Recent visitor Faith Kelley writes about the value of reaching across the Friends spectrum over on the FGC Quaker Youth blog:
These stories are troubling in and of themselves, but the more disturbing thing is they point to a real barrier as Friends attempt to reach across the seemingly wide theological and cultural chasms between us. Stories of wild behavior and harm inflicted seem to be the only things we know about each other, the only narrative we tell ourselves about those “other” Friends. We don’t interact with each other often enough to have any other tales to tell.
If you’re of the right age, you can continue this conversation this summer at the YAF 2010 Gathering that Faith is co-organizing.
I think that so often, we refrain from speaking to children about faith in fear of impacting the decisions they must make for themselves. I believe that this all too common silence comes from a place of good intentions, but I want to challenge it. In order for the faith of our children to be alive and vibrant, they must discover it themselves. But as adults, we have some maps that we can share with our children. We can tell them of our adventures, and our failures in faith without forcing them to take the same road.
"Finally I’d like to mention something I’ve noticed about my generation. If they catch a whiff of hypocrisy, they’re outta there. They want to live their lives authentically—in whatever way that may be to them. They dislike people and organizations, be they religious or secular, that say one thing and do another. This is why—at least in part—we see such personal devastation when someone representing the church behaves so badly. It stinks of both inauthenticity and hypocrisy. It’s just yucky."
The youth were unanimously and passionately in favor of hiring a youth coordinator, and so were most adults who had worked with youth. But for some Friends, this was not enough. They were concerned about the cost, felt that the age range was too broad, that the YM did not have the experience to run such a program [and] whether the YM should even hire a paid staff person. Underlying many of these concerns was the old bugaboo: fear of change, and suspicion of young people.
Evangelical Friend AJ Schwanz writes about a new book from Mike King called Presence-centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation:
In my history of being part of faith communities I realized that those who are “group”-oriented seem more clubish, more “come in, be one of us”, more fractured, more self-interested. Those that were “ministry”-0riented thought of the bigger picture, had more awareness of the each other, practiced more over-arching hospitality. And in my faith gathering we have many ministries, but not a lot of groups … but the places where there are groups, we seem to have more lack of communication and conflict with each other.
Martin Commentary: On her post I asked AJ to tease out this distinction between “groups” that separate youth and “ministry” that keeps them in the church body.
I wonder if there’s some lesson for liberal Friends in this and not just for youth ministry. It seems like we have a tendency to compartimentalize our activities. Every purpose needs its own committee and we spend a lot of time starting and laying down committees. Why is “peace and concerns” separated from “earthcare” separated from “outreach” separated from “racial justice”? They’re all loving our neighbors.
My impression is that earlier generations of Friends did most things through two “committees”: ministers and elders. By divorcing our good deeds from ministry, we often secularlize them. How might we pull these functions together? Have any liberal Friends read out there Mike King’s work? Here’s the Amazon description:
How many programs does it take to change a youth group?
That question has bothered youth workers for decades, and the cracks in its logic are beginning to show. In place of the contrived, artificial mechanisms employed so widely in modern youth outreach and discipleship, Mike King proposes a ministry centered in the presence of God.
Young people encounter Christ not in the flash and pop of arena ministry, but in the sacred shadow of his presence. They learn what it is to love and follow Christ by observing others loving and following Christ—letting Christ shape their worldviews, their habits, their virtues. Presence-Centered Youth Ministry gives shape to such ministry through the classic disciplines and potent symbols and practices that have sustained the church over the centuries.
The sound and fury that has characterized youth ministry for so long has left too many youth workers tired and too many young people disillusioned. Come explore the deeper terrain; your students are sure to follow.
