How Can You Serve the Young Adults in Your Community?

by Peggy Haymes, Pinnacle Associate

How can you serve the young adults in your community? Maybe by giving them a space to grieve.

A recent article in the Washington Post reported that young adults were struggling with grief:

The wallop of grief can be particularly difficult for young adults, said Ann Faison, a Los Angeles-based grief educator, author and creator of the podcast “Are We There Yet: Understanding Adolescent Grief.”

“They are old enough, developmentally, to really feel the weight of those emotions, but they still don’t have a lot of life experience,” said Faison, who was fourteen when her own mother died. “For many, it’s their first encounter with serious grief, and it’s a real shock to their system.

Washington Post, How a New Generation Copes with Grief (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/14/grief-changing-generations/)

The Post went on to say that young adults tend to be more open with their grief, more vulnerable with their struggles.

Here’s a place where a local church can make a difference.

Navigating GriefLand can provide young adults with a place to process their grief while having the benefit of older adults who have had more life experience with loss. In such groups, older and younger and everyone in between can benefit, having a place in which to tell their stories, to learn more about what’s “normal,” and to find paths for healing.

When churches talk about ministering to young adults, they sometimes get caught looking for shiny objects, the ministries with all of the bells and whistles. What if what young adults really needed was a place to mourn?

Learn more about Navigating GriefLand and how you can offer a group.