Good News as Discipleship: Listening to Young Adults
Rachel Collins at the Restoration Collective conference in April 2026
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To be honest, when the invitation to this gathering came through and it said we would be exploring the concept of discipleship, I noticed myself resisting the invitation.
Here’s why: Over the last several years, I have noticed the word discipleship slowly disappearing from my vocabulary. It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop using what is indisputably a biblical concept, but I think a subconscious result of both my own experience and especially student reports of abuse hiding behind certain forms of discipleship.
Examples flooded my mind of discipleship used as a tool to control young people. In one of my ministry contexts, students reported being in a discipleship group in which they weren’t allowed to leave group gatherings until every. single. person. had heard a word from God. The group often ended with everyone circling around the one person who hadn’t heard from God yet, and they stayed around the student, praying fervently until the Holy Spirit spoke, and the student heard and knew what was being spoken.
On another occasion, It was reported that a student sought advice from her discipler because she felt anxiety going home for Christmas break because her father abused her and her mother. And her discipler instructed her to search her heart for sin to confess so that she would not be abused over Christmas break. I got ahold of a discipleship training manual that a church was using with college students that says things like:
Not only does God have and exercise authority but he also delegates that authority to humans. This is what we mean by a discipler having delegated authority.
The opposite of the heart condition of submission is the heart condition of rebellion.
My submission is absolute to God because it is not based upon the effectiveness or performance of the delegated authority.
Those are obviously dramatic, but you can probably think of cultish type groups who have abused the concept of discipleship. This often happens in university settings. Situations in which a person inserts themselves in an unhealthy way in the name of discipleship.
So when Pat asked me to speak about discipleship and the next generation, I texted him back an enthusiastic “happy to!” while internally I was hesitant because discipleship, in the world of young adult ministry, has sometimes felt like code for compliance, spiritual abuse, and hierarchy. I have seen it used like a power-based strategy to get young people to stay in the church and more importantly, stay quiet.
So, why has young adult ministry in particular tempted the church toward this power based model?
It makes sense. For years, the narrative has been nothing short of: the sky is falling! Young adults are leaving! They go to college and they never come back to church! ⅔ of them will be done with church by age 19! What do we do! We are panicking!
Discipleship, in these conditions, has extremely high stakes. So, we need to Get. Discipleship. Right. Get it right while we still have them in our control.
I’m going to make a side note here, and then I will get back to my main point. There are a lot of stories out there about young men’s increasing involvement in the church. Some folks feel like all will be well: young men are staying in the church! But if you look closely at Pew research and other reports, it appears that young women’s religious decline has simply brought them on par with their male counterparts. It’s true that there’s energy around Theobros and tradwives, but the reality is that those are marginal and unlikely to keep young people in the church.
So back to my main point. It’s true that young people are attending church less often, and
this leads to fear. And some people respond with control. And human-driven, control-based models of discipleship have grown out of that fear.
But of course, discipleship at its core is not these things. And it is worthwhile to examine our biases and return to the scriptures, so that is what I did.
When I looked at the life and ministry of Jesus, through the lens of discipleship, particularly discipling the next generation, what struck me in a fresh way was evidence of the upside down kingdom Jesus taught about — where the last are first and the first are last. And where the insiders are outsiders, and the outsiders are insiders.
In fact, if Jesus is attempting power-based, numbers driven discipleship in the gospels, he’s doing a really bad job!
In Mark 5, he gives strict orders not to tell anyone he raised a girl from the dead.
He heals a leper in Luke 5 but tells him not to tell anyone.
In Matthew 13, he tells stories so they are hard to understand except for the few with ears to hear.
In John 6, Jesus starts talking about eating his blood and body, and many turn away.
None of these strategies were numbers-based, control-centered discipleship strategies.
Jesus seems to be asking a lot of questions, listening to the answers, meeting the needs of the people around him, and speaking with nuance, more than dictating a modern, black-and-white discipleship program meant to keep people on a tight leash and exert hierarchical control.
In light of Jesus’ life and ministry, discipleship becomes less about exerting power and control and more about letting go of power and control. Just read the book of Acts for what that means for the first disciples as they embrace that beautiful concept of , kenosis and empty themselves
Which brings me back to young adults. We must ask ourselves if they see the disciples ahead of them on the journey (us) giving up power like Jesus models and journeying together as his humble disciples. Or holding on tight to this little bit of power in our church circles and exerting that power over them. I just don’t believe that’s the imaginative way of discipleship in the New Testament.
So, if we see discipleship as following Jesus together and we model our discipleship from Jesus, then what does that look like to follow Jesus alongside young adults?
Young adults often make this point: God is bringing abuse of power into the light. They’ve seen the documentaries about abusive movements. They’ve listened to the podcasts about abusive pastors.
And while to some people, that might sound like bad news, to them, this is good news. Light is shining in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.
In the Old Testament, the prophets were sometimes called by God to perform actions that were at the very least ridiculous looking and at most painful. I don’t imagine Elijah particularly enjoyed laying on his side for 390 days. Isaiah walking naked and barefoot for three years likely felt excessive. Elisha’s shooting of arrows out the window probably felt somewhat silly. And Jeremiah’s smashed pottery to represent the destruction of Jerusalem would have grieved him.
But all of these acts communicated a message and spoke to the religious powers of the day.
John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus, announcing the Kingdom of God, calling God’s people both as a prophet and as a disciple. He wears weird clothes. He eats weird things. He cries out in the wilderness for repentance.
And I guess my question is, in the spirit of Jeremiah, Elijah, and John the Baptist, what if young adults leaving the church is the prophetic act of the 21st century that we’re missing. What if discipling the next generation looks like listening to why they’re leaving the church and coming alongside them there in the midst of that?
Prophetic acts are meant to be stark.
They are meant to shake us from our slumber.
And they are accompanied by a message.
And I am seeing those attributes in the exodus of young people from the church.
What if young people leaving the church is the prophetic act of the 21st century that we’re missing?
What if God is doing a new thing, and many young people have discerned it?
And what if their message to us, the very message that we try to hush and we try to solve with discipleship strategies, is an invitation to us, the leaders in the room, to participate in our own discipleship and spiritual formation?
Young adults are telling us:
We are no longer willing to participate in spiritually abusive systems
We will not turn a blind eye to top-down discipleship that elevates power over laying down one’s life for the sake of the other.
We will not participate in spaces if they are not inclusive.
We don’t want a show. We want to show love.
So what do we do?
Take their message seriously. Do not be afraid to let the light shine in the darkness and bring to light unhealthy practices in your own faith community.
Educate your congregants to facilitate intergenerational relationships.
Nurture good listeners in your ministries: teach them to say, “tell me more” instead of shutting young people down when they speak up
Tell good discipleship stories… following Jesus together can be beautiful.
Empower young adults to lead…they want to be involved. And then trust them to lead.
I met a prophet once. A senior in college, Luke had been part of the very discipleship group that had that manual I showed you. He was subject to control tactics and cult-like behavior for two years of his college experience through that church. But one day, a friend of his left the group and the church. It led him to ask questions and eventually leave himself. But it didn’t stop there. Luke worked for the college newspaper and he started writing articles to uncover spiritual abuse in local churches and at his college. He started researching and writing papers in ministry classes about it. He agonized over it. And one day he quietly said to me, “Rachel, I need to take a break from church, I’m tired and I’ve had enough.”
He reminded me of Elijah after facing down the prophets of Baal. Depleted, exhausted. And I couldn’t help but feel like God was meeting him in that and demanding he have a nap. “I hear you, Luke, and I think your refusal to bend to controlling power structures is a faithful act.”
The exodus of the next generation might be the prophetic act the church needs today. Are you willing to listen?
