Constructing Spiritual Identities: Inviting Teens to Make Sense of Culturally Relevant Spiritual Narratives

Introduction and Research Problem:

Christian ministries in the United States and the Western Church have not yet put teens in the driver’s seat regarding self-directed spirituality. Despite affirming youth leadership, renewalist ministries (ie, ministries that have been influenced by the Charismatic Renewal Movement) have often commodified children, teens, or young adult spirituality. Within U.S. ministry contexts, few age-appropriate resources exist to support Gen Z and Gen Alpha's growing interest in spirituality, and age segregation has limited teens' participation in intergenerational conversations about encountering God, navigating cultural pluralism, and Christian spiritual formation. Without sufficient modeling, support, and protection, teens have lacked opportunities to experience spirituality, form identities based on their experiences, and steward their unique gifts within community. 

This research examines the conclusions teens at Mosaic Community Church drew about their own spirituality by analyzing adult community members' testimonies. Furthermore, it suggests a methodology to increase teens' agency in maneuvering spiritual narratives. 

This semi-ethnographic research asserts the importance of giving teens opportunities to evaluate the Christian spirituality of their own communities. In “Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors,” Multicultural Literature Researcher Rudine Sims Bishop acknowledges that sharing culturally relevant narratives and presenting opportunities to evaluate them may scaffold teens’ vocabulary and identity formation. This research examined how teens construct meaning from culturally relevant adult narratives of spiritual encounter.

Research Questions:

• Can reviewing case studies of spiritual encounter from within their church community support teens to:
  • …generate lines of inquiry about Christian spirituality?
  • …draw connections to their own spiritual experience?
  • …develop the context-specific vocabulary to describe their spirituality?

Methodology:

Within the evangelical renewalist context of Mosaic Church, culturally relevant narratives include testimonies of encounter from within the Mosaic Church community. In selecting adult participants to interview, I relied on criterion sampling. Adult participants needed to be 18 years old, have attended Mosaic Church for one year, and have some biblical literacy. Furthermore, they must have experienced some kind of “spiritual encounter” with God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, such as an inspired picture, dream, or word. They needed to be able to describe the context of their encounter, what it taught or confirmed to them about the character of God, and how it contributed to their overall spiritual formation. The final adult sample contained 3 men and 1 woman; 2 Anglo, 1 Latino/a/x, and 1 Mixed Race individual; and 1 Gen Z, 1 Millennial, 1 Gen X, and 1 Baby Boomer (4 total). To ensure that teens feel comfortable interrogating these accounts in a Cascadian culture that resists direct conflict, I kept the identities of the adult interviewees anonymous.  I tried to keep as much of the speakers’ syntax and phrasing as possible for authenticity.

After interviewing the adults, I selected 3 of the 4 interviews and synthesized each into a 1-page encounter narrative. I then developed a 1-page discussion guide using Harvard Project Zero Thinking Routines that targeted teens' analytical skills. I sourced 70 percent of the discussion guide questions from the Connect, Extend, Challenge routine, and  30 percent of questions from the Creative Questions and Think, Puzzle, Explore routines. Finally, MetaMetrics Lexile analyzer tool to ensure that the 1-page case studies and discussion guide texts were no more challenging than a 5th-grade reading level.

In determining teens to invite to participate in the focus group, I also relied on criterion sampling. Teen participants needed to be between 12-18 years old, consistently attend Mosaic Youth ministry, have parent(s) who have joined Mosaic Church, have some biblical literacy, and have some prior exposure to spiritual encounter, either through close family or their own direct experience(s). They needed to be able to reflect on their firsthand experiences, generate questions, and remain relatively engaged in small group discussions for 30 minutes. The final teen sample contained 3 boys and 3 girls; 1 Anglo, 2 Latino/a/xs, 2 Asians, and 1 African American; one 12-year-old, one 13-year-old, one 14-year-old, and two 15-year-olds (6 total). 

To evaluate how teens utilized these testimonies, I measured teens' responses to questions about renewalist Christian spirituality using a pre-test and post-test design. Teens responded to questions like, “Why do you think God may initiate encounters with people?” In evaluating teen responses, I identified common themes. 

Findings:

The results of this research demonstrate that renewalist teens may use community members’ case studies of spiritual encounter as a canvas to explore their own experiences and beliefs. Indeed, culturally relevant spiritual narratives may be a source of undervalued community cultural wealth for young people’s spiritual formation. Responding to culturally relevant case studies may catalyze teens’ self-reflection and vocabulary about spirituality, equipping them to describe their own experiences. Furthermore, interacting with culturally relevant narratives may catalyze teens’ spiritual agency and support them to make more meaningful connections with people. Rather than commercializing youth ministry, this research challenges diverse ministry contexts to consider what spiritual narratives may exist within their communities. How may adults permit teens to freely approach and interact with these narratives?