No young adults

  • Thread starter Thread starter mbd1475
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
lol you’re right. The moving suggestion was not ruled out in the OP. You gotta be careful around here as a non-RC to rule out certain responses to posts, but I guess I let that one slip thru. Although to be truthful, it would be nice to get out of the South for a while. :rolleyes:
 
mbd1475 said:
:confused:
In my town there are no young adult Catholics (or even Episcopalians, for that matter). It seems that anyone my age (or my wife’s age) who doesn’t have children and may go to church, goes to a baptist church, maybe some Methodist. (We live in the south/Bible belt I guess).

My wife and I currently attend the local Episcopal church (Anglo-Catholic, more-catholic-than-catholic variety). The service is, of course, beautiful, but there are no young adults there, period. And I hear that RC parish here is the same way. No one under 30.

I know that strictly theologically speaking, it shouldn’t make a difference to someone who is thinking of becoming Catholic. But let’s be honest, it does. So I am wondering if anyone else has found themselves in a similar situation, and could offer some advice.

Again, I am not interested in any responses to the effect of “You should just become Catholic if the Holy Spirit is telling you to and quit letting your social life get in the way” or “suck it up and be the first and others will follow.”

As important as the sacraments and our souls are, sometimes people, real people, need to be nourished by friendship and peers and someone of the same faith to hang out with outside of Mass. I really want to hear about some experiences people have had in this as young adults or otherwise.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Well do you really need to have catholic friends? Why not just have friends who you like. Nothing wrong with that surely? To much consensus of opinion can be quite boring after a number of years.
 
We have plenty of non-catholic friends. That wasn’t the point. The point was to have friends to go to church with. We go on Sundays, sit, take communion, participate, leave, never seeing a soul our age.
 
mbd1475 said:
We have plenty of non-catholic friends. That wasn’t the point. The point was to have friends to go to church with. We go on Sundays, sit, take communion, participate, leave, never seeing a soul our age.
Click to expand...
Oh. I see. I have never really thought about going to church “with people” as such. It’s kind of like going to a movie with people. They end up just sitting next to you, but you can’t really talk to them anyway.

.
 
mbd1475 said:
We have plenty of non-catholic friends. That wasn’t the point. The point was to have friends to go to church with. We go on Sundays, sit, take communion, participate, leave, never seeing a soul our age.
Click to expand...
IDK, some people just dont get it.🤷
 
mbd1475 said:
That’s okay, I’m glad that this thread has given you an opportunity to express what you’re going through. Don’t let anyone (at church, or here) tell you that what you’re feeling isn’t a valid concern or that you should just plug along and be thankful to just be in the “right” church.

Problems don’t get solved unless we talk about them. And your problem is certainly valid.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Thing is, even talking about them doesn’t necessarily mean solving them. I’ve talked about problems before and nothing has happened. In some cases, they even got worse.

As for plugging along, that’s what I’ve always done. It’s hard finding out now that I actually can say something and maybe something might be done about it. Usually nothing does so I typically don’t bother. For the longest time I had it drilled into me and demonstrated that for me to say anything would result in nothing. There would be no changes and things would only get worse for me. It would be, why bother?
 
CB_Catholic said:
I can understand your wanting to be in a group of your peers as well as other groups, and it is a legitimate concern. I participate in things in my parish where there is a large age range, and that’s fine, but I am almost 60 and want to be with those in my age group as well. I am not raising a family now, I have grandchildren, those in my age group are starting to have health issues, have aging parents, are near retirement–we just don’t have the same concerns as younger people do, and even what we like to do socially is not the same. Our taste in music, literature, movies,etc. is not the same. We can share many things with younger people, and learn from each other, but many things we can’t or don’t want to and vice-versa. I sincerely hope you can work something out in your parish.

BTW, I do like the Lifeteen Masses, which I attend sometimes because of my work schedule, because I like young people and their enthusiasm, and I like most of the music, but in my parish the music they use is contemporary, but not the “hard rock” type of Christian music popular these days, and the Mass is like any other Mass in our parish, no fooling around with the Liturgy, no gathering around the altar,etc. And they use the same Gloria, Alleluia, Amen, and Sanctus as the regular Masses.
Click to expand...
I’ve always had trouble making friends around my age. I really didn’t have friends until I was in my 20s which is really sad. I just never fit in. I still don’t I guess. There are so few in their 20s to begin with and to further alienate those that actually still go to Mass and live their Catholic faith is not helpful.

As for Lifeteen Mass, I understand that it’s a preference for some which I have no problem with. I personally don’t like it. That’s my preference. The problem I have with it is that people tell me I should like and that I must like it and that it’s made for me. I don’t like being told what I should like or dislike or that I must go to a specific Mass. And it’s not really made for me. Our past loves the Lifeteen Mass and gushes about it every change he gets along with the Youth Group Director and Director of Faith Formation. And the few times I’ve gone, there really haven’t been teens at that Mass, only those over 40 (I’m pointing out what I saw not making an accusation, just to clarify). I think, in some ways, I grew up and was raised in a completely different Catholic culture than they were. I grew up in the Southwest where this would never have been thought of.
 
I have never had the trouble of making friends. I have a lot of them and it still seems that noone in my age group really goes to Mass that much and if they do, there is not a lot to do as far as activities and get-togethers for my age except go to Mass. My grandfather was Grand Knight of the Kinghts of Columbus, my father also a member. I can remember as a little girl, my parents had a ton of friends and we would all sit together at Mass and have BBQ’s and church related activities after Mass. I use to have a blast when I was a child every Easter at the KC functions. Also, Conoco Oil had a lot of religious functions where members of the KC who were employees would get together and they would also tailgate a lot of the games for the main college. You just dont see that as much anymore, not where I grew up and especially in Protestant country outside of Louisiana, and its sad. The snootyness that I felt was at a catholic church in MS, near the college I graduated from. Everyone there was very very young or much older with children. They almost had a Protestant Catholic mentality and were really rude if you didnt fit exactly in that mold, and it was a small town so go figure. I went to a different Catholic church downtown and had a much better experience there. But still, as usual, nothing for age groups 25-25. My question is in addition to the Op’s question: What has happened? Where are we? Why are we different now? Is it the parish, demographic location, bigger stresses and people do not get out as much, is our generation different, more of hermits? I dont know, I’m at a loss here.
 
The only thing I can figure is:
  1. Consumer culture.
  2. Megachurches have Starbucks and LCD TVs everywhere.
  3. It’s a cycle - if there are no young people already there, no young people will go. So it’s self-perpetuating.
I guess my feeling is, I have tried being the “pioneer,” that is to say, showing up anyway and hoping others will follow suit. But that hasn’t happened. This is in the Episcopal church.

Now, I could go through the process of RCIA and maybe my wife would, too. And we could join the Catholic Church. But if it’s going to be the same, and we end up being too frustrated by the lack of peers to be motivated to go to Mass anyway, then what would be the point? We would be in the exact same position as we are now…

As to programs, I’ve checked into the local parishes and I see youth group, perpetual adoration, Knights of Columbus, a lay carmelite community, troubled marriage group, divorce and widow group, abortion support group, and a 50+ bible study/prayer group.

What about groups for 22-30 year olds? This is the demographic that is lost, working 60 hours a week or floating around bars or going to the lake on weekends. These are the people that are missing at church. Look around.:eek:
 
mbd1475 said:
The only thing I can figure is:
  1. Consumer culture.
  2. Megachurches have Starbucks and LCD TVs everywhere.
  3. It’s a cycle - if there are no young people already there, no young people will go. So it’s self-perpetuating.
I guess my feeling is, I have tried being the “pioneer,” that is to say, showing up anyway and hoping others will follow suit. But that hasn’t happened. This is in the Episcopal church.

Now, I could go through the process of RCIA and maybe my wife would, too. And we could join the Catholic Church. But if it’s going to be the same, and we end up being too frustrated by the lack of peers to be motivated to go to Mass anyway, then what would be the point? We would be in the exact same position as we are now…

As to programs, I’ve checked into the local parishes and I see youth group, perpetual adoration, Knights of Columbus, a lay carmelite community, troubled marriage group, divorce and widow group, abortion support group, and a 50+ bible study/prayer group.

What about groups for 22-30 year olds? This is the demographic that is lost, working 60 hours a week or floating around bars or going to the lake on weekends. These are the people that are missing at church. Look around.:eek:
Click to expand...
Good Point. Yeah I have noticed this too and I can tell you this is exactly whats going on and its why we dont see any in that age group. Esp 22-30, 30-38, you see a bit more but still not as much as the 39+ crowd. My guess for the 30-40 crowd is that they too are working 60+ hours a week and are exhausted, some in this age range are graduating from college too and moving, some have kids, some dont. I think for the one that dont have kids it seems to be less of a motivational factor to go to church or they are looking for the right one in their town in their faith bc they just moved or another circumstance. We represent a minority where we are willing to go to church anyway, but I know a lot of people Catholic or not dont go to Mass that are my age and it seems to be a vicious cycle. No activites for our age, they dont go, therefore, theres no activites bc they dont go etc etc. Thanks for this post, makes sense.
 
This might sound condescending but not at all meant to be – sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

For instance, I have a teenager in high school, two kids in the Elementary Catholic school across the street from church, a toddler and an infant at home.

There are TONS of meetings/groups/activities for the parents of GRADE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL KIDS – but nothing, nada, zip, zero for mothers of infants or toddlers.

So I have asked the priest’s permission to start a group. Per mission granted. 👍

Finally – our parish only has ten thousand families. 🤷

Just saying, if you build it – they will come. 😃
 
KC: “Just saying, if you build it – they will come.”

Thats awesome. I love it! So true. Looking into my parish here too. Thanks for the positive outlook. I think I just realized I was beginning to sound like a grumpy dwarf. lol Thanks for the post. I feel that I have hijacked this post somehow and have been blabbering on so I am going to clam it up now. 😉
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top