ROMEOVILLE—Facing a church full of gray-haired faithful and families with children during Mass, many young adults have said they feel left out of the mix at their home parishes.

Paul Mach, catechetical associate for young adult and youth ministry for the Religious Education Office, said he has heard their cries and looks forward to improving on opportunities, such as the Theology on Tap series, to attract people on the cusp of adulthood. Information Mach gleaned from surveys taken by the recent crop of 20- to- 30-year olds indicates that “most of them believe in God and a number of them pray. But they don’t feel connected to an organizational religion; they’re not attending (Mass regularly),” he said.

The Theology on Tap series, which was born in 1981 at St. James Parish in Arlington Heights, Ill., has been altered over the years, but essentially it is designed to reach an age group that craves a connection with faith and action, he said. The current selection of presentations, held through Aug. 2 in scattered sites throughout the diocese, is intended to ignite an interest in participation at the church, Mach said.

In his previous post involving adult faith formation in Spokane, Wash., Mach said Theology on Tap was literally hosted in a sports bar where young adults tend to gather. While the series is not designed as an evangelical tool, Mach said from time-to-time someone from the bar would wander into the adjoining room and join in on the presentation. Currently he’s making plans to offer a second series of Theology on Tap in the fall, spreading it out across the diocese and arranging for user-friendly bars to host the events.

Considering the attitude adopted by young adults in general toward church, he said he hopes parishes will learn to speak the language of the untapped Catholic in the community. Research demonstrates that churches need to be more welcoming to this age group. For instance, he said, they’re Internet savvy, so they communicate easily on screen; they’re accustomed to text-messaging, and they invest hours of their time to cell phone conversations. Churches need to recognize these forms of communication and market to it, according to Mach. Meanwhile, it’s critical to get young adults involved in organizing parish programs and ministries, tapping into their expertise as well as their volunteer spirit.

The four-week series offers topics by religious education experts, including Robert Frazee of St. Pius X Parish in Lombard, who addresses the stages of faith maturity; James Healy, director of The Office of Family Ministry, who outlines the expectations of authentic love; Paul Jarzembowski, adult ministry director at Holy Family Parish in Inverness, Ill., who invites young adults to dare to explore ways to participate in parish life; and Jeremy Hylka, director of youth ministry at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Joliet, whose focus is explaining the responsibilities of discipleship.

Taking a psychological perspective, Frazee said he based his presentation on the work of James Fowler, a Methodist psychologist. A graduate of Chicago Theological Union with a master’s degree in pastoral studies, Frazee explained that audiencs in the past had appreciated discussions based on behavioral psychology. The idea is to demonstrate the ways in which faith changes as a person “journeys through life.” Unlike a lecture, Frazee gets the point across by asking participants to reflect on their approach to faith. People in their late 20s and early 30s find themselves in a state of “transition,” he said, because they are entering full-throttle into adulthood. They frequently have unified relationships; they live away from their parents and their careers are under way. The task here is learning how to “contextualize the whole thing.”

“The important thing is that a person takes time to reflect on his or her own faith development,” according to Frazee. The process helps the faithful to discover ways “to deal with issues and confront the teachings of the church.” The “importance of ritualizing” is viewed by Frazee as an opportunity for individuals to utilize his or her critical thinking skills. Most people at this stage are unable to internalize the paradoxes in the church, such as Immaculate Conception or the living presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but they do connect with practices that internalize a relationship with Christ, including meaningful prayer and retreats.

Jarzembowski, the acting director of the National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association, invites 20- to- 30-year olds to experience the church. “Faith needs to be about action,” he said. The act of preaching or passively listening to sermons is not enough. Parishes “need to think outside of the box” to come up with ways to attract young adults, perhaps with up-to-date socials or volunteer opportunities.

For those who attended the July 19 presentation at St. Mary Immaculate Parish in Plainfield, organizers prepared a bevy of snacks and beverages—bottled beer, soda and water—to wet their whistles before they gathered into small groups to discuss prompts provided by Hylka, whose presentation was entitled “A Light in the Darkness—Our Call to Follow.”

Before the presentation, he shared his insights about young adults. “There’s a growing number of singles” in society today. “You have to find a way to draw them in” before they grow so distant that they turn cold about the idea of faith in their lives.

While Hylka talked about discipleship, he paused briefly to define the concept. Reading from Matthew 28, he told the group that it was their responsibility to evangelize and to study the Scriptures. Speaking about the Book of 1 Corinthians, Hylka said Paul makes a case for discipleship by noting how grace is multiplied as the result of a deeper relationship with Christ.

Munching on popcorn and sipping soda, 23-year-old Emily Holmes of Channahon shared her thoughts about faith. “I’m going to try to get a young adult group started.” She plans to attract her non-church attending friends to active worship by asking them first to volunteer to construct a Habitat for Humanity house. “It’s easier to get them involved in something that doesn’t relate directly to religion,” according to Holmes. But once they meet the people from the parish, she said she hopes they will make it their worship home as well.

Brooke Simon, a 34-year-old nurse from Plainfield, explained that it’s harder to find friends with a faith attitude “once you’re out of school.” A graduate in nursing from Loyola University Chicago, she recalled how friends with similar interests were attracted to ministry outreaches available on campus. In the workforce, “you don’t have time to go to Mass daily,” and finding like-minded peers on the job forces one to reveal an attitude that occasionally runs counter to the mainstream.

While sipping a beer, Marie McMenamin, 29, from Montgomery, said she was comfortable talking about her faith in an environment like Theology on Tap. A teacher in a public school, she’s discovered that faith has a place in the workforce. First, she said, “You can live faith without being weird. It’s important for me to know what’s going on (in the church), so I can talk to co-workers” about issues and positions of faith.

In reality, McMenamin said, “it’s easier to see Christ in the homeless, but we need to look for it daily in the people we encounter.”

Theology on Tap is being offered on a variety of week nights at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Darien, St. Mary Immaculate Parish in Plainfield, St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Naperville; SS. Peter and Paul Parish in Naperville, and St. Isidore Parish in Bloomingdale. On Sundays, it is slated to held at St. Joseph Parish in Addison.