Guiding Principles for Building a YA Group

I recently had a conversation with a close friend of mine about Catholic young adult groups, how so many of them are just weird/awkward/dead, and it led us to start trying to draft some thoughts on how to build a YA group the right way (cause I have lived all over the country, and I have never seen it done). We never came to an answer, but it did make me start to wonder. So, I did what any good Catholic would do: I sat down and over-thought about it, and these were some things I came up with. I should preface that I am a “young adult” myself (whatever that means), so the questions, “Who is this schmuck taking shots at the YA world and what does he know?” are quite fair and equally shots at myself. I only offer this as some food for thought – to see if any of these ideas stick – with the hope that maybe we can start to find the answer to “What defines a "good" or "ideal" YA group?” Here goes…

I’ve recently been intrigued by this idea of the fractal nature of the Truth, and started thinking about how this pertains to community life. The family, in a way, is the microcosm of the parish which is a microcosm of the universal body of Christ. Just as the family has grandparents, parents, young adults and little kids, the parish has the same, and the Church has the same. Given this, the core characteristics of a particular generation in a family extend into its respective macrocosm at the parish level, and then further into the Church.

To borrow John Eldredge for the sake of simplicity, let's take the grandpa in a family and say his core “role” (not the exact word I want, but close enough), is to serve as the “Sage” the family. This extends to the parish - the old guys should be the “Sages” of the parish, etc. Now let's look at the young adult. By his very nature, what is a young adult? I think it's something like – the age group when he goes from being a dependent to an independent (for lack of a better word). The age range/stage of life which bridges the gap from being reliant on his parents to being the parent that is relied on. He is working toward starting a family, and that encompasses growth in a few areas.

One aspect of this is financial. He's off the family dime (and let's face it, this means post-college nowadays, so like 21+). He goes from being reliant to being generous. He now takes steps to make money. He, at the very least, is net zero; he is self-sustaining, but maybe even starts making positive financial contributions to the family…and ultimately will give everything he has to the family he starts with his wife. I think the essence of this financial truth extrapolates across the whole of the young adult. He is no longer reliant on everything being done for him, but is finally starting to look at what he can start to give - a muscle he has to start to build because when he gets married or his first kid is born, it becomes a level of giving unlike anything he could ever fathom.

So, how does this extend up to the parish level? The young adult in the parish is no longer looking to be reliant but productive. Obviously true independence is bad, I think, because the beauty of the Truth is that is revealed down from generation to generation, creating a dependence. My dad talks to his dad more now than they did when he was in high school living at home. This probably goes back to love and free will, mature dependence is willfully chosen rather than objectively necessitated like an infant. The YA no longer expects stuff to be done for him, but he asks for things proactively (help, advice, financial support, etc.), rather than being purely reactive. He has an awareness of his shortcomings and goals, and seeks the older, wiser folks to help him bridge this gap he has no idea how to cross. Take youth groups - everything is planned, kids just show up, and you hope maybe they'll start to take some initiative on their own by the end. In my time working for a college ministry, we saw this same thing, we planned and ran everything, and just hoped a few might take initiative. This is why I think there is some truth to this, because we knew this smelled wrong at the college level – “we shouldn't be doing this much for these kids at this age,” “we have to get them engaged,” “these kids are like high schoolers,” etc.

I think in today's YA world, we've created this culture of “the YA are underserved, and so parishes need to sit down with the YA's, ask them what they want, and give it to them." We’ve inculcated this idea that YA groups should be priority “numero uno” – that parishes should be bending over backwards to be running YA events, giving YA’s opportunities to meet, etc. – and because of this we have fallen into a trap of immaturity. It goes right back to the slippery slope of having everything done for us. Also, to offer a Jordan Peterson-like line, “What the hell do we know about what we want?”

What does the average YA want? Probably something as simple as: comfort and sex. The flesh. Easy. We’re human after all. Unfortunately, we're really good at masking this with Catholic jargon – to the point that I think we are bordering on using the Lord’s name in vain just to avoid having to ask a girl out when we could just host “Catholic Line Dancing Night” instead. We’re really good at taking an iffy idea, and figuring, “well, if we tack on Adoration then the Lord will bless it,” or “if we call it ‘Catholic’ then it must be a good thing.” This is probably a whole separate discussion for another time, but just some food for thought. I should caveat that I’m not looking to take shots at dating, game nights, etc., but, rather, cautious as to the way we have made these the foundation of the YA world.

In essence, I am convinced that the current approach to YA life may actually just be youth group but with a different Canva flyer. In catering directly to the YA, we’ve taken the youth group formula and tried to make it look older…but it’s still just youth group in nature. To build a YA group right, you have to focus on what a young adult should be. The real YA is looking to mature. He’s looking to make the jump from the kids' table to the adults' table at Thanksgiving. The kicker: there is no “young adult” table. I think the ideal YA group is so hard to define because a true YA “community” isn’t actually a real thing…there is no such thing as a “YA Group,” just a group of young adults…there’s just the young-adult end of the adult table. There is only THE community, the parish, and the trick is getting young adults to buy into that community now that they have a choice

The key to YA life, then, is engagement in the parish. The YA finally starts to take this faith thing by the horns. He starts to appreciate his family, his parish, the Church, after years of taking them for granted. He finds avenues to volunteer through different ministries, maybe starts to tithe, and looks to be a better role model for his younger “siblings."

We shouldn’t be catering to the YA, we should be catering to the Parish. What does the Parish need? Engaged young adults, future leaders, future parents to the kids that will go to school there, youthful energy to liven events, etc. The problem is the parish; the solution is the YA. The problem is not the YA (well it kind of is but that’s another tangent about how behind 20-year-olds are these days). Engaged YA’s serve the parish, and in return get that formation that they’re looking for (whether that be volunteering with the Knights of Columbus, for lack of a better example, who after a long day all go for a beer and start to impart some wisdom on you, or you’re in-charge of the youth altar serving group and you’re slowly learning how to work with kids, how to keep them engaged, etc.). YA events will probably come out of this inevitably, but shouldn’t be the goal.

Given this, I started drafting a few ideas for rules about young adult groups (not ranked by importance):

1. Grow up, it’s time to pay up. The ideal YA group should not have a budget from the parish council. If you want something to happen. Pay for it. Go fundraise for it. Get up in front of the congregation at mass and ask for help. Going to the parish council and asking for a lump sum so you can do “important” YA things is juvenile – your 10-year-old brother gets an allowance, you get a job. This also leads to buy-in and makes events less awkward. Something natural about going out for burgers and paying for yourself. You’ve got some stake in the night out, you don’t feel like you have to let the “leaders” run the whole night just because they brought the company card. You and a few of your buddies are just there to hang out. Maybe one time you offer to buy the round. Now you’re the hero, not the introvert twerp just hoping that showing up to one of these events counts as doing something social when your mom calls and asks what you did this week. Donate, chip in. You’re the guy that ran and got $100 worth of orange juice for the pancake breakfast in a pinch – but you got back only to realize it was all sugar-free, max pulp because you didn’t look at the label. Now it’s a running joke with some of the dads of the parish, a bond is formed, and they’ll start to look after you.
2. No more than one or two events every month. Any more than that is too many. Likely, this is still too many. YA life should not be sustainable on its own – if the rest of the parish moved away, you should not be doing so much that you don’t notice. The best YA is integrated into the parish and brings life/energy to parish events that worn out parents and grandmas with walkers can’t bring, and that 7-year-olds don’t have the attention span to contribute. “Events” don’t mean gatherings. Go get a beer with a few of the YA guys, have recurring men’s group meetings, join a rec league, etc. The events in question here are when a planning committee or the “YA Leaders” sit down and hammer out the details to an official event and brand it as “YA _____.” What makes it an event? Great question…TBD
3. No questions in group chats. Do you have a question? Grow a pair. DM the leader who is setting up the event, start a conversation. What if he doesn’t know? Well then maybe he’ll put you in touch with someone else. Now you’ve met two people. Cool, right? Looking for the best pizza place in town? Ask a few dudes after mass – maybe then you’ll all end up going to try a new place together. Group chats are not a social encounter evasion tactic. Too afraid to ask that dude you run into after mass most weeks for a reality TV show recommendation because you think it sounds soft…well that’s probably because it is. So why is it ok to ask it in the group chat? But I like asking questions in the group chat, because I don’t get sarcastic responses…the sarcasm is the best part, that’s what helps you bond with the others as you share a joke, and it’s what helps you train your question-asking muscle so you don’t fall into the same trap in the future. Questions very well may be the very vehicle of the Christian maturation journey, so best start practicing asking real questions. A real question wants an answer, a fake question just wants a response (i.e. it just wants attention).
4. There is no age cutoff. Try to define what age to cut it off, and you realize that there isn’t a good age. This again goes back to how YA community is not a real thing. You can’t actually define it well. It is simply the class of parishioners in that gap between momma’s boy and dada. Some 26yo parents might want to hang around this group a little longer, and the 35yo parents need to start to become affiliates with the other parents with kids their age. It should probably be fluid (for lack of a better word), with a constant push  of maturation – maturity compelling YA forward to the point that they can feel the discomfort of hanging around these “immature” kids and needing a little more in life. List an age, and now you have 39yo single guys using the 21-40 range as justification to come hit on 23yo girls. You also take the urgency out of maturity. A 27yo dude is in no rush to grow up because he still has 8 years of YA left and he likes the YA group. YA's need to become people he can no longer relate with, so he looks for older brothers in the parish. But do you have to set a hard limit just for the people that take advantage of everything? Probably, just not sure what this is yet, likely the younger the better – maybe 21-35.
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