After the Baby Boomers
By Robert Wuthnow. Princeton University Press (Princeton, N.J., 2007). 298 pp., $29.95.

Being Catholic in a Culture of Choice
By Thomas P. Rausch, SJ. Liturgical Press (Collegeville, Minn., 2006). 123 pp., $19.95.

Presence-Centered Youth Ministry
By Mike King. InterVarsity Press (Downers Grove, Ill., 2006). 192 pp., $15.

How will young adults define American culture and American church congregations? How can church congregations help shape them in their journey to know God? Three authors --- Robert Wuthnow, Jesuit Father Thomas P. Rausch and Mike King --- who work with this difficult-to-define generation tried to tackle the questions faced by sociologists and religious leaders alike when making predictions about the future of the church in America.

In "After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion," Wuthnow uses statistical data and exhaustive numerical analysis to assess the social and cultural influences on the younger adult generation. The charts help the reader stay focused, but the numbers can be a drag.

What is more interesting is Wuthnow's discussion about how this generation of younger adults is shaping the churches in America today. Their so-called "life worlds" are defining how they spend their time, where they live and who they are, and, thus, the churches that they chose to --- or not to --- attend.

Today's generation of younger adults have spent at least some time in college, bounce around jobs more frequently than older generations, marry later and have children later, Wuthnow reports. This leads the reader to wonder: Considering that a church's programs and services are mostly focused on married couples with children --- also noted in the book --- isn't there a large percentage of the population that does not have the support of religious institutions?

A few of the points that Wuthnow highlights also are touched upon by Father Rausch in his book "Being Catholic in a Culture of Choice," though in a less numbers-intensive way. Father Rausch writes as a university professor who clearly knows the statistics but also can share his experiences working with younger adults.

Father Rausch discusses "the discrepancy between the optimistic charting of spiritual interest and the low level of religious practice or spiritual growth." Generally speaking, this is a trendy claim: Younger generations have more of an attachment to personally defined spirituality than to religious institutions and doctrine.

Father Rausch's discussion is interesting and at times colorful. The chapter devoted to the Catholic imagination, a distinguishing point between Catholicism and Protestantism, is particularly thought-provoking. He also conjures up nostalgic memories of the Catholic tradition as taught through the family and ruminates about the sometimes negative changes since the Second Vatican Council in Catholic universities and theology studies.

After all the analyses and hypotheses, King in "Presence-Centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students Into Spiritual Formation" seeks to answer a central question --- how to reach this younger generation needing institutional support.

Though the job of youth ministers is challenging, this book's easy-to-read format offers suggestions and solutions for them that are both theoretical and pragmatic. The book is written from a Protestant perspective, but some of its proposals can be applied to all Christian denominations.

Outlining some of the problems with evangelical youth ministry and Christian formation --- succession, lack of tradition and the separation of youth ministry from the rest of the church --- King offers a sort of youth-minister pep talk: Youth ministers too often depend "on our training, gifts and abilities to accomplish the results we want to see in our ministries and the lives of the youth we work with. In presence-centered youth ministry, we trust the Holy Spirit."

The book also criticizes the desire for instant gratification --- or, as the book calls it, "the McDonaldization of Christianity" --- leading some youth ministers to offer only "hurried discipleship."

Finding Jesus is the "journey of a lifetime," King writes, and when youth ministers "expect immediate results of faith development among our youth, we hijack a process that's unpredictable."

In the end, all three books complement each other well as a package, although each can stand on its own. In different ways, all of the books address what influences this next generation of potential churchgoers --- the teens and young adults who could be our pastors, nuns, teachers and lay leaders and who will carry on the message of the church for generations to come.

Regina Linskey is assistant international editor at Catholic News Service.