I am so sad that it has taken me this long to blog again. Shortly after my last post, one of my best friends got married and I went on vacation with my family. My mother and I share a birthday, and we go to the mountains of North Carolina every year for the last 27 years to celebrate. We had a wonderful vacation and I came home with some surprisingly fun news. Patrick I are engaged!!! Needless to say that the weeks since have been a little hectic. I have been wanting to say hello, and I have had no time. This week isn't much better. Two of our young adult leaders in this Diocese are getting married on Saturday and I am in the wedding. I have been trying to help them get ready as much as I can.
I love it when couples allow their friends to join in the fun and help them get ready for the wedding. I think weddings are all about the couple's community and I love when they allow family and friends to really join in the celebration. I hope when I actually start planning that I allow people to really be there and help prepare. I have always been into tradition and symbolism. Traditional wedding celebrations were about the couple, but they were also about the village and the joining of two families. I want to be a part of something like that one day.
I have always been a big proponent of community. I think community is the most important part of being close relationship with God. Jesus was a man of the people. He was constantly finding ways to buck the establishment and be in community with all types of people. I commend you Charles and Julie. I think you have set a great example of how Jesus would have wanted this beautiful and joyous time to be. I wish you all the happiness in the world and I hope your community of loved ones grows and grows for the rest of your life together.
Showing posts with label Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Community. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22
Saturday, March 7
What makes a Cast Away Christian? Reason #4
So we are down to my final reason that Yong Adults are distanced from religion and that is The Episcopal Church itself. Youth in our church are told that they are the future of our church. They are made to believe how important they are to the life of the church. They are coddled and given everything. Parishes will bend over backwards to help them pay for their ski trip or mission trip to Mississippi to help out hurricane victims. Parishes let them preach and even have a youth Sunday to show how important they are. Our Diocese even has a delegation of youth that allows one youth from each convocation to vote and be a part of the governing body of the church. They have retreat weekends, provincial and national gatherings to go to. I know that all sounds great, but as I have said before, every positive has a negative side effect.
The negative I see is that we are spending so much time "doing" things for our youth, that we are not equipping them with the skills needed to do it on their own. Very few of our youth have been given leadership training, so when they get to college or young adulthood, they have no idea how to act in the church. They just wait for someone to give them something to do, and most of the time the church doesn't do that so they are left to be a lonely pew sitter. We are good about giving money to youth groups, but most of our college ministries can't even afford a meeting space. Most parishes have a youth room, some young adults don't even have a spiritual guide they can talk to. They are left to go to a parish where they know no one and sit quietly in the back until someone notices them and says something. And when the going gets tough, one of the first things to go is that college ministry or the youth/young adult priest starts concentrating on the youth. It sends a message that the church really doesn't care about us. It says that unless we are willing to put ourselves out there and ask for help that we are going to spend the next years lonely in our faith. Even worse, we wonder why when young adults have kids they aren't coming back to the church. They aren't coming back because they were thirsty and we had no time to give them water. And if we are not careful, there wont be anyone who wants to come back.
All these factors lead to a generation or two who are lost. They have no family near them, superficial friends that they communicate with mostly on the internet, no church to run to when times get tough, and actual friends who are only there for them if they don't bring God in to the conversation. That is what I mean when I say Cast Away Christians. I have faith and hope that one day young adults will find a way to stand up and be heard, that parishes will know how to hear them, and that youth will be turned into leaders that know the right language. It is possible, we all just have to be ready to work together and figure it out so that the generations after us don't have to feel lost and cast away by the church.
The negative I see is that we are spending so much time "doing" things for our youth, that we are not equipping them with the skills needed to do it on their own. Very few of our youth have been given leadership training, so when they get to college or young adulthood, they have no idea how to act in the church. They just wait for someone to give them something to do, and most of the time the church doesn't do that so they are left to be a lonely pew sitter. We are good about giving money to youth groups, but most of our college ministries can't even afford a meeting space. Most parishes have a youth room, some young adults don't even have a spiritual guide they can talk to. They are left to go to a parish where they know no one and sit quietly in the back until someone notices them and says something. And when the going gets tough, one of the first things to go is that college ministry or the youth/young adult priest starts concentrating on the youth. It sends a message that the church really doesn't care about us. It says that unless we are willing to put ourselves out there and ask for help that we are going to spend the next years lonely in our faith. Even worse, we wonder why when young adults have kids they aren't coming back to the church. They aren't coming back because they were thirsty and we had no time to give them water. And if we are not careful, there wont be anyone who wants to come back.
All these factors lead to a generation or two who are lost. They have no family near them, superficial friends that they communicate with mostly on the internet, no church to run to when times get tough, and actual friends who are only there for them if they don't bring God in to the conversation. That is what I mean when I say Cast Away Christians. I have faith and hope that one day young adults will find a way to stand up and be heard, that parishes will know how to hear them, and that youth will be turned into leaders that know the right language. It is possible, we all just have to be ready to work together and figure it out so that the generations after us don't have to feel lost and cast away by the church.
Who is Lauren Woody? Part Two, The College Years
When I left for college a few months later, church was the last thing on my mind. I was still angry with God for taking away my grandparents. I went to a school with a great Episcopal College Ministry, but I knew nothing about it. I am sure if I had, I wouldn't have gone anyway but it would have been nice to know they were there. I took out my anger with God for taking away my grandparents, with my grandparents for dying, and with my parents for lying about her health by partying and not going to class. I partied so much that I did not make very good grades my freshman year. By my sophmore year, I was ready to leave Auburn and move home. When I got home to my parents house in Mississippi, I stopped my partying and decided to work on being a better human being. This still did not include church, because on some level, I felt like the church had let me down. When I "fell of the face of the earth", no one called to see how I was. No one called to see where that cute, fun girl had gone. It was like all those years of being involved were for nothing. I was a cast away.
It took me a few years before I was ready to step foot in a church on my terms. I had gone on the major holidays to please my mother, but I did not enjoy the service and I did not want to hear anything being preached from the pulpit. When I decided to go back, I started trying to find someone to go with. The thought of venturing alone into that place that had been my greatest source of community was terrifying. I went to other denomintations with a few friends, but it made me realize that I was definitely an Episcopalian. I finally found out that a friend of mine from college was Episcopalian (go forth and tell no one was obviously a motto we both ascribed to) and we decided to go to church together. We decided to go to a church were he knew the priest from his childhood. When we got in the sanctuary, the first thing I noticed was that we were the only people our age in the room. During the announcements, when prompted, we stood up to show that we were visitors. Before I could even turn around to get my purse at the end of the service, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was smiling woman, probably in her fourties, with a husband and two kids. She immediatley introduced herself and said "you are just going to love this parish. We went on the parish retreat last weekend and all they did was get drunk and tell dirty jokes. It isn't even like church at all!" I remember thinking, I am so glad I am an Episcopalian, because if I was a Baptist trying out a new denomination, I would never come back.
Just so you know, I found her statement to be very endearing. I thought "this woman wants to say something to me that will make me feel welcome and want to come back", but I am pretty sure that was not the way to go about it.
This brings me to the real problem I find in churches. If I go into the building and I am the only person my age then why would I feel comfortable? If I go and my only conversation is with a person who thinks my hobbies are drinking and being inappropriate or even worse, no one acknowledges me at all, then why would I want to come back? If I look on the pew card (which is usually a good representation of what is important to a parish) and the only groups are aimed at children, youth, and older adults, then what is my incentive to stay? I know plenty of young adults who have encountered one of these problems and it is leading to a church with no middle generation. It is leading to a generation of Cast Away Christians who want to worship, be in a closer relationship with God, and find community, but have no reason to believe that a pew is where they are going to get it.
It took me a few years before I was ready to step foot in a church on my terms. I had gone on the major holidays to please my mother, but I did not enjoy the service and I did not want to hear anything being preached from the pulpit. When I decided to go back, I started trying to find someone to go with. The thought of venturing alone into that place that had been my greatest source of community was terrifying. I went to other denomintations with a few friends, but it made me realize that I was definitely an Episcopalian. I finally found out that a friend of mine from college was Episcopalian (go forth and tell no one was obviously a motto we both ascribed to) and we decided to go to church together. We decided to go to a church were he knew the priest from his childhood. When we got in the sanctuary, the first thing I noticed was that we were the only people our age in the room. During the announcements, when prompted, we stood up to show that we were visitors. Before I could even turn around to get my purse at the end of the service, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was smiling woman, probably in her fourties, with a husband and two kids. She immediatley introduced herself and said "you are just going to love this parish. We went on the parish retreat last weekend and all they did was get drunk and tell dirty jokes. It isn't even like church at all!" I remember thinking, I am so glad I am an Episcopalian, because if I was a Baptist trying out a new denomination, I would never come back.
Just so you know, I found her statement to be very endearing. I thought "this woman wants to say something to me that will make me feel welcome and want to come back", but I am pretty sure that was not the way to go about it.
This brings me to the real problem I find in churches. If I go into the building and I am the only person my age then why would I feel comfortable? If I go and my only conversation is with a person who thinks my hobbies are drinking and being inappropriate or even worse, no one acknowledges me at all, then why would I want to come back? If I look on the pew card (which is usually a good representation of what is important to a parish) and the only groups are aimed at children, youth, and older adults, then what is my incentive to stay? I know plenty of young adults who have encountered one of these problems and it is leading to a church with no middle generation. It is leading to a generation of Cast Away Christians who want to worship, be in a closer relationship with God, and find community, but have no reason to believe that a pew is where they are going to get it.
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