Walking with Young Adults in Faith: Finding Belonging in Seasons of Becoming

The Banner recently published a great article by Tara Boer, How Can I Help My Child Adjust to College While I Am Also Struggling, about what it means to walk alongside young people during big transitions. Those shifts, such starting college, beginning a job, moving to a new city, or stepping into graduate school, aren’t just logistical. They touch our sense of identity, calling, and faith.

As someone still finding my place in adulthood and in the church, I know how hard it can be to fit neatly into faith communities. There always seems to be some “ideal” stage of life: Be single! Be married! Have a steady job! Go back to graduate school! Sometimes it feels like every season has its own expectations, and if you don’t fit the mold, it can be hard to know where you belong.

That’s why I’ve been reflecting on what it means for the church to be a community that truly walks with young adults through these in-between spaces; not to fix or label us, but to help us encounter God’s grace in every step.

1. Create spaces of honest belonging

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul reminds us that “the body is not made up of one part but of many.” Every person, every season, every story has a place in God’s design.

• Make room for questions, doubts, and stories that don’t fit the script. The way that young people today build their lives often looks a lot different than how lives were built 20, 30, or 50 years ago.
• Invite honest conversations without fear or shame. Yes, there can be generational differences in how people think or approach things! But it's often a great opportunity to learn.
• Let belonging come before expectations, rooted not in status, but in grace.

When the church welcomes people as they are, faith becomes a relationship, not a performance.

2. Stay connected and pray with them

A message or prayer from home can remind someone far away that they’re still part of the body.

• Send a quick text: “Thinking of you today. How can I pray for you?” Or put together care boxes for young people in college and graduate school.
• Include young adults in congregational prayer, celebrating their milestones and naming challenges.
• Remind them that even when they’re not physically present, they remain part of the community’s heartbeat.

3. Help them find faith communities where they are

When a young person moves away, whether it's your own child or someone in your church, help them discover a new spiritual home.

• Connect them to campus ministries or local congregations. The CRCNA has churches and ministries across all of North America, and many of them would love to welcome the young people in your life.
• Encourage them to explore what faith looks like in this new setting. And remember that their faith journey ultimately will be their own faith journey, and it may look different than yours.
• Offer introductions and prayerful encouragement, not pressure. 

Faith doesn’t have to pause when geography changes; it simply grows new roots.

4. Affirm their gifts and callings

Young adults often feel like they’re waiting for “real life” to begin. But God is already working through them now.

• Invite them to use their gifts in worship, service, and leadership. Young people, especially young professionals, are often very highly trained and can add much-needed skillsets, from marketing to community organizing and from education to healthcare, to your church's ministry.
• Speak life into their callings. Help them see how faith connects to vocation. For example, some young women may love volunteering in the nursery, but others may have the skillset and calling to support sermon preparation or spearhead a new ministry providing health resources to people experiencing homelessness. Resist stereotypes about how you think about young people.
• Remember Philippians 1:6: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Encouraging words can help young adults recognize that their faith story is still unfolding and that God is not finished with them yet.

5. Model trust in God’s ongoing care

Letting go of control is hard for parents, mentors, and pastors alike, but it’s also an act of faith.

• Share your own stories of God’s guidance through uncertainty. But also be aware that sometimes things are just uncertain, and we don't always know where they're going. And that's okay.
• Remind young people (and yourself) that God’s presence travels with them into every classroom, dorm, and workplace.

We can release our anxieties knowing that the Spirit leads each journey.

6. Be mindful of practical challenges

For many young adults, faith isn’t the only thing being stretched. Financial instability, housing insecurity, and the rising costs of education, housing, and early-career life weigh heavily on my generation. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like you belong in a church community when you’re worried about rent, student loans, or just keeping food on the table.

Churches can play a powerful role here:

• Offer tangible support: Meal trains, housing connections, or transportation help for students and early-career members.
• Provide financial literacy workshops or connect young adults with mentors who can guide them through budgeting, debt, or navigating benefits.
• Be sensitive about assumptions about people's financial circumstances. Not everyone has family support, stable housing, accessible transportation, or the means to participate in every event.
• Build ministries of generosity: community meals, shared resources, or hardship funds that reflect the early church’s spirit of mutual care (Acts 2:44–45).

In a culture that loves independence, the church can remind young people that interdependence is holy, too.

7. Make space for authentic relationships

Friendship and community are vital at every age, but especially in young adulthood, when people are often forming (and re-forming) the circles that will sustain them for years.

Yet, many churches unintentionally send the message that the real goal is marriage. Singles can feel invisible, while dating couples may feel scrutinized, and those discerning lifelong singleness can feel like they don’t fit anywhere.

But Scripture tells a wider story. Jesus himself lived a single life rich in friendship, hospitality, and love. Paul described singleness as a gift that frees people for undivided service (1 Corinthians 7:32-34). The early church grew through shared life, not marital status.

So how can churches live that out today?

• Celebrate friendship as a sacred vocation, not just a placeholder for marriage.
• Preach and model that all forms of faithful relationship, including friendship, singleness, dating, marriage, that reflect aspects of God’s love.
• Host intergenerational gatherings where people connect across life stages.
• Create rhythms of community (shared meals, small groups, retreats) that don’t center on family status.

When we affirm that every person, married or single, is complete in Christ, we free one another to form genuine relationships rooted in love, not expectation.

Closing thoughts

I’ve learned how healing it is when a church sees me not as a “phase” or a “future leader,” but as a full person in Christ right now, still learning, still growing, still beloved. For young adults, that kind of welcome is often what keeps faith alive in seasons of transition.

How has your congregation made space for young adults to belong—not just attend, but belong? And for those of us in this season ourselves: where have you found God’s grace in the becoming?