Googling God.

GOOGLING GOD By Mike Hayes (Paulist Press, 2007)

Mike Hayes left a 12-year career in radio to minister to young adults following an invitation from his parish priest. In his five years of ministry, Hayes has found that technology has fundamentally shaped their approach to information.

"We need always to assume that a large percentage of young adults believe that instant gratification is merely a dick of a mouse or a touch of a button away and that they can apply this to every area of their life, religion included," Hayes says.

In Googling God: The Religious Landscape of People in their 20s and 30s, Hayes explains that although the current information landscape is characterized by instant access, religion and faith don't have easy answers.

Both generation X and the millennials have unique generational identities and spiritual longings. Millennials have come of age in an era of terrorism and violence, and therefore tend to find comfort in the structure of the church. Gen X-ers, on the other hand, lack specific shared world events, such as 9/11 or the Columbine shootings, and therefore value the communal experience Catholicism offers them through its tradition. Both groups are searching for God, but in markedly different ways.

Hayes is careful, however, not to oversimplify. Much of his research is anecdotal, garnered from interviews with 12 young adult Catholics on remarkably different spiritual journeys. Hayes uses each person's story to show that no "single 'type' can completely characterize either generation as a whole."

Googling God provides resources, 15 steps toward building a successful young adult ministry program, and tips on how best to reach out to both generations with the answers they are searching for in an increasingly wired world.

As a young Catholic, I found that Hayes' keen insights resonated and provided a fresh look at how the church can better serve the population that will increasingly dominate its pews.--Matt Bigelow