Wondering on the Walk About-Day 5

We’ve made it over the hump and are now on the downward side of tour with four days to go. The wifi is working great, but it is hard to find time and energy for any extracurricular activities-like writing this blog. In Thermopolis last night, I opted for a lovely soak in the hot springs before bed instead of getting out the computer!
    One of the questions being asked in almost every forum is how we will deal with the lack of young people in the church. This is one of the stories that I found floating to the surface of my consciousness yesterday, and I wish I had thought of sharing sooner:
    When I was rector of St. Matthew’s in Tucson, AZ we had many families with children in elementary and high school, but as soon as they graduated they were gone. I knew about 5 of them were actually going to school or working in Tucson. Having just learned about Relational Meetings in a doctoral program on congregational development, I decided to try out this new tool on these young adults. I called them one at a time and asked them out to coffee. I was delighted that they agreed so readily to make time in their schedules and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. One of the basic tenets of Relational Meetings is that they are done without an agenda in mind, i.e. you can’t  ask them to DO anything but instead are present to simply listen to the deepest values and motivations of that individual and establish a relationship. So I made it clear at the outset that I wasn’t there to guilt them back into church. I just really wanted to know about them and what their world was like now that they were out of the nest. And these young people were ready to share! They told about their lives and spoke eloquently about what mattered to them. And they revealed what had been important to them about involvement at St. Matthew’s growing up.
I stayed true to the relational meeting process and didn’t ask these young people even to come back to church…but some of them did.  And when they did, they volunteered to design and run a youth group for the church. These young adults became important leaders and we had a lively and rich youth group which did much more than entertain our teens. Because they knew much more intimately the issues and challenges of young people in our culture, our new leaders were able to invite conversation about our relationship with God which was true to the context of our teens.
I wonder if this is really a story about getting young people back into church or just another story about baptismal ministry.  True shared ministry happens when we listen deeply to each other, even our young members and even those who seem to be so different from us. We listen so we can all discern and articulate of our values and passions, and the gifts God has given us to share with the whole body of Christ. I am so thankful those young adults felt welcomed back, not only to reclaim the Church as their home, but to be full members, leaders and ministers among us.