Jeffrey F. Keuss

Review: Defiant Hope, Active Love

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Cover image for "Defiant Hope, Active Love" edited by Jeffrey F Keuss

Defiant Hope, Active Love, Jeffrey F. Keuss, editor. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883919) 2024.

Summary: What young adults seek in places of work, faith, and community and how churches may respond hospitably.

Many congregations have witnessed an exodus of young adults. But Jeffrey F. Keuss and the researchers with Pivot NW who contributed to this work are convinced that this is not for lack of spiritual interest. Rather, their research showed young adults care deeply about faith and long for the creation of faithful spaces connecting worship, community, and the working out of faith in society that answers calls for justice.

They began by defining emerging adulthood and then researching those in this cohort. As a result, they identified six themes that characterized thriving organizations that served young adults: community, personal transformation, social transformation, purpose finding, creativity, and accountability. The question is not how to attract young adults. Rather, will the longing for belonging, believing, and becoming find a welcoming and sustaining space in churches?

However, the character and level of religious affiliation shapes what they look for. They identified four classes of religiosity: abiders, adapters, assenters, and avoiders. Then, the researchers identified on-ramps and barriers. On ramps include people care for each other; they are involved with the poor and disadvantaged; church is a place to meet people; it is also a place to deal with grief and loss; and leaders including pastors welcome them. Barriers include resistance to change; political differences; hypocrisy and judgmentalism of both people and leaders; and no space to talk about controversial issues.

Deep listening in interviews with young adults turned up themes related to what has already been noted. They longed for communities that actively listened to and obeyed God. They addressed spiritual formation needs of discipleship and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Churches need to be attentive to young adult needs for authenticity, an understanding of their lifestyles, the ways churches have and can wound, and for a God who can take the hard questions. Young adults long for a depth of community that extends beyond the church walls. Young adult ministry needs to be sustainable. Specifically, this means structures, leadership, relational focus, creation of space, and good communication. Young adult ministry also needs to have young adult leadership. Transition needs to be managed well. Finally, intergenerational relationships characterized by two-way mentoring are valued.

It is vital to recognize the liminal space of young adult life. It is one of transition. Churches that minister effectively accept that. People move away for work. Or they mature into a different life stage. Effective ministries see themselves as resource stations supporting this transitional space. They help people live well in the present rather than adding to the pressure to move on.

I’ve already noted that young adults need to lead young adult ministry. The researchers encourage identifying rather than developing leaders. Leadership also means recognizing the challenges of young adult life, which may include provisions for stepping back and sharing leadership. Mentors who can come alongside to support without taking over are vital.

Pivot NW outlines some of the different church models and how they engage young adults. Working in the Pacific Northwest, they address the Mars Hill model and its fallout. They describe New Community and household of the Spirit models. On the basis of their research, they posit that safety, security, and belonging are the bottom line.

The researchers conclude with a discussion of the deep poverty of metamodernism, both economically and spiritually. Reflecting the title, they summarize the thrust of their work as a call to building lovingly defiant communities.

This book is a rich resource for church leaders pressing into young adult ministry. They name cultural, generational, and ministry realities to consider. Each chapter offers questions ministry leaders can use to apply the material. The contributors strike a good balance of outlining research and summarizing practical implications. Finally, I appreciated the concise writing that offered substantive help in 176 pages!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Live the Questions

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Live the Questions

Live the Questions, Jeffrey F. Keuss. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019.

Summary: Proposes that a deep and satisfying life is closely related to the questions we ask, how we pursue them, and to whom they lead us.

It is sometimes thought that Christians are those who have found answers, perhaps the answer and that strong faith is characterized by a sense of certainty. To have questions, or even worse, doubts, is thought to reflect a lack of faith, or to be on the road to leaving one’s faith behind. We often err in one of two ways: we either anesthetize ourselves to the questions, or we take shortcuts, accepting textbook answers without facing what the questions expose about us, and about the ultimate we seek beyond the questions.

Jeffrey F. Keuss believes that the questions we ask may be more important than the answers we think we have found. He writes, “I hope you find that to be human is to ask more and more questions, and that deep meaning is found in the journey and pursuit of where and to whom those questions will bring us.” He proposes that we live the questions rather than just ask for the answers.

Keuss takes us a step further. He proposes not only that we live our questions but to consider the questions that fill the pages of scripture and that shape and form the lives of those who people its pages. He explores eight such questions:

  1. Where are you? (with Adam and Eve)
  2. Am I my brother’s keeper? (Cain)
  3. How will I know ? (Abraham)
  4. Who am I? (with Moses at the burning bush)
  5. Why this burden? (Moses, under the burdens of leadership)
  6. How can I just vanish in darkness? (Job)
  7. How can I be born after growing old? (Nicodemus)
  8. Where can I get that living water? (the Samaritan woman)

We are faced with how we will respond to the God who pursues those who are estranged from Him. We encounter the irony of a God whose mark on Cain makes God the keeper of a brother who murdered. We discover a God whose answer to Abraham is to take him out of his tent to the stars in the heavens, a God who delights in Abraham’s probing honesty, and whose answer is far more than Abraham could dream asleep in his tent.

In each chapter, Keuss probes the question asked, whether by God or people and how these questions brought these people into deeper contact both with their own humanity and the living God. Along the ways he references everything from Kierkegaard to Steve Martin.

Perhaps one of the most moving stories he relates is from his time as a young minister in Glasgow, visiting a comatose, unresponsive patient with whom he read scripture, prayed and spent thirty minutes just being there, doing all he was supposed to do, and feeling utterly futile. Later he receives a small bequest from the family that he is ashamed to use, until a colleague counsels, “This check isn’t about you, Jeff….This is about paying it forward beyond you. For some reason what you did was more than you or your intentions, so you need to honor that somehow in his name.” And he did by buying a pair of black Dr. Martens boots that he wore wherever he ministered “reminding [him] to have faith, to show up, and be ready for the unexpected.”

Keuss invites us in this book to listen to our questions, and the questions of the scriptures. He urges us that a healthy process takes us into relationships, and not isolation, and that questions and a life of faith and worship in community need not be at odds. He invites us not merely to discuss questions but to live in them, to walk in them, and rather than simply looking for answers, to allow the questions to take us deeper into the mystery and wonder of God.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.