It doesn't seem like it should be such a hard thing ... or at least not really any harder than satisfying the needs of any other age groups. But for some reason, the Uniting Church (at least in SA) is particularly worried about catering for the needs of young adults (which they define as 18-35) - I'll talk about that later though...

But the funny thing is it is kinda hard. But - I think - only because there aren't many of us around. Let me try to explain - you might notice that this argument could apply almost equally to any age group, as long as they're in the same sort of situation.

So young adults have slightly different needs than other age groups - that's not exactly a new and fantastic revelation. Some of these things are because of the age we ARE (in-depth exploration of life, faith often with more than a hint of idealism), while some of them are probably more because of the age we are IN (our affinity for multi-media communication, reflection and worship). Whatever the causes, it means that often, churches tailor particular gatherings or worship services to young adults. And there is some wisdom to that - as I've said, we have some slightly different needs. But that's not even the problem - that's relatively easy to do. The problem is, as far as I can see, that we create these little pockets of young adults that are relatively isolated from the (usually) larger communities that they are supposed to be part of. They have to rely on each other for pastoral care, for new ideas and experiences. It's not that they're not capable of these things - its just when it's done in a small group, these things can fall apart pretty quickly. Chances are, there's one or two out of 20-30 that do most of the caring for most of the young adults. When one of them leaves, or gets tired, the whole things starts to fall apart. So how do we cater effectively for the individual needs particular age groups in the wider context of an inter-generational community?