The teen who sang worship songs last year is now posting about chakras and trauma healing on TikTok.
If you’re a parent, youth leader, or mentor watching this happen, I know. There’s probably a knot in your stomach right now. Maybe it’s been there for weeks. You’re watching someone you love build a spirituality you don’t recognize, and it’s frightening. You’re wondering what went wrong, whether you missed something, whether there’s still time to reach them.
Before we go any further, I need you to hear something: You probably did a lot of things right. You taught them, prayed with them, showed up. This isn’t about your failure. It’s about understanding a cultural current that’s stronger than any of us realized.
What I’m about to share might increase that fear before it provides any relief. Stay with me anyway.
I want you to understand this first: they haven’t become less spiritual. In many cases, they’ve become more spiritually engaged. They’re building something entirely different than what you handed them. And unless you understand what they’re building and why it appeals to them, you’re going to keep offering solutions to problems they don’t think they have.
Their seeking isn’t rebellion. It’s hunger with no map.
I’m going to walk you through what “spiritual but not religious” looks like from the inside, why it makes perfect sense to them, and why it eventually strains under a weight it was never designed to carry. Not because I read about it somewhere. Because I lived it.
Before We Go Further
A note: If you’re tempted to send this article directly to your teen, I’d gently suggest waiting. This piece is designed to help you understand them, not to convince them of anything. If they read it before they’re ready, they’ll likely see it as confirmation that you view them as a problem to be solved rather than a person to be understood.
Let this change how you listen before you let it change what you say.
What Custom-Made Faith Looks Like
When young people step away from church and toward what researchers call the SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) path, they’re not abandoning spirituality. They’re reconstructing it. And the reconstruction follows a remarkably consistent pattern.
This is what you might see:
They still believe in God. Probably. But they’ve renamed Him. He’s “Source” now. Or “The Universe.” Or “Divine Energy.” The vast majority of people on this path still believe in some higher power. The name change isn’t arbitrary, though. It’s a deliberate move away from language they associate with control and toward language that feels more spacious.
They still read the Bible. Sometimes. But it sits on the shelf next to other spiritual texts. Most believe the Bible can teach them about spirituality, but it’s no longer the authority. It’s an authority. One helpful book in a much larger spiritual library. I remember keeping my Bible and my tarot deck in the same drawer, seeing both as “tools” for connecting with the divine. That sounds jarring from the outside. From the inside, it seemed like open-mindedness.
They’ve redefined core Christian concepts. This is the one that catches most ministry leaders off guard. When they say “the Holy Spirit guides me,” they often mean something radically different than what you mean. Many directly equate the Holy Spirit with their own intuition. When they say “I’m praying,” they might mean informal conversation with the universe. When they talk about “grace,” they’ve often replaced it with karma. A cause-and-effect universe they can navigate through right action rather than a gift they receive without earning.
And this is the important part: they’ve “unbundled” Jesus from Christianity. They love Jesus. Jesus is great. Jesus was a spiritual teacher, a wisdom master, someone who “taught against religion” and challenged the hypocritical religious establishment of His day. The common sentiment (and I’ve heard this exact phrasing countless times): “Jesus is a good guy. It’s his fanbase that sucks.”
This allows them to keep what they love about the faith they were raised in while rejecting what wounded them. It’s selective. It’s sophisticated. And from where they’re standing, it seems like finally being honest.
How They Got Here (It’s Not Always What You Think)
Not every teen on this path got there through TikTok tarot videos.
Sometimes teens drift even from healthy communities. Not because the church failed them, but because the algorithm is always offering an alternative. Sometimes they stopped growing spiritually. Not because they rejected Christianity, but because they weren’t connecting with God there. They didn’t consciously decide to become their own spiritual authority. They started navigating alone. And somewhere along the way, the algorithm picked up the slack.
I know because that’s closer to my own story than I’d like to admit.
I was raised in the faith. My mother taught me about God, Jesus, and Scripture from an early age. I had a foundation. But somewhere along the way, that foundation became something I took for granted rather than something I actively built upon. I knew enough about God to feel spiritually informed, but I wasn’t living in humble dependence on Him. I had knowledge about Christianity, but I wasn’t in real relationship with Christ.
And then life didn’t go the way I thought it should. I was looking for solid employment, doing everything right, and watching less qualified people succeed while I kept getting passed over. It felt unfair. I had done everything right. I had the foundation, the skills, the work ethic. But God wasn’t doing for me what He was doing for others.
That rejection, that pattern of being overlooked. It did something to me. I was angry. Not frustrated. Angry. I was done being faithful and getting nothing in return. Done praying and obeying and still being overlooked.
That’s when I drifted. The alternative spirituality told me I didn’t need to wait on a God who seemed to be ignoring me. I could tap into universal energy, trust my own inner wisdom, create my own reality. “Trust your inner wisdom” felt empowering when external authority seemed to have failed me. “You create your own reality” felt like taking back control after years of feeling powerless.
What I didn’t see then was that my foundation in Christianity, instead of protecting me, had made me more effective at blending it with other practices. I had enough spiritual literacy to sound credible, enough knowledge of religious language to make it all seem seamlessly integrated. I wasn’t faking it. I believed I was drawing closer to God while using approaches that centered me instead of Him.
I’m sharing this because I want you to understand: the teen in your life might not have been “led astray” by some outside force. They might have drifted, like I did, through a combination of spiritual stagnation and life not going the way they thought it should. The algorithm filled the void with something that promised control.
Why This Path Makes Perfect Sense (To Them)
If you’re going to reach young people on this path, you have to understand why it appeals. Not so you can mock it or dismiss it, but so you can see what they’re seeking underneath the practices that concern you.
They want authenticity. The overwhelming majority of people on this path believe their spiritual journey is something they “must find on their own.” This isn’t defiance. It’s a deeply held conviction that external authorities cannot mediate truth for them. They’ve watched too many leaders fail to live up to what they preached. They’ve felt the disconnect between Sunday morning and the rest of the week. They concluded (perhaps unfairly, but not unreasonably) that institutional religion offers performance, not transformation.
They want intellectual freedom. Over a third of young Christians feel they cannot ask their hardest life questions in church. Let that sink in. Over a third of churched young people have already concluded that honest doubt isn’t welcome. The SBNR path offers what seems like permission to question everything, to follow curiosity wherever it leads, to “take what clicks” without fear of judgment.
They want healing. The primary motivation for SBNR spirituality is overwhelmingly therapeutic. These aren’t people chasing novelty. They’re often driven by anxiety, past trauma, depression, or a major life crisis. They’re seeking what works. The practices they’ve found welcomed them with promises of empowerment, self-healing, and a sense of agency over their inner chaos. Whether those practices deliver what they promise is a different question. But they’re not foolish for trying them. They’re hurting.
They want low demand and high personalization. The guiding principle is “Does this speak to me?” not “Is this objectively true?” This creates a spiritual “playlist” rather than commitment to a single “album.” Nothing is required that doesn’t feel authentic. Nothing is imposed from outside. They’re the curator, the priest, the final authority in their own spiritual life.
I understand this appeal because I felt it. When life didn’t go the way I thought it should, when I was angry at God for doors that kept closing, the alternative told me I didn’t need to wait on a God who seemed to be ignoring me. It told me I was divine, powerful, capable of manifesting what I wanted without having to submit to anyone.
That message is seductive when you’re hurting.
The Hidden Burden
But there’s something they don’t see yet. What I didn’t see until I was deep enough to feel the cracks forming.
The SBNR path places an immense weight on the self. You are the final authority. You must discern what’s true. You must navigate the spiritual realm using your intuition as your only compass. You must “trust yourself” when your anxiety is screaming, when your trauma responses are firing, when you can’t tell the difference between inner wisdom and wishful thinking.
This creates what I call “the crisis of discernment,” and I promise you, it’s real. The community is flooded with a single anguished question: “Is this my intuition, or is it my anxiety?”
Think about that for a moment. The entire system is built on trusting your inner voice as divine guidance. But the inner voice is often compromised by the very pain that drove them to seek healing in the first place. They need to trust their intuition to find healing. But they need healing to trust their intuition. It’s a recursive loop, and it’s exhausting.
One person put it this way: “My own thoughts, that are out of my control, deceive me.” Another concluded that things which “bring me comfort are my own desires” and not necessarily divine instruction at all. The self they’ve declared sovereign turns out to be fundamentally unstable.
And it gets worse. Being your own god is tiring. (I know because I tried it.) The constant pressure to “manifest” the right things, to maintain high vibrations, to be the sole creator of your reality. It doesn’t lead to peace. Those who go deepest into the self-sovereignty model often report profound exhaustion, confusion, and spiritual isolation. They call it spiritual burnout. It happens precisely because the system promises control but delivers an endless, impossible job.
The exhaustion isn’t failure. It’s the weight of a throne they were never meant to sit on.
Scripture anticipated this dynamic. Jeremiah describes it as trading a living fountain for cracked cisterns that can’t hold water (Jeremiah 2:13, NLT). The image is perfect. They’re not wrong to be thirsty. They’re not wrong to seek living water. But they’re trying to dig their own wells, and the wells weren’t designed to hold what they desperately need.
“There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death” (Proverbs 14:12, NLT). The SBNR path seems right. It promises authenticity, freedom, healing. It looks like wisdom. But it leads to exhaustion, confusion, and spiritual isolation precisely because it places the weight of ultimate authority on a human psyche that was never designed to carry it.
What This Means for Discipleship
So how do you walk with young people on this path?
Don’t lead with critique. They’ve already concluded the church is hypocritical and controlling. If you come out swinging with “that’s wrong” or “that’s demonic,” you’re confirming exactly what they expected. Lead with curiosity about their experience.
Explore their definitions. When they say “God,” ask what they mean. When they say “the Spirit guides me,” explore how they discern that. This isn’t interrogation. It’s interest in their worldview. You might be surprised by how different their internal definitions are from yours. And how grateful they are that someone finally asked.
Validate the hunger, redirect the method. Their desire for authentic spirituality, direct experience of God, and personal transformation is good. They’re not wrong to want these things. The problem isn’t what they’re seeking. It’s that the methods they’ve chosen weren’t designed to deliver what they’re looking for. Show them (don’t tell them) how biblical Christianity fulfills the longing underneath.
Watch for the crisis points. The SBNR path has predictable failure points. When intuition fails. When suffering doesn’t make sense within a “create your own reality” worldview. When the exhaustion of self-sovereignty sets in. These are not moments for triumphant “I told you so.” These are opportunities to be present, to offer something solid when everything they’ve built seems to be collapsing.
Those crisis points might look like this in real life:
They seem exhausted by decisions that used to energize them. They’re pulling more tarot cards or checking more horoscopes (increasing frequency often signals increasing anxiety). They’re asking questions like “How do I know if this is real?” or “What if I’m deceived?” They’re isolating from their spiritual community or jumping between communities rapidly. They’re describing feeling “lost” or “confused” after an experience that was supposed to bring clarity.
Create space for questions. Be the person who isn’t threatened by doubt. Be the community where hard passages aren’t skipped and honest wrestling is welcomed. They don’t need you to have every answer. They need you to be unshaken by their questions.
Your calm presence and confidence in Scripture speaks louder than any lecture ever could.
Three Conversations You Can Have This Week
If you’re wondering where to start practically, consider three specific conversations that open doors without triggering defensiveness:
The Definition Question: “When you say God, what do you mean by that?” Ask with real curiosity, not as a trap. Listen without correcting. This alone reveals their internal worldview.
The Exhaustion Check: “Do you ever feel tired from trying to figure out what’s true?” This opens a door to the “being your own god is exhausting” reality without you having to point it out.
The Jesus Question: “What do you think about Jesus. Not Christianity, Jesus himself?” Since they’ve “unbundled” Jesus from the church, meet them there. You might be surprised how warmly they still speak of Him.
These aren’t fix-it conversations. They’re understanding conversations. Start there.
Where This Leaves Us
I’m not asking you to return the young person in your life to a religion that hurt them or institutions that failed them. But I am inviting you to understand what they’re building, and why the materials they’re using eventually strain when life gets hard.
The custom-made faith seems like freedom. But it’s a freedom that eventually exhausts itself. There’s something in Philippians about a peace that guards hearts and minds. Something that suggests the protection doesn’t come from us guarding ourselves, but from something (Someone) else standing guard. That’s worth exploring. Maybe with them, when they’re ready.
The teen posting about chakras on TikTok might look confident. But underneath, there’s often profound anxiety about whether they’re doing it “right,” whether their inner knowing can be trusted, whether they’re spiritually deceived. They’re exhausted. They don’t have language for it yet.
You might be able to help give them that language. Not by arguing them out of their current path. But by being present when the path starts to strain, and pointing gently toward the Fountain that doesn’t run dry.
That’s the work. And it’s slower than any of us would like.
You don’t have to have this figured out. Neither do they. Neither do I.
This week, try one of those questions. Listen without correcting. See what opens up.
That’s enough for now.
