The Myth of Growing Alone | Young Adults

Y-A, you look amazing tonight. You look good out there. Hey, if we haven't had a chance to meet, my name is Jordan. I have the honor of serving as the director here at Crossroads Young Adults. We're just really honored that you're in the room tonight. Now, in the year 2000, I know that was a long time ago, in the year 2000, there's this sociologist, his name was Robert Putnam, and he wrote this famous book called Bowling Alone. Bowling Alone. The book really has like very little to do with bowling. The book is actually about the social decline that America was on in the late 20th century. He writes that things like social clubs and civic groups and dinner parties and sports leagues, like all of those things were on a massive downward spiral in the late 1900s. And he writes that these types of things were on decline, this slow erosion of friendship and community, because what was happening is that people were replacing shared experiences with individual experiences. When Robert Putnam wrote the book Bowling Alone, bowling alleys were actually popping off. Like more people were bowling than ever. More money was invested into it, more money was going into it, more people, more games, and more lanes. But bowling leagues, like the communal aspect,

the same time next week, sign up and commit to a team type of community, that was collapsing. And he uses bowling to sort of illustrate what was taking place in America on a more macro level at the time, which was this. People didn't stop doing things, people just stopped doing things together. If I had the chance to like sit down with each of you individually, maybe we're sitting across the table from each other at coffee, maybe we go out to lunch, like if I had a chance to do that with you as an individual and we sat across the table eye to eye and I said, how are you? Like, how are you doing? How is life? I would be willing to put some money out there that the number one response to that question would be, I'm busy. I'm busy. I find myself saying this to people all the time. My immediate answer used to be, I'm good. And over the past few years, I feel like I shifted from I'm good to I'm busy. Busyness is like a badge of honor in 2026. I know that when I get busy, when life gets chaotic, when things feel a little bit overwhelming, I begin to rationalize why I need to move

from shared experiences into individual experiences. Let me tell you what I mean by that. I remember being a college student. I was playing soccer. I was trying to balance the workload and class schedule. I was also starting to look for internships. And I remember having this thought and probably also telling people, man, when I graduate and life just like chills out a little bit, then I'm gonna like have a lot more time to hang out with friends. And then I remember I was on the job hunt, the job search, the interview process, thinking about saying yes to a new opportunity that would take me potentially to a new city. And I remember thinking in my brain, man, once I just get through like the interviews, like once I just get the job thing settled and taken care of, when the dust settles, then I'm gonna have time to get plugged in to a church. I remember being engaged, planning a wedding with my now wife, Lauren. And I just remember thinking and telling people, dude, when we get married, like after the planning is over and done, we're gonna have so much extra time that we're gonna be able to use to like hang out with friends. I think that I've learned that being an adult

is every few months just finding yourself saying, hey, I think it's gonna like slow down in a few months. Like, I think things are probably gonna settle down. I know this has been a hard stretch, but like, I think that I see in a few months it's gonna chill out a little bit. And it's like, but isn't that what you said a few months ago? Didn't you just say that thing a few months ago? And can I just be real with you for a second? It's probably not gonna slow down. In fact, I would be willing to say it's not going to slow down. In my experience through the 20s, it only sped up. It only got busier, it seemed. And I wish that I had realized sooner that busyness was not an excuse that I was putting out there to disengage from community. I wish I would have realized that being busy was precisely the exact reason that I needed to double down on it and choose to engage with spiritual community. And in the midst of busyness, you and I are tempted to believe a lie. This is it. I can grow on my own. I can grow on my own. And instead of testing out bowling alone, we're testing out growing alone. I can grow on my own. It's not that big of a deal. Like I'm busy, I'm not sure I have time for friendship or spiritual community type commitments and so we say things or we think things like, I mean like my relationship with God is kind of just like between me and him. I mean like really, it's like not anybody else's business. We say things, we think things like, I mean I don't like have to go to church to be a

Christian. I mean I don't have to like hang out around other Christians in order to be a Christian. And you don't need me up here with a microphone to tell you that we live in an extremely hyper individualistic society. But what I've also noticed and what I believe is that the American church has also perpetuated this narrative that you and I can grow spiritually alone. I mean I think that the church largely has overemphasized these solo components of Christian life, personalized devotions, individual prayer, the idea that things are just between you and God while under emphasizing the communal aspects of faith. Like confessing things to one another, carrying other people's burdens, regularly gathering corporately. And if that's the case, then it makes sense how when you and I get busy, life gets overwhelming, things get a little bit chaotic and we start to evaluate and take a personal audit of our obligations and our responsibilities, engaging in consistent spiritual community, well it's one of the first things to go. I mean like it is one of the first things to get cut. Because it is the least convenient spiritual practice that you can do. So it's only right that when we feel pressured from life and events and things that are going on and transition, well we usually just give it the boot. So when the reality that life is busy meets up with and joins the belief that I can grow on my own, a really simple equation is then created. I'm busy and I can grow on my own and the scripture that we're going to look at tonight actually tells you what all of that adds up to and then it tells us what you and I can do about it. And so we're going to look at the book of Hebrews tonight. And the writer of the book of Hebrews writes to a group of people who have recently left Judaism for Christianity. And that decision did not come lightly, it actually came with a pretty significant cost and so these new Christians are trying to discern whether or not following Jesus is actually worth it.

Their reputations are on the line, their families are on the line, their businesses are on the line, everything that they've ever worked for in their lives is on the line. I mean it's safe to say that things are pretty intense, things are pretty busy and they're battling these intrusive thoughts like, do I like really believe this stuff? Like is following Jesus actually worth it? Is this stuff even real? Should I be willing to risk everything for it? And the writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 writes these words to those people. And he says, that the day of Jesus' return is drawing near. So when the reality of I'm busy collides with the belief that I can do this on my own, you and I are in a prime position to experience what the Bible calls wavering. What is wavering? Wavering is going back and forth without making a choice. Essentially, it is a death by indecision. Wavering is I'm in one day and I'm out the next. Wavering is being unsteady and unstable in where your priorities are and where your allegiances lie. So wavering is being on the fence about whether or not you're all in on walking with and following Jesus. And then in the middle verse that we read, verse 24, the author says, hey, instead of wavering, this is what you need to do. You need to think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. So a few years ago, I don't know, I must've just like been feeling ambitious one day

and I signed up for a marathon. Just as you do, you know, casual Thursday. And I didn't tell anyone. I was just like, I'm doing this. How hard could it be? You just gotta run and not stop. So I signed up for the marathon and I download, like I'm getting into the training program and doing the whole thing. And I signed up for like a four month training program and I'm like getting dialed in, I'm getting excited. And I'm running alone, running alone and I get out there for training. And you know what happens every single day when I lace up the shoes and I get out there to get my miles in for the week, every single day. It doesn't matter what playlist I throw on. It doesn't matter what podcast I'm listening to. Every single day, without fail, these thoughts are running on, just overdrive in my head. And this voice inside my head is saying like, why are you doing this? What have you gotten yourself into? My hip hurts. I'm tired. I should've eaten more. I don't have any energy. No one is gonna know if I just stop. Like no one knows I'm even doing this. No one's gonna know if I don't complete my run for the day.

Should I just phone it in and go home? Like I don't have to do this. And most days I'm proud enough to say I had like the mental toughness and the grit to just power through it. But I learned really quickly that willpower is a finite resource. You only have so much of it to give. And I learned fast that I couldn't consume enough David Goggins self-motivation content to overpower the wavering that I was experiencing. So I remember having this conversation one day with one of my friends in like the middle of my training program. We went out to lunch and we're having this discussion. And at the end of the discussion, we somehow realized that both of us, unbeknownst to the other person, had been training for the same marathon alone. Like, wait, you signed up for that? I signed up for that. We said, hey, crazy idea. What if we did the second half of the training together? Is that what we did? And can I just tell you that every single day when we went out for a run together, I now had a teammate. I now had a friend. I now had a brother that could experience the suffering with me

and he could experience the runner's high after you knock out 12 miles on a Saturday morning and you're feeling like a million bucks. I had a teammate, I had a brother that was in the fight with me and everything got easier. The miles seemed to go by faster. I wasn't constantly thinking about my hip hurting or my ankle hurting. The accountability was there and we were motivating one another simply because we were constantly in each other's presence and we were charging the hill together and there's just no way I could have run that marathon and completed it without my friend, without my brother, without my teammate. And so the writer of Hebrews says, do not waver. You gotta hold tightly to the hope that you have in Jesus and instead of motivating one another to run a marathon, you are motivating one another to two things, love and good works. I mean, this really is the goal of the Christian life to love and live like Jesus. Love is the internal motivation that guides all of your decisions and the way that you live and then the good works. peace is when the internal motivation of love actually manifests itself in reality through the things that you do and touch and operate with. It's when you actually bring God's kingdom in heaven down to earth.

Now here's the thing, if you believe that spiritual growth is just about like getting more knowledge about God downloaded into your brain, well, yeah, you can do that alone. You can do that alone. You can get Christian content, podcasts, and you can just crush that stuff on your commute back and forth from work. You can watch church services and you can load up your favorite preacher when you go in for a workout into the gym and you can just let that thing play. You can do personal devotions, you can do journaling, you can do reading, I mean, you can do that on your own and at any time, it's incredibly convenient. Prayer, personal retreat, self-reflection, whenever you want. But spiritual growth is not just about getting information. Spiritual growth is actually about your transformation and your transformation only takes place and blossoms fully within the context of relationships. That's the only place that it actually blossoms into what it was meant to be, where it's exposed and it's challenged and it goes through the refiner's fire. Proverbs chapter 28 says this in verse 26. Those who trust their own insight are foolish, but anyone who walks in wisdom is safe. What's the point here? Like what is the author trying to say?

The idea here is that if you think you can know it all, think it all and do it all on your own, you're fooling yourself. You're just fooling yourself and then Proverbs is consistently attaching wisdom and safety to having an inner circle of people that you're walking through life with on a regular basis. To motivate each other and to encourage each other, we actually have to be physically together, physically present in the same spaces at the same time. Verse 25 that we read earlier in Hebrews chapter 10, I love this line, it's insane, that the writer says, do not neglect meeting together because some people, they're already in the habit of doing that. I mean, he just calls them out. He's just like, don't neglect it, but we already got some people who are in the habit of neglecting it and you gotta make sure that you don't do that because that leads to wavering. He's just calling them out. I know a lot of young adults who are betting on themselves when it comes to spiritual growth. They're betting on themselves. I can grow spiritually, what are you talking about? I can do it on my own. I'm busy, but I can cram it in there and they are really testing the limits of what it looks like to grow alone.

I mean, here's the thing that I've experienced is that I've never yet met one young adult who purposefully neglected and disengaged from consistent spiritual community who over a period of time grew spiritually as a result of that decision. I have yet to meet the person who has successfully done that. Ronald Rohyser, he's a famous Catholic priest and he talks about community and the Christian life this way. He says, part of the very essence of Christianity is to be together in concrete community with all the real human faults that are there and the tensions that this will bring us. Spirituality for a Christian can never be an individualistic quest. I wanna share a story with you in just a moment about a young adult who's a part of our community. Her name's Elizabeth and Elizabeth is an ordinary woman and she's experienced God do some extraordinary things through her life, through the power of community and so I want you to take a moment to check out Elizabeth's story. Freshman and sophomore year, I feel like was the typical college experience. Going out three times a week, engaging in things that just weren't fulfilling. I had struggled with depression and anxiety in high school so that was already kind of a thing

that I went into college with and that led to a lot of dark feelings and just some. loneliness. I want friends that are life-giving and that I can talk about real things with, any mental health things that I'm going through. I feel like these friendships were just kind of like a transaction. I don't think that I had that feeling at the beginning of college of just like being known and accepted. Faith had still been an important part of my life. I did know in the back of my mind that if I were to tap into this and step into it, I would find life there, but it just was never something that I was wanting until it got to a point where college it was just no fun. I was at a bar one night and one of my closer friends were there and I knew that she was a Catholic, but we never really talked about it and I mentioned to her that I would love to get involved with a church somewhere. She had suggested a girl named Meg and that I should reach out to her. I kind of was just like it's it's worth just shooting a text to her. Maybe she'll never respond, maybe she will. She invited me to Crossroads March Madness event. All I remember was there were a lot of people in there. It was very overwhelming, but she didn't leave my side the whole day and we probably sat on a couch for like two to three hours and she just was asking questions about my life and about me. It did feel like one of the first times I was with a girl my age who was really authentic and real. I knew from then on like I want to be friends with this girl and that probably means I want to be friends with the rest of these people here because they're so kind and inviting and accepting. So after I had been going to a couple Crossroads events, I joined a women's Bible study. I knew that it was time for me to be vulnerable with them. I remember I was really nervous. My heart was beating really quickly when we were in our like group circle. I just kind of put it out there and I feel like I was met with so many girls in the circle who were like yeah I'm in the same boat and I'm really struggling to find people. I was then meeting with those girls and creating further friendships from just

me being vulnerable and that's such a good feeling to know that you're not alone in it and it's actually really common. And then I was invited to something called CORE, which was a mentorship program through Crossroads and I was paired with a discipler and showed me how to let Jesus in and I think that was the game-changer to have someone walk through life with you. So at the end of my first semester of CORE, I got baptized and I think from there on I started to see things change really quickly. I did start to see a really big shift in my mental health and to me that was really obvious that that was from from God. The early years of college can be really hard. I've made so many connections from having those experiences and being vulnerable with people. It allows me to connect with other people that I wouldn't have before and know Jesus on a deeper level because I can see the wonderful things that He can do in people's lives. The young adults community has given me so much. It's given me a community, it's given me life, it's given me a relationship with God. I would just encourage people to continue to come because community isn't just found on the one or two nights that you go, but continuing to show up and build those friendships and get outside of your comfort zone. It's completely changed my life. I'm just so grateful for the life that has been given to me. One of my favorite things about Elizabeth's video is her boldness to pursue community and just put herself out there, like taking some risks. Just getting a little bit vulnerable with it to like shoot the text out or to actually like share the real thing with a group of her peers, like that's a pretty big deal. And then she talks about the blessings that she's experienced on the other side of it. And it's easy to watch that video and just go like, I don't know how I could ever get that, but I want that. Like those types of connections, those types of relationships, those types of friends that like I can actually talk about what's going on and not just continuing to fake it. I don't know if I could ever get it, but like I'm desperately looking for that. Last month at Collective Night we sort of like teased this thing that

the YA team has been working on faithfully, really hard work over the last few months that we're really excited about launching, and that is Young Adult Groups. Young Adult Groups. Because as I'm watching this video, I'm just thinking to myself like, what if we could have Young Adult Groups? adult groups like what she experienced happening all over the city like all the time throughout the week. I'm just picturing like what if we had college students meeting with other college students to encourage one another to keep going. What if we had young professionals linking up with other young professionals sharing life with each other and saying hey I know it's tough out here sometimes in the marketplace to live faithfully but we're not gonna waver. We're not gonna neglect meeting together. We're gonna keep it moving. I mean what if we had young married couples that as they step into this new transition season in their life they were able to pair up with other young married couples and link arms and just say like I got you and you got me and we're doing this thing together. Like what if there was a group for any and every young adult in our city and in our community to find community and to explore faith. Like what if there was an opportunity for any and every young adult to pair up with people who have shared interests, people that also find themselves in a very similar life stage. I just began to think and dream on that and I'm looking at this room right now just like what if this was a community of people who were just willing to rise up right now and just say like hey we're not wavering. We're not gonna neglect meeting together with one another. Like I don't want to test out growing alone. And some of you are like yeah sign me up. In fact where do I sign up? How do I join a group? That would be like a natural thing for you to say after like experiencing tonight after seeing this video and feeling a little bit of a tug like yeah I should probably join a group. I'm gonna take it one step further. For Elizabeth to join a group someone had to start a group. For Elizabeth to join that group someone before her had to have a burden in their heart not just for themselves but for other young adults and they had to take Hebrews chapter 10 and put it into

action and say there's gonna be no wavering and no neglecting meeting together on my watch. I'm thinking about young adults. I think about this thing all the time. I mean it's like my job. It's like what I love to do and I just I just got to be honest with you like this thing right right here it is not going to grow beyond this if we continue to exchange a once-a-month hang as you receive something from the stage. Maybe meet some new people and then go about your business for the rest of the month. That's not the way that it's going to grow. The way that it's going to grow is when we come together as a community to say we're building it together. We're building it together and this is exactly what the church did thousands of years ago and has been doing ever since. As you read through the New Testament what you will see is ordinary men and women who had boldness being sent out to activate the mission of God where they lived, where they worked, and where they played. That's what you see. And the scripture is very clear in the New Testament that as they shared life with one another, as they met together in homes, in shops, in cities, and in different types of places throughout the community, the Lord began to add to their number every single day. One of my favorite scriptures in the book of Acts actually says that people were looking at this movement and they were amazed because they recognized the followers of Jesus who were doing this as ordinary people who had no special training. Very special training. Like no extra Bible knowledge. Some of these people hadn't even spent time with Jesus. They were just men and women who were living faithfully and tonight we are actually looking for ordinary men and women willing to step out in faith to do something bold to lead a group for young adults this year. That's what we're looking for. And you might be like, whoa, that sounds big. It is. Sounds like a lot of responsibility. Could be. But what about this vision of like any and every young adult having an opportunity to be transformed by Jesus? Any and every young adult in our city, college students meeting with college students, professionals meeting with professionals, all types of people, all life stages coming together on a weekly basis in our community. The amazing thing

is that the YA team has already prepared like the content, the structure, the resources, the coaching, the training, like we're gonna get you all that. Tonight we're just looking for people who are like, I don't have all the details but I'm in on that. I'd be willing to take some ownership. I'd be willing to raise my hand and say you can send me. I'm in on that vision and I'm gonna make sure that I do anything within my power to be bold and to be activated to live on mission for Jesus and I can guarantee you there will be no leading alone. We're gonna lock arms together to pioneer this thing but I just see hundreds of young adults tonight and this community that's filled with so many more that aren't even in the room tonight. We don't want to see them waver. We don't want to see them neglect the meeting together. We want to see growth. We want to see life. We want to see our city change and to be honest I'm really tired of hearing about other cities change. I actually want to be involved in the changing. I want to be involved in the being sent. I want to be involved in the activation and so I am gonna do something crazy. We've never even done anything like this before and I don't even know how it's gonna go but I'm gonna ask you to do something really bold. If you feel like God might be in this moment nudging you to take a step of faith to lead a group for people that he's burdened your heart for this year and if you feel like that might be you tonight I am going to ask you right now to stand to your feet. It's amazing. Hey if you see someone who's standing that you're next to I want to invite you to to stand next to them and to like extend an arm towards them maybe ask them before you do this but if they're cool with it maybe you could actually even put a hand on them maybe a shoulder or something like that and we are actually going to engage in a practice here together that we're just calling a commissioning and a commissioning is just a sending. It's a blessing. It's a backing. It's our community coming around these people saying we are with you in your sending and we will walk alongside of you and so if you're sitting next to someone even if you're not sitting next to somebody if you can see someone who is standing right now I just ask in this moment you

would extend a hand towards them or if you're bold and you're feeling like you want to get more engaged and get up into the mess that you can get out of your chair and come find somebody but let's just extend a hand right now towards someone close to you as I pray a commissioning and blessing over them. Jesus I thank you for the obedience of the people who are standing in front of me tonight. God I pray this is a moment that marks them that they remember for the rest of their lives the moment that they said yes to being sent by you saying yes to building your kingdom through creating communities that are built on authenticity, truth, and a hunger to know you. God we bless them now with boldness and confidence that you are with them as they step into something that could be scary. God surround them right now with community that sharpens them and pushes them closer to you. Holy Spirit we ask you to teach them and empower them to lead others with love, with servanthood, and with wisdom. God we are asking for the return on this spiritual investment to be far greater than anything these individuals could ask for or imagine right now. Lord would you unleash a spiritual awakening of young adults in this city that spreads far beyond it through their faithfulness. Fill them with everything that they need to do the things that you have called them to do. We bless them and we send them and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.