Commentary
Where are the young people? When over half of our church has reached the age of 65 or older and the median age is north of 50, this is not an uncommon question as I visit parishes in my area. Sadly, when it comes to campus ministries in the Episcopal Church, we are struggling. Some dioceses don’t have any campus ministries.
Where there are campus ministries, many of them are struggling to gather more than a dozen students because they are understaffed, under-equipped, and in many cases untrained. Then when we look over at evangelical campus ministries, they are bursting at the seams, 100-plus flocking to their gatherings. Where are the young people? indeed. In so many cases, they’re not in the Episcopal Church.
We have an amazing opportunity before us if we have the eyes to see it. It’s an opportunity that not only extends the love of God to a group largely absent from our churches but also an opportunity to shape the future of our society, our world, and our churches.
When Daniel arrived at Princeton, he was decidedly not a Christian and identified as an atheist. Then his roommate was baptized. Pretty soon, Daniel’s circle of friends seemed to be full of Episcopal Christians. He started asking questions—lots of questions! He started attending our services regularly. Then on Easter morning in 2023, Daniel was baptized. The next year, he was confirmed and he became a very influential leader in our ministry.
Reflecting on his journey, he wrote:
In that fractured and broken world, a world where I could not find my own way, the Church was a beacon pointing to a greater whole that I could not see. What ultimately called me to baptism and the journey of a new life in Christ was … a sense beyond the rational that there was something greater than myself out there, and a sense that I could find it here (the church).
… it’s meant looking at my life in a way I’ve never really done before, taking seriously what it means to love God and to love my neighbors as myself. For me, walking with Christ means committing myself to the work of building God’s kingdom here on Earth. As a child of immigrants who fled the Cultural Revolution for these shores, that means taking seriously that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and committing myself to do justice for those rights.
He’s now at UC Berkeley School of Law and active in the Episcopal Church there. Who knows where God may lead him? Daniel’s dream job? Supreme Court justice!
Here they are—future leaders, all gathered on our university campuses. Will we seek to bring to them the fragrance of the gospel through the vital work of campus ministries?
What is more, most of these young adults on our college campuses are at a season when they are still sorting through what they believe, still forming foundational convictions about matters like religion, ethics, and morality; still weighing their options on how and where to invest their lives. And it’s happening while most of them are not yet weighted down with adult responsibilities like mortgages, car payments, and supporting growing families.
It’s a time when they have the space, time, and freedom to explore their options. It is such a foundational time in their life development. And if the Spirit of God has an avenue of witness and discipleship into their lives, many will seek to build their foundation on Jesus Christ.
Anna came to Princeton completely uninterested in religion. But then friendships blew up and Anna felt lost and adrift. Then she remembered her orientation leader, Ian, had mentioned that he attended the Episcopal Church at Princeton, so she thought she’d give it a try.
The air smelled like something smoky and sweet, which I’d later learn was incense. I didn’t know when to bow, or how to chant, or what exactly the Nicene Creed was. But I could do coffee hour. I realized I was very good at standing in the narthex and being talked to by legions of the kindest, most open people I’d ever encountered. … I feel no shame in admitting that I was still iffy on the religious aspect of church, because I think most of us were in the very beginning of our spiritual journeys. It was the people that drew me back, plus this gentle electricity I felt when a whole group of people were clumsily debating theology together. I’d later come to pin that feeling down as the work of the Holy Spirit in me, and between all of us.
It happened during a Psalm; 103 to be exact. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” I didn’t realize until I heard that line that what I was searching for among the candles and incense was forgiveness. It’s a little ironic, isn’t it: in alienation, when I was furthest from myself, I felt closest to the God of whom Jesus speaks. Bad times make good Christians, because bad times carry always the promise of forgiveness. So yes, I cried. In front of everyone. What I had spent a couple months—and probably my entire life—fervently chasing had always been mine.
This is the peace we find in Jesus Christ. When we begin to conceptualize the enormity of his sacrifice, and his unwavering love and advocacy, we stumble into purpose. To love God doesn’t require money or exertion, and it doesn’t pay out unequally. The sun shines, and rain falls, on both good and evil. Turning my face toward the good is my choice. I am a Christian because I cannot help but give thanks every time I warm my hands over the knowledge that I am loved and forgiven exactly as I am.
Anna jumped in with both feet. She and I started meeting weekly to discuss the journey of faith. She later was confirmed and is now serving on our leadership team. Anna’s a bit unsure where she is heading after college—law school, seminary? Wherever she is bound, I am hopeful that what started on campus will only grow and blossom and flourish as her journey continues.
I came into the Episcopal Church from the evangelical world, in which I had already done campus ministry for 20 years. When I started working as a campus chaplain in the Episcopal Church, I was shocked by the lack of resources and training provided for those seeking to work with young people. My previous ministry was marked by training, coaching, and a storehouse of resources designed to help me do gospel ministry among students.
But once I started in campus ministry in the Episcopal Church, it felt like I was on my own. No outside resources, no coaches, no training. It was all up to me to figure out. When I found the YACM (Young Adult Campus Ministry) network’s summer conference, it was like stumbling upon a luxurious oasis a long desert journey.
Here I found the camaraderie I was desperately seeking. Here we could work together to expand our influence and help more Young Adult and Campus Ministries start, grow, and flourish. And so I dived in. I soon stepped into the role of the YACM’s coordinator for Province II and worked with fellow province coordinators to assess how YACM was faring and planning.
In 2024, I was so excited because we had finally forged the semblance of a strategic plan to send YACM into the future and across the country—a plan to create a storehouse of ministry resources, to create more needed spaces for young adult connections, to network broadly and seek partnerships with dioceses in need of resources and training to start new campus ministries. And then it all disappeared when our YACM director and staff were let go in the Episcopal Church Center’s realignments.
In the evangelical world, there are entire organizations devoted to campus ministry—with whole departments focused on creating resources and training for discipleship, evangelism, fundraising, and outreach. If I were to compare what is available to our evangelical counterparts, I don’t know if I ought to laugh or cry.
At Princeton, we are seeing exciting growth and transformation. Every year we see adult baptisms and confirmations. Every year, we send off graduates who experienced a rich journey of discipleship with us. Every year, the Spirit of God works to bring new students into the community such that we are not shrinking as we see our best leaders graduate.
I am grateful for built-in resources such that we have maintained a vibrant ministry year after year. But then I look around. In a large diocese like New Jersey, with at least 25 traditional four-year universities, not to mention the multitude of community colleges, we only have two active campus ministries. Two!
In our neighboring diocese, Newark, there are no young adult or campus ministries. Zero. What about students who attend those other campuses? And then I multiply that by all the dioceses that have multiple universities in their orbit that only have a few or no campus ministries. What help will they have to invest on their campuses? And then I think of students like Daniel and Anna. What if the Episcopal Church wasn’t here at Princeton?
What if we in the Episcopal Church prioritized our ministry to young adults and college students? We wring our hands at the decline of our church and the increasing age of our parishioners and yet we fail to prioritize resources and leadership to reach young people. Consider the potential if we help young adults experience the gospel and lay foundations for a life of influence, a life in which they seek to live out the gospel in whatever vocation God calls them into.
Consider too the excitement of seeing young leaders growing in faith, trained in spiritual practice and leadership, joining the ranks of our parishes ready to serve and grow with us to embody and share the gospel. Imagine a time when we no longer ask, Where are the young people?
The Rev. Allen Wakabayashi is chaplain of the Episcopal Church at Princeton.
