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Younger faces take center stage at 204th Annual Meeting
July-August, 2003
By Tiffany Vail
A demographic that is not traditionally very visible at Annual Meeting – or in mainstream churches – took center stage this year: young adults.
Young adults – those 35 and under – led worship and workshops, moderated the plenary sessions, made theme presentations and held a round-table discussion in which they gave some thoughts about their generation in relation to the United Church of Christ.
The theme of the 204th gathering, Widening the Welcome… joining generations, grew out of the third initiative of the Conference’s Vision for Renewal and Growth, which calls on Conference churches to expand their ministries to youth and young adults.
One young adult – Ben Davis, a recent seminary graduate and Associate Pastor at the Wellesley Congregational Church – said during the round-table that the wide welcome was evident.
“I feel like our being up there and leading these workshops – I feel really embraced here,” he said. “I get a sense of real intentionality in wanting to find out how to reach out and embrace and support young people. I feel it, and it feels good.”
Older participants in the meeting also appreciated their younger
counterparts.
“The young adults brought life and enthusiasm to the meeting,”
said one delegate in her evaluation. “Their enthusiasm and
dedication are infectious!”
Many delegates said they enjoyed listening to the round-table of young adults who raised the question about why most people their age do not come to church, and gave their ideas on what might help.
“Why does someone like myself feel so alone and isolated?” asked Katrina Wuensch, associate pastor of the Trinitarian Congregational Church, UCC, in Concord, during the discussion. “Why is it that in my church with 750 people, I am the only person like me? Where are they, why aren’t they coming to church, why doesn’t it feel like a place they can be fed and welcomed?”
 |
| Ben Davis (third from left), recent seminary graduate and Associate
Pastor at Wellesley Congregational Church, makes a point during a
round-table with fellow young adults (from left) Greg Morisse, a
recent Harvard Divinity School graduate, Katrina Wuensch, associate
pastor of the Trinitarian Congregational Church in Concord, and Molly
Phinney Baskette, associate pastor of the Second Congregational Church
in Beverly. Photo by Tiffany Vail |
Wuensch said some people seem to feel that it is normal and natural that younger people stray from the church, and are overly confident that they will return.
“I’ve heard it said that people come back to church when they have kids. Well, not everyone is having kids. Not everyone is even heterosexual or wanting kids. I don’t have kids – do I not belong there because I don’t have kids?” she asked.
Greg Morisse, a recent Harvard Divinity School graduate, agreed.
“Churches often structure ministries around families. These programs are great programs, but they ultimately don’t affect me or most of my friends, who don’t go to church very often,” he said. “All of my friends from college and even divinity school don’t go to church – they don’t feel they are being fed.”
The round-table participants – all either seminarians or recent graduates – said it frustrates them that people in their generation don’t know the United Church of Christ.
“Many of the evangelical churches are so good at using popular culture and using technology. I see all the slick advertising for youth conferences and I think – this looks really cool,” said Wuensch. “The UCC doesn’t look very cool to me, but it is. Our theology is very cool and we need to learn to make it appealing and exciting because we have a really prophetic voice that really needs to be heard.”
In a separate presentation, Elizabeth Myer-Boulton – pastor of the new Hope Church in Roslindale – said churches need to welcome people in and give them a reason to stay.
“I am convinced that young people want to go to church, I am convinced of that,” she said. “It’s just that more often than not churches are not giving them the bread they need for the journey.”
Myer-Boulton said Hope Church is trying a new model of church where people are asked not to become members, but to become covenant partners. In doing so, they agree to engage in practices of Christian spirituality, such as outreach work, Scripture reading and prayer, and the church in turn commits to helping them on their journeys.
“See, a lot of young people my age are suspicious of institutions, especially religious institutions,” she said. “You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, it seems to be the mantra of our generation: ‘I’m not a religious person, I’m a spiritual person.’ As if spirituality and religion don’t go together, as if spirituality and Christianity don’t go together. They do. It’s just hard to see that sometimes in the church.”
One of the practices Hope Church partners are asked to take part in is hospitality – they are expected to reach out and invite others into worship.
“That’s what the church is all about – it’s about inviting people into a life of faith,inviting people in the presence of the living God,” she said.
During the round-table, Molly Phinney Baskette, associate pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Beverly, said church members must be willing to go outside the church doors in order to talk to people and invite them in.
“We need not be shy about asking people to come and we also need to leave, and have those conversations outside of our churches,” she said. “Our church is playing a big role in getting Habitat for Humanity to come to Beverly. That will be a great opportunity to have conversations.”
Most of all, the group agreed, churches need to take the time to listen to the needs and interests of younger people in their communities.
Meeting Moderator Daniel Smith, himself
a young adult, told those assembled:
“I would
love
to charge each
of you to go
into your
congregations and
find a team that is willing to skip worship
on a Sunday morning and go to the Starbucks
or the
local
coffee
shop or the soccer
field
and just
listen. Eavesdrop on a conversation,
start a conversation … listen and trust that
the answers
of mutual ministry
between young adults
and the
UCC will emerge.”