D05. “Friending” and Ship Wrecks: Pastoral Care with the Twenty-Somethings

Kristen Leslie, Yale Divinity School
1:30-4:00 PM, June 8-12
$325

Young Adults, the Twenty-Something age group, populate our churches, campus ministries, militaries, and prisons.  Young adults in faith have the capacity to think critically, to search energetically for the ideal, to be appropriately reliant upon a self-chosen authority outside the self, to passionately affirm what they ambivalently believe, and to make a pledge of fidelity (short-time or long-term) to a community that will hold and confirm them and their dreams of the world.  In the midst of identity and faith developments, pastoral care with young adults requires a lively capacity to help them make meaning of their lived experiences.  In this course we will explore the developmental tasks, cultural worlds, and religious characteristics of American Twenty-Somethings for the purposes of providing effective and transformative pastoral care.

Class resrouces (pdf format unless otherwise indicated):

"Letter from a Deployed Navy Doctor re Military Chaplains"

"Making the Transition from Serviceman to Student"

"Spirituality of the Professorate"

"The Spiritual Life of College Students"

Bella English, "Dinner and a Movie? No thanks on College Campuses."

Benoit Denizet-Lewis, "Friends, Friends with Benefits, and the Benefits of the Local Mall"

Brooks, "The Organization Kid"

Link: Danah Boyd on Social Networks and Immersive Environments (much shorter than other Boyd clip)

Danah Boyd, "Friends, Friendsters and Top 8" (skip the first 6:50 minutes) (link not currently available)

Donna Schaper, "The Transcendent Role of Chaplains"

Kristen Leslie, "When Violence is Not Stranger:  Pastoral Care and Acquaintance Rape"

MacDonald, "Search for Meaning on Campus"

Robert Wuthnow, "The Virtual Church: Religious Uses of the Internet" (in After theBaby Boomers; How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion (link not currently available)

Sarah Baxter, "'Hook-up' Gives US a Cooler Sex Life"

Sarah Boxer, "Blogs"

Robert Wuthnow, "After the Baby Boomers"

A Portrait of "Generation Next" from The Pew Research Center

A Portrait of "Generation Next", Summary of Findings

Generation Q

Web page: Adding Spirituality

Web page: Danah Boyd, "Friends, Friendsters and Top 8"

Web page: Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum

Questions? Call 203-432-9526

Last updated: June 8, 2009