New Voices: By and about young adults

You won’t find it at the back of Hymnal: A Worship Book, Sing the Journey or even Sing the Story, but Mennonites seem to have an official litany when it comes to young adults. It goes something like this:

Congregation: Where are all the young adults?
Leader: (insert concerned but unsure answer here)

Congregation: What are we doing for our young adults?
Leader: (insert concerned but even less sure answer here)

All together: Let us find ways to involve our young adults in church.

It’s a litany we’ve been repeating with increasing urgency since the 1980s. With the litany nearing its 30th birthday—and thereby becoming officially older than the young adults it’s concerned with—2010 seemed like a good time to take a detailed look at its questions.

Last Nov. 19-21, the Young Adult Fellowship (YAF) planning committee, of which I’m a part, met in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with four young adults from across Canada and the United States, two Mennonite Church USA staff members, one Mennonite Church Canada staff person, one MC Manitoba staff person and one MC Canada Christian Formation Council member. The two focus questions were (1) What is being done for young adult members of Mennonite Church USA and MC Canada right now? (2) What else is needed?

The answers to the first question—What’s being done for young adults right now?—may surprise you. Terry Shue, Mennonite Church USA’s director of leadership development, and Dave Bergen, MC Canada’s executive secretary of Christian formation, seem to be consciously rewriting their part of the young adult litany. Where there once seemed to be only vague answers, they offered a detailed inventory. Bergen started by pointing out that in Canada, more money is earmarked for Mennonite colleges and camps (where young adults serve as staff) than anything else. Terry affirmed that colleges and camps receive high levels of funding in Menno­nite Church USA, too, adding that he’d discovered 61 leadership initiatives and satellite young adult ministries in his research. This included grassroots organizations like Young Anabaptist Radicals (http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/) and those run by Mennonite Church USA’s related organizations, such as the !Explore program, facilitated by Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind. Young adults, it would seem, have more forums for education and leadership development than was once thought.

The numbers were impressive, but there was still something missing. These ministries usually aren’t connected to one another, and they clearly aren’t connecting with all young adults. We need more communication, we concluded, and we need it in three key areas.

First, we need to help our young adult ministries network with one another and with the young adults they target. Second, we need more platforms for young adults to speak prophetically to their church, specifically on vital issues like diversity and cultural shift—issues that young adults are uniquely positioned to speak to. Third, we need young adults to be engaged and called. We need them participating in the mission of God, especially at the congregational level, and we need this to be facilitated by all levels of church, from the national to the local.

This is a tall order. How do we achieve better young adult networking, a louder prophetic voice and more engagement in congregations? The answer starts with the national churches. Menno­nite Church USA and MC Canada, we concluded, need something tangible to spearhead this, and tangibility usually comes with budgeted resources and a designated staff person.

Does anything like this exist? YAF—who called this meeting—had been operating under this kind of mandate—but without any budget or designated staffing—for 10 years. Our initial guiding proposal was approved, but the follow-through lacked connection to and resourcing from our denominations. Participants in the Young Adult Think Tank in Winnipeg believe that we (and this means you, too) need to urge our denominations to facilitate a recognized ministry that networks the existing young adult opportunities, facilitates their prophetic voices and empowers young adults in their congregations.

We are in the process of formalizing this request to the “powers that be” but also recognize that whatever we do will require more than denominational oversight. It will also be dependent on the voices and choices of the people in the pews.
Do I hear a new litany coming on?

Peter Epp teaches Mennonite Studies at Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, Manitoba. He is also a member of Young Adult Fellowship.