Young adults believe in a public God, and they are not willing to wait for the church to become public. They are choosing to become deeply engaged in working for the common good in a variety of ways. Kristina Frugé, director of Congregational and Community Initiatives at Augs- burg University and editor of this volume, has said (and I’m paraphras- ing), “The church thinks young adults have left the church. But really, what has happened is the church has left the public spaces where young adults are choosing to live their faith on a daily basis. If the church were to reengage these public spaces, they would find themselves in relation- ship with young adults once again.” The local congregation can learn much about public life through young adults.
Young Adults and the Public Church
Young adults are leading experts on becoming civically engaged, or public. There is consensus within the research that young adults value civic engagement, and, as we have seen earlier, there is a precedent for Christian communities to become more publicly engaged together. We must understand the various roles young adults are playing in civic engagement in order to appreciate and learn alongside them. A 2020 study shows 61.2 percent of young adults (ages sixteen to twenty-nine) participated in discussing political, societal, or local issues with family or friends, 22.1 percent discussed the same with their neighbors, and 14.6 percent did so via social media. The study indicates that 30.3 percent of young adults had spent time volunteering, and 20.6 percent self-reported having done “something positive for their neighborhood or community.” Young adults are civically and politically literate and expect their church to be so as well.
Public Church Engagement Is Rising
Research also suggests young adults are far more civically engaged than older generations with issues like climate change and racism. And the emergence of digital civic engagement will only increase their involvement by providing “a low-barrier-to-entry canvas for young people to create content that is potentially vastly scalable.” It is easy to see how young adults will continue to become more and more involved in civic engagement as more opportunities to do so present themselves and as the challenging realities facing our communities continue to cause damage.
It is clear that public civic engagement is growing in importance for young adults. They long to see a world that is more just and sustainable, and they want to be involved in making that world a reality.
The Biblical Roots of a Public Church
The local congregation is intended to be engaged in the daily public lives—the struggles, the celebrations, the monotony—of the community in which it is located.
Ecclesia and the Call to Public Church Life
Ecclesia is a Greek word used to refer to the church in the New Testament. It was originally used to identify the assembly of those who were called out from among their peers to serve together politically in an advisory body similar to a city council. So, the ecclesia is an assembly of those who have been called out from among the larger community on its behalf. Members were called out not because they were special, or ordained, or blessed, or chosen by God. They were called out to represent the needs, concerns, and desires of their neighbors. Over time, the local congregation became those who were called out from their public lives to enact religious rituals behind closed doors that most of their neighbors would not recognize nor find useful or meaningful.
My friend introduced me to the term “Uno reverse.” Of course I am familiar with the game Uno and its dreaded reverse card, but I am not hip enough to know it had become common parlance as a way of reflecting someone’s insult back upon them. It is similar to “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks back to you.” So, we now jokingly use the term “Ecclesia Uno Reverse” to call local congregations out of their doors and back into their neighborhoods. After all, how can we be called on behalf of our neighbors when we don’t even know our neighbors? When many congregations are not even demo- graphically representative of their neighborhoods?
Why the Church Must Become Public Again
Many young adults put their hope in a God who shows up in ways that feel new and radical to many contemporary congregations. Their broadening understanding of God invites us all to interrogate what many of us have always thought about God and God’s work in our world. This relational and public God creates a relational world, chooses to become public, enters into that space, and frees us to do the same. The grace and mercy of Jesus sets us free from the fear, anxiety, judgment, pride, privilege, self-righteousness, prejudice, and hatred that have held us in bondage for so long. This same creative, life-giving, liberating spirit is now manifest in each one of us. We are now free to work together in community with our neighbors on creating a more just and sustainable world for all.
The Spirit Forms a Public Church
When the church is reminded of the variety of the Spirit’s gifts, we are told, “Each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). We are gathered by a relational God and freed by this relational God to use the variety of our gifts for the common good. This happens in the public square in relationships with our neighbors. The local congregation is not called out from the neighborhood to be an entity in and of itself. We are called into the neighborhood to be a public church, collaborating around our diverse gifts with our neighbors for the sake of the common good, to become good news with and for each other.
Becoming a Public Church Beyond the Walls
Both God and young adults are calling congregations to move beyond their walls, to become public churches. Public churches embedded in neighborhoods, connected to neighbors, and united with neighbor sin the work that is necessary to bring about the healing and hope God de- sires for all living beings.
Work beyond our walls can feel scary and vulnerable, and it is seldom clean-cut or scripted. But that’s how you know it’s rooted in the message of the gospel. Beyond our walls we are invited into curiosity and invited into community with no motives other than love and authenticity. Beyond our walls is the fuller embodiment of the freedom we inherit through the grace of God and love of Christ.
Excerpted from Hungry for Hope: Letters to the Church from Young Adults edited by Jeremy Paul Myers and Kristina Frugé ©2025 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). Reprinted with permission from the publisher.
