what we mean by this. Tony Campolo didn’t (or of he did, I missed it), but usually spirituality refers to the search for the ‘sacred,’ as opposed to the normal, everyday life. Another way of defining it is the focus on what is unseen and intangible, rather than on the physical. In the broadest way, spirituality has to do with searching for and finding the meaning of life.
For Christians, spirituality has everything to do with the Holy Spirit, and this is how Tony Campolo described the need in young people: Young people are looking for the evidence of a true Spirit-filled spirituality. There’s an interesting contradiction in this: Spirituality by its definition refers to the unseen, yet young people are looking for evidence. They want to see the result of the unseen in our lives, meaning our actions, words and attitude.
Young people are looking for spirituality, for authenticity and for hope. What are you offering them?
If we want young people to become aware of the true Spirit that brings meaning to our lives, they need to be able to see it in us. Our lives must breathe the work of the Holy Spirit in everything we do and say. If our lives are no different from those of non-Christians, why would young people be attracted to our ‘version’ of spirituality?
