Youthful Group
On the schedule it looks like any other youth program. Games night, pizza, potluck dinners, apple pie making, service and outreach, prayer and sharing. Youthful group at St. David and St. Patrick however is something different.
One of the emerging critiques of traditional church youth ministry is that it segregates youth into a subculture within the wider community. Certainly young people have specific needs and interests and stages of Faith development, but long before there was any such thing as “youth ministry”, young people were formed in the faith community as members of that community by working, learning and playing alongside their elders. The mission and ministry of the Church was something that elder and younger shared together; elders giving mentoring and wisdom and younger giving passion and energy. Somewhere along the way we lost the vitality of that relationship in Western culture and teens are routinely segregated away from mainstream work, engagement in social issues, active ministry and meeting the needs of others. Certainly they do some of these things as part of their education but only with their peers and specialized (and often paid) adults who have formal training in youth work, teaching or coaching. The vital relationship between adults and young people is lost and outside of the home there are very few intergenerational experiences available to our young people. This is a great poverty and it is a misconception that young people don’t want to hang out with their elders. In his article “the seven spiritual yearnings of youth”, Reverend Dr. Reggie Blount talks about identity, sense of belonging, sense of purpose and connectedness to something greater than themselves as being some of the yearnings of young people.
This was part of the thinking behind the youthful group. Young people in grade 6 and up invite one significant adult in their lives (a parent, grandparent or adult friend from the community) to join them every other Sunday evening for a program that includes relationship building, spiritual formation, outreach and service and more.
This group is very new. Our first meeting at the home of Judy Steers was a time just to get to know each other over pizza and games, featuring a highly energetic game of “Claytionary” which is like Pictionary with Play-dough. At the following meeting we gathered at the church for a potluck spaghetti dinner and to paint the new Godly Play classroom for 4-7 year olds. It was more than just painting and cleaning; we realized too that it was a work of the ministry of hospitality, as we worked together to prepare a special place for younger members of our community (and many group members’ younger siblings) to feel like they have a ‘special place’ in our church.
At each meeting we end by sharing the General Examen, a spiritual practice of self- reflection, gratitude, sharing and prayer. Our February meeting was taken up with preparing 30 apple pies from scratch for the Saturday night supper on March 7 for those less fortunate. Then on March 7 we all served at the Saturday night supper under the guidance of Ron and Val Webb, outreach coordinators.
The group is extremely popular with both kids and adults. The frequent chorus from the young people is “can we do this every week?” and the adults thoroughly enjoy meaningful engagement with one another and with young people of the community in a way that is less like parenting and more like building positive supportive relationships with emerging young adults.
We look forward to seeing how this group will grow and evolve in the coming months.