Missionising Youth Identity Crisis Towards a missional hermeneutic of coping in youth ministry practice

The intention of this paper is to interpret the ontological conditions of youth identity crisis missionally. This is first done by conceptualising identity crisis as a psychological phenomenon using frameworks of authenticity and attachment to explain the impact of early attachment abuse, abandonment depression, attachment-anxiety with God, and self-regulation on the identity formation of the youth. Secondly, the paper introduces a missional hermeneutic that provides an interpretative framework for coping with the crises of identity amongst young people. A missional hermeneutic for coping with the crisis of identity formation, therefore, elaborates on the missional 1 Victor Counted is Research Associate, Department of Practical Theology and Missiology Stellenbosch University, South Africa Religion & Society Research Cluster, School of Social Science & Psychology, Western Sydney University, Australia V.Counted@westernsydney.edu. au or connect@victorcounted.com 2 It might be difficult to give a definition of “youth” in this paper because of the on-going debate on who is a youth. Nel (2000: 97) has noted that the concept of youth is comprehensive and inclusive. The idea of youth is often looked at as being age-related and connotes specific age brackets. Sometimes between 18 and 35 years, and sometimes between 18 and 25 and so on. These age categorizations does not really explain who a youth really is, as František Štěch has pointed out in his paper “Who are Youth in Theological Perspective? ” Stech described youth as young people, adolescents or young adults whose age varies from early pubescence to late young adulthood. This “youth” perspective suggests a period of transition and formation from childhood to adulthood. Owing to this point, Stech saw youth from a theological perspective as a community in transition and not as a strictly age-related group, but rather a viewpoint, the special way human beings relate to God. Theologically, “we may see youth as inseparable from our whole humanity or from the human condition. ” In other words youth is an integral part of one’s identity that also expresses “‘kairos’, a very opportune time, distinct from others by its characteristic features (e.g. longing for love and acceptance, searching for meaning, openness, excitement, activity, creativity, hope, pursuing development, expecting the future to come, etc.) but yet inseparable from totality of human being. ” (Stech 2016, p.263). Youth is therefore looked at in this paper through the lens of formation and human expectation, and as a community in transition awaiting God who reveals Himself within their ontological crisis and experiences. 3 Identity is another important concept I want to define in this paper. My interest is not to look at the identity of the youth as it were but to understand the different ontological experiences that form the youth’s identity and belong to the youth’s humanity in their everyday life. In other words, I am looking at how the attachment abuse, abandonment depression, insecure attachment experience with God, and experiences of self-regulation impact youth identity and in the process is seen as some sort of ontological crisis. These experiences are what I have conceptualised in this paper as identity crisis. I am not referring to their identity in Christ at this point. 4 The crises of identity has been conceptualised in this study as the constellation of attachment abuse, abandonment depression, insecure God-attachment anxiety, and experiences of self-regulation as part of the ontology of being a youth living the world. Missionalia 44:1 86 Victor Counted basis of biblical interpretation as a powerful framework within which to interpret a skewed, conflicted identity. The author herewith proposes a missional opportunity that can activate the missional consciousness of young people in their time of crisis and identity formation. Furthermore, the author insists that this missional methodology can be a very useful strategy for producing therapeutic change in young people and can help youth ministry workers and pastoral caregivers to reframe the crisis of youth identity formation from the perspective of ‘missio Dei’.