Lost, Restless: Why we do what we do.
“1 in 3 college freshmen has depression, anxiety” proclaims one headline from U.S. News and World Report.
Another article, this one from CNBC.com, warns that “Millennials lead shift away from organized religion as pandemic tests Americans’ faith.”
Yet another one from a Harvard study: something like 61% of young people “feel “serious loneliness.” That post continues, saying that “Young adults suffer high rates of both loneliness and anxiety and depression. According to a recent CDC survey, 63% of this age group are suffering significant symptoms of anxiety or depression.”
About two or so years ago, the staff and leadership at Atlas began interviewing college students to hear from them how they felt about life and their place in it while in the midst of college. We heard lots of different aches and pains from them: seeking love in a sexualized and isolated culture; figuring out how to pay bills and pass classes; pressure from parents to make certain career choices when their passions led them elsewhere; a loss of faith in the church, if not in Jesus himself.
Everything we heard, though, seemed to boil down to one thing:
Students feel lost. They feel restless. Homeless. Purposeless.
We often joke with our students that another name for graduation is “that existential cliff”--and it resonates loudly.
So what are we to do? What is the church’s role, and more specifically, what is the role of Atlas in the midst of this?
We believe our role is making room for restless hearts to find home with Christ. This is the heartbeat of everything Atlas does and why we do it.
Let’s break this down:
Restless Hearts. As we said, students feel restless, lost, purposeless, bored, full of anxiety and depression and a sense of homelessness. All that they knew from high school and before is gone, but all of their lives have been pointing towards this singular point of graduation; what’s after that? What’s the point of all that pointing towards this moment, this existential cliff? Their hearts are restless; they are exhausted; they feel lost.
Making room. We believe our primary call in the midst of this lostness and homelessness is hospitality of body and soul. It is our job as a Christian ministry to actively create space for students as they are and where they are. That’s why we center our ministry around a meal on Wednesday nights, followed by a time of community and worship. That’s also why we say explicitly every Wednesday night that, “Because it’s God who has set this table, none of our world’s usual dividing lines hold sway here—for God welcomes all to His Great Banquet.” We make room for every student to find that the purpose they seek has a fulfillment.
To Find Home. This is most students’ primary longing: a place and community in which they are welcomed, and not just welcomed, but a place where they truly belong. Where their story in all it’s contours, twists, and turns has found a place in a larger story, with a larger community, for a larger purpose. We believe this is what Christ offers to students, and what we too are called to offer: a place and a community to call home, a place to ask big questions and face dark days together, a direction on which to travel with a compass pointing towards true rest.
With Christ. Yes, we believe that the only way–”The Way, the Truth, the Life”--is found in the Risen Lord we know as Jesus of Nazareth. We not only believe our final home is with him in the end; we also believe that this whole process–our restlessness, our making room, and our finding home–all happen with and because and for him.
This is why we do what we do. Students feel lost. We acknowledge not that we’ve already arrived, prepared like used car salesmen with their slick presentation and even more slick hair. No. Instead, we say we know the but The Way only because the Way first knows us. In fact, The Way is a man, and He’s already with us. We just have to turn our heads, open our eyes, and see. We’re making room for that here at Atlas.