Young People in the Church

Hello! It has been over a month since my last proper blog post, so I'm going to try and catch up in a few posts :)

Since the new year, the SPEC team has been doing a lot of team building. This has included doing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, going to M&S (a posh grocery/department store) for coffee, and doing some communication training with our sister project, SPECEast (The one I went on the primary school mission with). This has been great for the team as we learn more about who we are - especially in a work context. The Myers-Briggs assessment points out 4 different areas of personality and we explored which ends of each of these preferences we fell into. Our conversations about frustrations, differences, and problems have become much smoother now that we have that language to use as a team.

This is a 'Friends' poster with the faces of members of

our living area cleverly replacing the originals. Can you find me?

Our training at SPECEast included some communication tools, as well as training on confirmation groups. We spend a lot of time discussing what our confirmations were like and what confirmation is like for the young people we see week after week. As we have chatted, it has come to my attention that, even though I griped about my own confirmation, in all reality, my experience was pretty darn good. That got me thinking on the idea of choosing our attitude and having perspective about life. Especially our church lives.

Young people here have a much different experience of the church than those in the United States. Though certainly not all churches, many US churches typically have some form of youth group, an excited team of adults that knows and wants something to happen for young people - even if they can't quite figure out 'what' or 'how'. Young people are encouraged to get involved and be a part of the church in their own ways. Youth services, praise bands, church choirs etc. The larger expresses this as well through youth gatherings, conferences, and retreats.

That's very much not the case here. Young people are kind of expected to just fit into the adult life of the church and go with it. But as many have discovered, young people are in a different place in life. When they don't enjoy church, they tend to leave.

So I wrote a letter to my home congregation here it is:

Dear CTS, Please be thankful for CTS. Please be thankful for the community
and family. For the passion of so many members. For the offerings of time,
talents, money, ad love. For the openness, for the care of all. For your
thriving ministries for young and old. For the life that all people bring - even
though it may cause strife, it creates movement, and displays the care and
passion and love you all bring. For the support you have for each other - the
excitement for each life. For the intellect balanced with spirituality and the
diversity in music, worship, prayer, opinions... That all of this can happen is
a great testament to the world. You are a living, breathing, dynamic body of
Christ that moves and grooves and responds and lives. Please be thankful and
joyous in the fact that you have evaded the trap of static apathy and have
embraced the movement of your dynamic community. We are all so blessed to play a role. I am so thankful.

Continue to be blessed, Allison

This all puts a whole new spin on my work here at SPEC. It explains why only 20% of our confirmation candidates want to do their confirmation for faith related reasons and why I haven't been able to relate as well to their experience. It does open the window for me to listen to their experiences and have some insight as to where to go next. I have gone through all of the name games that every young christian in America plays ad naseum, and seen programs go from start to finish. There is an opportunity for me to be a resource and different perspective. This has taken the form of passing on song titles, teaching games, and just letting young people know that they CAN and DO have a place and a responsibility in this world to own their faith, their talents, their gifts, and go for it!