Making my faith my own: church attendance and first-year college student religious and spiritual development

Abstract

There is a glaring lack of research on spiritual and religious development in human development journals. Emerging adulthood, specifically, is an important period to study religious and spiritual development because it is characterized by identity formation and an enhanced power of free will. Church attendance can provide a context for identity formation, but declines in religious service attendance are prevalent throughout late adolescence into emerging adulthood. Twelve first-year undergraduate students at a public Midwestern university who attended a Christian church regularly during their childhood participated in a semistructured interview and shared their experiences, thoughts and feelings regarding church, their transition to college and their religious or spiritual identity. Six participants were attending a church or college ministry and 6 were non-attenders in college. Interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed participants valued close relationships, acceptance, freedom of individual thought, and religious understanding at church and reasoned their attendance by previous church experience, desire for spiritual support and personal beliefs. Analysis also revealed critical events which coincided with changes in religious meaning or commitment. Additionally, a process of personalization of faith was discovered. Implications for these findings were discussed.