I have loved all of my amateur studies into faith development. I find the subject to be of high interest to me. In this subject area I particularly love, Love, LOVE Stephen D. Jones’ faith shaping tasks from his book published in 1987, originally written in 1978, called Faith Shaping. I am continually recommending this book in every possible situation and quoting from this book frequently as it is the one book that has shaped my youth ministry views the most.

Since Faith Shaping was published in another era, I’m taking great liberties to share my learned insights from these faith shaping tasks mixed in with what is currently happening in youth ministry, or Youth Ministry 3.0 as it has been coined by Youth Specialties. We’ve been calling it Wild Frontier thinking since 1990. Despite the changes in youth ministry, the truth of these faith shaping tasks remain the same.

The Faith Shaping tasks are:

1. Experiencing

2. Categorizing

3. Choosing

4. Claiming

5. Deepening

6. Separating

7. Responding

The second Faith Shaping Task is Categorizing which is consolidating emotions, clarifying values, and shaping attitudes. A lot is being written about this task lately and it is generally coined in today’s terms as Starbuck’s Spirituality. The picking and choosing of what one likes about God has always been a faith shaping task. The new part is in this postmodern world teens and young adults are brazenly picking and choosing from other religions and feel okay about their truth being their truth just for them. Or as USA Today surmised, “Religion today in the USA is a salad bar where people heap on upbeat beliefs they like and often leave the veggies--like strict doctrines--behind.” (USA Today, June 23, 2008)

A great example of Categorizing is this class assignment from a professor from Boston University. From the editorial: “For the past two years, I have asked students in my introductory religion courses at Boston University to get together in groups and invent their own religions. They present their religious creations to their classmates, and then everyone votes (with fake money in a makeshift offering plate) for the new religions they like best. This assignment encourages students to reflect on what separates ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in America's freewheeling spiritual marketplace. It also yields intriguing data regarding what sort of religious beliefs and practices young people love and hate.

“The new religious concoctions my students stir up might seem to mirror the diversity of American religion itself. Students tantalize one another with a religion (Dessertism) that preaches the stomach as the way to the soul, another (The Congregation of Wisdom) that honors Jeopardy! phenom Ken Jennings as its patron saint, and yet another (Exetazo) dedicated to sorting out the pluses and minuses of all the other religions so you can find a faith tailored to your own unique personality.

“What strikes me most about my students' religions, however, is how similar they are. Almost invariably, they mix fun with faith. (Facebookismianity anyone?) But they do not mix faith with dogma. My students are careful--exceedingly careful--not to tell one another what to believe, or even what to do. Above all, they want to be tolerant and non-judgmental. Most of the religions my students developed were fully compatible with other religions.

“They made few demands, either intellectually or morally. Repeatedly, their founders stress that you can join their religion without leaving Catholicism or Judaism or Islam behind.

“…But my students' ‘dogma aversion’ (as one put it) goes liberal Protestantism one further. These young people aren't just allergic to dogma. They are allergic to divinity and even heaven. In the religions of their imagining, God is an afterthought at best. And the afterlife is, as one of my students told me, ‘on the back burner.’

“What my students long for is not salvation after they die but happiness (or, in the case of Euphorianity, euphoria) here and now. They want less stress and more sleep. (In fact, two student religions--Sertaism and ZZZ--emphasize the importance of a good night's sleep.) They want to discover themselves and to give voice to their discoveries. They want to experience joy because of their bodies, not despite them. And they don't want to be told what to do with those bodies, or with whom.

One of my students, Carrie-Anne Solana, told me that the religions her colleagues presented in class amounted to nothing more than ‘organized atheism.’ ‘They took normal human impulses,’ such as eating, drinking, sleeping, having sex and socializing, she said, ‘and justified them under the title of religion while not offering any form of explanation into why we are here, where we came from or where we go when we die.’” (Steven Prothero, chair of Boston University’s Department of Religion, USA Today, February 4, 2008)

So yes, this is the case of taking experiencing faith a bit too far. They don’t have that faith vacuum from not having faith experiences but they also have categorized their faith experiences into something that justifies their lifestyles. This is true for more than these college students. This is true for the youth we know too. The research from the National Study of Youth and Religion confirms this. We see it too.

What are we to do? How do we help our teens categorize but stay on the path of Truth?

One important thing to remember here is that this is a step that the youth take. They are the ones categorizing their experiences and their growing beliefs. If you categorize for them…I can’t even finish that sentence because it is not possible to categorize for someone else.

Your responsibility is to provide a safe place for them to do this and to be accepting and affirming. You can also provide honest feedback. You really can’t accept or affirm a sinful lifestyle that may be a part of their beliefs. But there are ways to provide acceptance and affirmation that upholds Biblical truth. This is so tricky to define in words so I trust that you will handle each individual you love with Holy Spirit wisdom.

Another direct area of help that the youth ministry can certainly provide is to teach in a way where the teens learn with you. This generally is called experiential learning. There is the first faith-shaping task again. The importance of experiential learning is that it removes the teens from passive learning which doesn’t allow for categorizing their own beliefs—until they leave your building. Putting teens into the learning process helps them categorize based on the Truth.

Mark DeVries offered us this warning in his renowned book Family-Based Youth Ministry, “Teenagers’ isolation from adults has left many of them unable to think critically. They are easily swayed by what feels right at the moment, whether it is going to church, buying a $200 pair of shoes or having sex. Without the habit of critical thinking, our teenagers become easy prey to anyone who has something to sell.”

Too many teens are categorizing while being isolated from adults. As church youth ministers, we have a ready-made community full of trusted adults at our disposal to help teens categorize all of their many adolescent thoughts. Perhaps even our greatest role in this Faith Shaping task is to help train your church family to be safe, accepting and affirming.