Ask the adolescents in your sphere of influence how many screen names, e-mail addresses and MySpace profiles they have. You may find that "luv2shopchick" or "sexychristianbabe" might be a regular in your youth ministry.

Some adolescents maintain MySpace profiles or Xanga blogs that anyone can read, while having a more candid profile or blog they conceal from their elders. The range of possible identities is larger than ever before, and having multiple identities is becoming more acceptable.

In a society where teens are bombarded with a myriad of options in which to anchor their identities, how can youth ministers aid in the process of helping adolescents find their true identities? As I search Scripture for what it says about identity formation, I find there are only two main options: You are either are "conformed to the pattern of this world" or are being "transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2).

Forging an Identity

When people emerge into this world, they emerge without an identity; but that does not last very long. Almost immediately, they will acquire many identities.

I grew up in a Filipino family. I was born in the Philippines but grew up in Hawaii. Because of that, I am an average-height man with slightly slanted eyes, have a great tan all year long, am culturally conflicted and confused because I was Asian at home and American everywhere else, and am completely laid back and on island time, which makes it seem that I do not care about what is going on around me (often true and does not help when writing projects are due). I was a pastor's kid who grew up in the church, a life lived in a fishbowl with everyone watching—or so my mom told me everyone was watching. So I developed the ability to pretend to be whatever I needed to be.

My experience shows it is possible to have a multiplicity of identities as long as an integrated self exists. It is possible to have an Asian identity, a Hawaiian identity, a youth pastor identity, a husband identity, a surfer identity and a Christian identity as long as there is a sense of self that can assimilate all those identities.

Erickson's Stages of Identity Development 

One of the leading thinkers about identity development is Erik Erikson, the German developmental psychologist. Erikson's theory of personality says that adolescence is when an individual first experiences identity formation, though personality continues to be developed throughout one's entire lifespan.

In Erikson's model, individuals basically progress through his eight stages of development, with each stage representing a crisis that each individual must resolve in order to progress to the next stage in development. The basic conflict of adolescence then is identity and role confusion. In earlier stages, the need for trust in one's self and others must be developed. If they have not learned to trust themselves or others, they will not be able to process and progress to identity formulation.