St. Cuthbert’s is intentional in the formation of young adults in seven ministry factors of:
- Worship
- Innovation/Communication
- Hospitality
- Outreach
- Investment
- Leadership
- Congregational Particulars
For us the young adult stage of life encompasses the decades of the 20s and 30s and has a great deal of lifestyle diversity. At St. Cuthbert’s we believe that Young Adults have reached a life stage that calls for a lot of sorting. They have had twenty plus years of rules, roles, and responsibilities provided by parents, teachers, friends, media, pastors, and other key influencers. As they launch into adulthood, we endeavour to help them sort through all of that and decide what to take with them and what to leave behind, what to keep just as it is and what to reshape to suit their individual Christ-centered identities. Our key question as we seek to form them informed by Christ are these:
- Where does faith and religious practice fit in their sorting process?
- What factors lead to holistic integration of religious faith into our young adults’ identify, and life?
- What factors prompt them to leave religious faith and practice behind?
The spirituality of the young adults can be characterized by such words as exploratory,
individualistic, personal, consequential (or not), meaningful (or not). The teenage years are predictive of their faith and religious practice. We believe that there are a host of reasons why participation in religious communities declines at this stage. There are many reasons why young adults disidentify with religion; and fall into these six separate profiles, or “Tribes.”
- Transitioning Believers: taking it with them.
- Wavering Believers: faith is unstable and fragile.
- Seekers: exploring something different from how they were raised.
- Unreached: have little or no experience with church.
- Indifferent: don’t see the relevance or feel the need.
- Alienated: suspicious of church and skeptical of Christian beliefs (Bergler).
Our hope is that as we walk with them we will get them to full maturity in Christ such that they become full partners in our walk with Christ.