Defiant Hope, Active Love
What Young Adults are Seeking in Places of Work, Faith, and Community
During the first decade of this century, churches obsessed over a simple question: How can we attract millennials? News about declining church attendance was everywhere, and as the largest generational cohort after the boomers, millennials were every leader’s goal. Churches made their services seeker-friendly. Nondenominational churches embraced more traditional liturgy, because young people seemed attracted to mystery. Mainline churches tried jazzing up their staid rites, hoping to appeal. Everyone treated this generation like foreign creatures to be studied.
This trend led Jeffrey Keuss, professor of Christian ministry, theology, and culture at Seattle Pacific University, to research young adults and their needs and desires for community. A grant from the Lilly Endowment funded the Pivot NW Research group, which employed theologians and industrial-organizational
psychologists to study young adults age 23 to 29.
Defiant Hope, Active Love, edited by Keuss, captures their work. Each chapter explores a theme that arose during research, such as seeing the 20s as a distinct developmental stage, imagining the church as a “resource station” for young adults rather than as a final destination, and identifying young adults as the leaders they already are. Keuss bookends each essay with an introduction and conclusion, providing theological reflection. Each chapter could be a stand-alone essay, though reading them together clarifies the findings.
