I like this.

I just read something today on this.  The book is an episcopalian priest from the 60s who was one of the forerunners of the charasmatic movement in the States.  He was talking of the early days in one of his churches and how the young people started initiating outreach with their peers and how the parents were afraid.  He said the Holy Spirit does not care about age.

I think it is unfortunate that too many churches miss out on the ministry the youth can bring to the church intead of just get out of the church.  We were discussing the amount that we gain from the toddlers one night at a friends house.  As we were doing this his son, about 1 year old, runs in the room butt naked hands behind his back swinging his hips with a smile on his face.  One of the men present, about 50 years old, did the same (with clothes on).  I made a comment about how it was acceptable for one, and cute, but not for the other, if the clothes were off.  This led to a remark about how to God, the 50 year would be just as cute to God.

I think I could go on for a long time with examples of youth being "the church" in the present.  We aren't to just educate them and bring them up to take over for us in the future, they are to be involved and engaged with now in the present.

"Children, children, Future, future. Are you ready for the children, whoa whoa whoa! The future is a coming, hey hey hey! Children, children,
Future, future. Children, children, Children are the future! Kids!" (source: The Simpsons)
 

Well, Starboy, what we do in the here and now creates the future.

With our thoughts and actions in the here and now, we, all of us collectively, create our future. But we, the older generation, won't be around to reap what we sowed. It will be up to you, the younger generation, to harvest those bitter or sweet fruits.

In the spiritual context of timeless oneness, however, there is only the collective and timeless "we," the godly "we" that always was, always is, and always will be. This all-encomapssing godly we should be our prime consideration when thinking and acting in the here and now. If we do that, then the fruits of the seeds we sow today might indeed be sweet.

Actually youth are not the future of the church.  Transformed adults are...cms

Yes, they are more than meets the eye. They are robots in disguise.

imo  transformed anyone - is the future of the church - its about engaging one another and Spirit, and embracing the journey to a better world.  Youth, kids, seniors are all quite capable, but without the drive of the people in the positions of influence, it will all seem like an uphill battle

it was expressed quite well by the youth at forum starboy...and acted by them in our presence as well.

Youth are here....now...present.

When we say "they are the future", then we ignore there current presence, gifts, skills, needs, desires, etc.

it is dismissive.

(ps were you there by chance?)

Very, very interesting way of turning the tables...  It takes youth out of the position of simply the little ones we are caring for who will become the church of tomorrow...  like breaking an idyllic fantasy bubble that we've been living in ... it makes us recognize our present moment accountability to the one who is speaking right here and now.

I think it's a very Jesus-like strategy.

Folk who have been in Children and Youth and Young teens Ministry have been saying this for the last 20 years.

Isn't anybody listening?

depends on if they are saying it to themselves, ch, or have a presence in the average church and say it there.

so, yes, i think folks know it...but forget.

also, it presumes that youth also know.

Pinga, it is a discouraging topic. It is a battle in all the churches to make their presence known and I think, unfortunately, that most of the kids got tired of waiting around.

My personal opinion is, that Worship Committees, Pastoral care Ctts, Council or boards, Christian Ed. Cttes all should have the presence of youth in their membership. Try and fight that battle - not only with the church heiarchy but also the parents.

Their voices, imo, are not being heard. But the voices that are being heard are the ones saying "where are the youth?"

It is surely quite normal for young people to lose interest in the church. They always have. And they are quite preoccupied by interest in other things, largely sexual and/or finding a place in the economic world.

Nor do I see why they should be on councils, etc. as a matter of principle. Most lack the experience. Moreover, the ones who are interested in such service at that age are, frankly, not likely to be a type who will ever be useful.

Young people live very much in their own and quite separate world. It's a distinction that may explain why most tadpoles show very little interest in sitting on lily pads and croaking. And the ones who do are likely to be seriously misfit tadpoles.             

I don't have a quick and easy answer. It may be, though, that instead of bringing them into the church, we need to provide some stream of church life that is both practical and geared to the interests dominating their lives at that time. I can remember YPU going at least a little of that distance for at least some youth.

maybe councils and churches would be more foreward thinking, graeme, if they had some youth as participants.

but the councils & committees would need to run differently.  Right now, no one wants to be on them because they are BORING and frustrating.  Listen to what Pinga groaned about Gen Council.  Maybe the work is inherent and can't be adjusted, but it happens that the same old folks do the same old work because they are comfortable with that method, and the ones who would do it differently (youth, young adults, even parents or those with different lifestyles (think musicians who are out at night and miss meetings) they aren't involved.  And no one around the Council table says, 'great idea - what do we need to do to make that work?'  they say:  "great idea, but it will never work because..."

Yes Crazyheart - they have been saying it for ages.  And it wasn't convenient for councils to make anything change.  (ooh I sound bitter).

Stuff has changed, without a doubt.  We have More Voices.  Many churches are playing newer music.  Women don't wear hats & gloves.  etc etc.  The pace is just agonizingly slow and doesn't happen till certain factions have changed.  By then, the people waiting for it have left.

Well, Birthstone, it is clear that we have both experienced this  and it really pi**es me off.Unfortunately, it seems that Presbyteries, Conferences and General Council have written the children and  youth off as well.Someone has to go back to the drawing board and come up with a concrete plan of revivAL.

If we are going to be brutally honest in many places youth are neither the future nor the present of the church.  They simply aren't there.

In fact, to be brutally honest, many of our churches where youth really aren't the future of the community either.  They leave for greener pastures after hight school because often they have no choice.

The future of the church lies in growing disciples, and age is not the important criteria.  But it should also be pointed out that to replace some of our 80+year old committed givers will take 3-5 younger families (both because of available income issues and because of a different level of committment).   The church needs to be something different and needs to have a different, non-vamppirish, approach to drawing in youth young adults, young families, newly retireds and continue to serve the needs of those who have been around the whole time.  IT is not fair nor reasonable to ask them to sacrifice all they know of church in the hope that it will draw in new people.

and I should add" that still honors the faith  and the committment of the 60+ year old people who are still there.

Yes indeed Starboy, the youth are the "church" just as much as the elders & all who believe.

I would assume that when one refers to being the future of the church, they mean that the future leadership of the administration & ministries will some day be in the hands of those who are young today.

One can still be a leader in the church as long as you know How & Who to follow, regardless of age, as there are some meant to be leaders, as long as they know how to serve.

Christ is the perfect example of what a leader is.

Bolt

In yrears of working with youth, I have rarely found young people to be forward looking. How could they be? New ideas don't come from young blood. If they did, the most intellectually exciting people in our society would be infants. But the reality is that new ideas come out of experience (and with an openess and a creativity to breed new ideas.)

That is not to disparage young people. It's simply the way things are.

I suspect that if you want ot draw young people, it will not be by putting them on boards - unless you come across a  really hot one who wants to be on a board. I suspect it has to be done by creating groups whose activities engage Christian values. For example, a bible study group won't do it. A study group that that looked at the real world from a Christian perspective might have more hope.

Gord - I agree that we can't just collapse everything that works for the 60+ people.  That is like asking me to start attending a RC church and feel good about it.  It just isn't what works for me.  THat is part of the big problem.  Another flipside is that the 60+ can't then say, "its good enough for me!  I loved being in youth group 45 years ago" and expect it to work for younger generations.

So are we at an impasse?

One thing I'd like to honour is that church is presently the only place where generations are mixed and intertwined.  Its the only place where children learn to hang out with older people and teens have other adult friends - (I'm sure someone has an example but really - church offers that very important experience for all people.

So we keep trying....

CH? why do you say that about GC?  To my knowledge youth were part of GC, with appropriate voices for how they came to GC (ie delegate or forum), and participation in all parts of the council.

I agree that youth are in the here and now, and the here and now will create our future.  We are blessed by their presence and can draw from their talents.  I know my life has been enriched by the light that shines in my daughter. There is so much we can learn from one another.  Everyone's light should shine through.

Pinga, there is more to general Council than a meeting every three years. I know that youth were present. But I also think that it General Council's ( dare I use the word "duty") to provide initiative, ideas, etc. so that the pastoral charges are given some help to carry on the Ministry with Children and Youth.

Just to send out info pacs and web site information isn't enough. There should be money, staff ( with progressive ideas) and a visual face on this ministry.

I know that this is probably just a dream but without it, I think you will see this ministry flounder even more. We may disagree with the fundamental church's theology, but they have got the methodology down pat - They have used people in music, youth groups, children's ministry. They have put money into  staffing.

In the UC we fight for every nickel of funding for staffing of these crucial ministries , imo.

there's an interesting thought above (well, several.) There was a time when the generations mixed I have fond memories of a childhood in which that commonly happened - and very often in the church. Indeed, one reason I returned to church is to rediscover that for my own children.

Perhaps there is a starting point in there.

I agree with GordW, the future of the Church is in growing disciples—of any age! The younger the better. But, more often than not, it is the older rather than the younger generation who feel the call and respond to it.

In the Elder Tradition of our aboriginal culture—as in most other indigenous cultures—it is the older generation that are the main carriers of culture. But they feel responsible for tribe, nation, and evironment, and think and act for the benefit of future generations rather than their own egocentric interests.

CH, ok, so how do you define GC?

GC acts upon proposals put forward by the community.

Example, the French Ministry brought a proposal forward, with concrete requests which was acted upon.

Campus ministries did as well.

In the end, those proposals as revamped go forward for prioritization within GC executive combined with existing staffing, budgeting, priorities.

Out of that, we have what we have.

What are your concerte proposals, what are you suggesting, ie money for what,specifically, what kind of resources/staff are you looking for where?

The fundamentalist don't so much put money into it....dont' get me wrong..they do, but also their kids give up a year of their lives often to do ministry in different locations, both in Canada and internationally.

(ps...if it wasn't clear...."we are the church" not "them"

hi pinga,

yes i was at GC40. but not as youth forum.

i was part of the leadership team for the children's program at general council.

i'm fourteen.

*proves his point* 

don't count on it.

um...

you're joking right? 

... this is how i feel: 

In years of working with youth, I have found young people to be extremely forward looking. How could they not be? New ideas come from young blood. They are always planning the future – their future. If they didn't, society would never move forward. But the reality is that new ideas come out of inexperience (and with an openess and a creativity to breed new ideas), and i say that because only with a new and unique angle on things can new innovations be created.

That is not to disparage old people. It's simply the way things are.

i can only hope and pray that you meant the comment above as a joke.

In my experience, part of the problem with people listening to the leaders of these ministries, is that the leaders are usually seen as youth too.  Youth ministry is usually seen as some sort of stepping stone to "real" ministry with the adults as a senior pastor or something.  Maybe this is different in UCC cirlces?

Young people in the ministry are placed into youth and young adult ministries under some sort of belief that they will do better there than the older adults, and wouldn't do as well with the adults because they are still too young and inexperienced.

I knew a man who had been a youth pastor for almost 30 years.  How common is that?  He has no desire to go on and become a senior pastor, his calling is for youth.  Even in his 60s the kids love him and his wife.  He rarely has a night without a handful of kids at his place for supper or after-school talks.  Many churches do not understand this.  They seem to think he is almost being wasted, he is proven to be a great pastor, why stay with youth?  How can youth still relate to him?

When I think of a young adult group I once belonged to my favorite couple that used to come was in their 70s.  This couple came almost every week and got involved in the lives of a number of the young adults there.  You really felt that they saw you as a person, not just a "young" person.  The friendship with them was reciprocal, not just a ministry.  Unfortunately this is all too often the exception.

well, starboy, I'd be delighted to hear about these "new" ideas from youth, and how they got them. How do you get a new idea about foreign affairs when you have only a slight knowledge of what has been going on. (And please don't tell me young people are well informed about foreign affairs. They're even worse than old people which is saying a good deal.) How does a young person develop new ideas about how to write when he knows very little of writing? How does he develop new ideas about sexual relationships when he's still getting a thrill out of soft porn?

To get new ideas, you need to get experience of life and available knowledge. If that were not true, we should be asking the kids how to run an education system on t heir first day of kindergarten.

But perhaps you could give us a list of new ideas which have benefitted mankind, and came from people under the age of, say, 25. there are some, of course. There just aren't really very many.

Pinga, I am tired. I am frustrated.I have been fighting the good fight for Children and Youth Ministry for a long time. I know we are "they" but if the suggestions are not going to GC from Conferences, Presbyteries and Pastoral Charges to put more priority into this Ministry, where else  are they going to come from?

So, I guess if we were a business and if the public was not looking to buy one of our products, we were drop it from our production line. This is what it looks like to me. The need for Children and Youth Ministry is not there, so it is being dropped and maybe it should be.

Maybe I will feel better tonight if the RoughRiders win.

well, hoping for a roughrider win is a mark of dreadful desperation. And I'm not sure it's that bad.

Youth participation has long been up and down. There was a burst of successes following the rise of the boy scouts, some of them showing very advanced thinking.  CGIT would have been right up there. The Anglicans had a copy of boy scouts. On the Jewish side, there were the remarkable activities of B"Nai Brith community groups.

All of those suffered from the properity and thus commercialization of the 50s and, more recently, the sharp decline of volunteerism as a source of leaders.

What might help is some study of what it is young people are doing, what they would like to do (the appeal to the romantic and adventurous might still work, as it did so well for the scouts), And see what it is that interests them that could be sponsored in a soft core Christian context.

I might help to look at the neglected wants. When I taught school, I organized a basketball league for the kids who weren't good athletes. it aroused surprising resentment and even anger among some people, including teachers. But the kids loved it. And why shouldn't they get a chance?

could something be done with a few computers?  With get to know your city tours which include areas of church work? with career explorations that pulled in popular djs? With basic dance classes from real dancers?

Graeme's comment : "Nor do I see why they [youth] should be on councils, etc. as a matter of principle. Most lack the experience.

There is a very small element of true to Graeme's comment, but it largely misses the mark.  Youth can actually generate quite a few ideas, but where they often are limited is in the specifics.  Example: youth in our church ask for newer music, but when they lead worship and are given a chance to choose music, it's all just the old classics!  Often this is just because they aren't familiar with the depth of alternatives that are actually available. It's the difference between dreaming and seeing visions. Both give glimpses of an alternative future, but one fills in the details more than the other. But just because I can't provide all the details of how to build my house doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to specify what I want in it. The details are left to those with the tools.

Concerning another of Graeme's comments "Moreover, the ones who are interested in such service at that age are, frankly, not likely to be a type who will ever be useful."  Graeme, you really need to explain yourself on this point, otherwise, I will take it as 1) paternalistic 2) elitist and 3) regressive.  I could be wrong about your meaning, however.  I was there as a youth 40 years ago. Are you implying that I will "never be useful"?  Sorry, I don't understand. Indeed, I have found that youth who take the time to become involved in the church are highly valued, and so they should be. They have much insight to offer - no to the exclusion of all other views, but as one of several.

One more comment:  the youth of 40 years ago are still waiting to be listened to. That's why so many have left. Unfortunately, expecting not to be listened to then becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. With so few "younger" (under 60) members left, when decisions are made, it's the majority that rules, which do not include the under-60's.

The Riders won and I am still depressed over this topic.

with nothing in your arsenal you're running to the extremes. 

may i remind you that there is a difference between children and youth. we are not children, okay. 

here's a word you may be familiar with. learning. it's what the average teenager spends 99.9% of their day doing. we learn what's right and what's wrong and we begin to have the courage to defend it. so don't tell me there are no youth who know anything about foreign affairs. did you know that the only reason that the topic of people being driven out of their homes to make room for the 2010 olympics in vancouver, the only reason it was brought up at GC40 was because of one man. in fact, they probably probably called him youth. you'd probably call him a child, and scorn that he knows nothing and can change nothing.

he was the only person who noticed something wrong and stood up against it. 

may i repeat, you're at the extremes. for example, lots of youth are very talented writers. a great series – the eragon/eldest/brisingr series was written by a teenager. kids learn and learn. of course a five-year-old wouldn't know how to run a school. but a seventeen-year-old would have some great ideas at a unique and perfect angle, they'd know what's wrong because they lived it, and they'd know how to fix it for the exact same reason. 

an initiative to raise $60,000 for HIV/AIDS stricken youth in Tanzania was begun in the Bay of Quinte Council, about three years ago.

guess who started it?

starboy - it should be matter of common sense that if you are going to get a new idea about, say, how to teach writing, you need one hell of a lot of experience of teaching it, seeing what works, what doesn't, figuring out what might work, how people respond --and that takes years.

Be reasonable. Nobody picks up an understanding of human behaviour in just a few years and at a time when his or life is pretty much in a bubble.

I first worked with street gangs, and thought I had the hottest ideas around. I know now how hot they weren't.

I thought I knew all about world affairs when I was a university student. I certainly knew far, far more than the average student. Years later, I would realize just how fragile that knowledge was.

Yes, there are some very young people who can do remarkable things. But they are rare. That is not to disparage them. Don't jump up to defend against an attack that was never made. The reality is that most new ideas require a good deal of experience to develop - and that takes time and often takes one out of youth.

The reality is that most people never develop new ideas at any age, and never will. So young people have two factors that cut down the odds - the need for experience, and the general pattern of the rareness of ability to produce new ideas.

And please don't tell me that most young people are very knowledgeable about world affairs. Very few people of any age have such a wide knowledge. The older ones tend to have just bundle of prejudices. The younger ones - well, I often am invited to talk to senior high students, and most - by far -know close to nothing about world affairs.

I taught for almost fifty years. I think if I'd had another five or ten, I might have become a good one. I well remember the callow kid I was at seventeen. Yes, I thought i had some neat ideas. Years later, I began to realize how inadequate those idea were. (this whole paragraph got out of place, somehow. it should be well above.)

There are things young people can do, and there are things they can develop. You are not doing them any favour when you push them into doing what they should be developing. To say that is not to insult them. To push them into doing what they are not ready to do out of some sense "age patriotism" does nobody any good.

Would you seriously say a twenty year old should be a prime minister because he has new ideas? Is he insulted if I say maybe he should wait a bit to gather some more experience? Should an eighteen year old be an army general because he has some neat ideas? How many 25 year olds do you know who are ready to be brain surgeons or psychiatrists?

Sitting on a church board takes judgement, human understanding, tact,tolerance that normally can be developed with years of working with people.An eighteen year old can have enormous talent and potential. But he is not likely yet to have developed all the rest.

What we want to do is to draw in young people to develop what they can be. Push them into roles they aren't ready for, and you will most likely destroy them.

Spiritbear

I agree with the comment that the youth of 40 years ago still want to be listened to and haven't been and that they have left.

Graeme,

I agree that youth aren't necessarily the harbingers of new ideas . ..  for example, the youth of the 70's80's90's took on the voices of the ultra conservative Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney years and moved it on over to evangelical churches which the UCC thought it could emmulate and still attempts to do so , much to the chagrin of the youth of 40 years ago who are all, in massive numbers just waiting to spit on the grave of the UCC.

Starboy

I agree that youth belong at every conference and that the voices of all need to be heard. 

oh, yeah. teenagers do not spend 99,9 percent of their day learning. I was one. Remember?

or do you really think that people like me were just born old and ugly and stupid?

The church has no future; youth or none.  In another 25 years, more or less, the UC will have all but disappeared given the current rate of decline.  What motivation does anyone, including youth, have for belonging to or continuing the UC?  I knew numerous youth who were raised in the UC who are now active members as adults in other denominations or independent churches.  People do their voting with their feet.  Given the choice on a Sunday morning against the prospect of attending a United Church, most teens I've met would rather watch paint dry.  When I studied Canadian Church history in the mid 1970's with John Webster Grant (name dropper!), it was clear at that time the UC was losing it with adults and youth.  Extrapolating the decline doesn't provide a very positive future.  What a shame!

you're putting words in my mouth. is it because i'm a child that you think i think you're old and ugly and stupid, or what? all children are insolent and disrespectful, is that it?

if you want to know why the united church is in trouble, with congregations dying because of a lack of young people, look no further than yourself.

i find your utter scorn for the values and thoughts of youth to be so ... scary, for lack of a better word, that i might just crawl into a hole and stay there until i am forty, or, in other words, an adult who can really be an asset to your society, with ideas and experience. 

if us youth are such dumbasses, with nary a useful thought in our heads, then why even bother with us? is it what we'll become? i can't speak for the rest of my generation, but i'd appreciate being valued for who i am, here and now.

do you remember the word i reintroduced you with awhile ago? learning? well i've got another. respect. i respect the elders at my church, sure, but i respect them a lot more if they respect me, and my ideas. yes, yes, i do have ideas. is that so hard to believe?

i think that youth should genuinely be given the chance of being on a church board, or whatever. if they're interested enough to do it, let them give it a try.

you might notice i didn't suggest prime minister, or army general.

i didn't say that the youth should be chair of the board. but what's the harm in letting them be a part? maybe one of their wretched ideas will be a good one.

 i like having wretched ideas. 

they usually work out for me.

starboy, I agree. Not chair of the board but a voice at the table.

starboy - many, many children find older people ugly and contemptible. They're supposed to. When I was a child, I showed respect - but I often profoundly resented older people, make fun of them, and make life hell for older teachers.

Don't be so quick to get offended. Do I get offended when you disagree with me? Do I accuse you of not respecting my values if i suggest you're wrong on some point?

You tell me young people are well informed on foreign affairs. Okay. How many young people do you discuss foreign affairs with in the course of a yeara? How many adults? And how expert are you to judge their knowledge?

I have been studying foreign affairs and broadcasting daily on them for over twenty years. I have written on them for newspapers. Apart from radio, I have talked with large groups of adults and young people in meeting halls and classrooms for thirty years on the subject. So I have discussed them with thousands of people of all ages.

But you, who have certainly met far, far fewer tell me I don't know what i'm talking about when I say youth are generally not well informed while you, based on your negligible experience know far more about it than I do.

That's some demonstration of respect.

However, I don't take it personally. I am not insulted. I am not offeneded. And I don't accuse you of picking on me.

Cool it. People are allowed to disagree with you, and getting used to it is a part of growing up. If you cannot accept disagreement without feeling personally insulted, then you aren't going to be much use in any leadership role.

Yes, you are a child. That is neither good not bad. It is simply a stage in life.

As a child, you are assembling experience which will make you more effective. That's as it should be. Getting experience takes time. Sorry. But it does.

Are their roles you can play now? Of course. Are there some you can't? Of course. Some take more experience and training than others.

Sometimes older people will be grumpy and dismissive of you. That is annoying. Sometimes young people will get grumpy and dismissive of older people, feeling they are in the way. I don't get annoyed by that because I'm had enough experience to realize this is a natural reaction. That's a difference experience can make.

I don't know how old you are. i can see you are already an intelligent and excellent writer with, I would guess, considerable potential for development. (you are not perfect yet. Are you insulted if I say that). You are very good and, I would guess, far ahead of the average for you age group.

So why do you get insulted that, as a youth, you are not yet fully developed? If you were ten years old and of average height for a ten year old, would you be insulted if I said you were not yet adult height?

You are at a stage of development. We all are, I'm afraid. That is not an accusation. That is a fact. At age two, you can walk. But you are not ready to enter a marathon. That takes time and training and experience. And it is surely no insult to say so.

I have seen students who wrote quite well at age 14. But they were not yet ready to sell in the marketplace. Sorry. That takes a bit more time and experience.

At every stage in our development, there are and will always be things we are ready to do and things we are not yet ready to do. I"m sorry. I don't control that.

youth should certainly be drawn in to contribute where it can - and that will vary by both age and individul. (you don't get new and good ideas siimply by being young. If that were true, we shall have to discover why so many people develop so many old and bad ideas as they grow older.)

Ever hear of the hippies? They were young people who were convinced tney all had new and esciting ideas and were going to buiilt a new world. In time, they became the generation who voted for Bush.

You look like potentially good stuff. Don't waste your time resenting being at a stage of development. You are. We all are. That's the way life works.

spirit beat - there are young people (and older ones) who want to get involved in order to ingratiate themselves. A kid in my first grade seven class raised his hand when I left the room for a moment. "Can I write down the name of anybody who talks when you're out of the room?"

Then there's the realit that youth have a natural interest in sex, in using their new mobility to get around out of the local area and see all that a city has to offer in cultural variety and enertainment and excitement. he or she wants to test, to find niches, to grow, to develop... Given a choice of drawing inward and discussing the Bible will draw relatively few - and my experience of the motivations of those few is not reassuring

Mind you, there are also some, a very few, whose motivations are consistent with the more common ones of adventure, exploration and development. It all has to do with the nature of the group one tries to put together. I remember a minister, Phil McCready, who had a wonderful ability to draw the most unlikely kids into the church by hiding the "mustiness" of bible study in an atmosphere of exploration and development.

retiredrev, despair not. EVents not develop in a straignt line.

Years ago, I noted that women's skirts were getting shorter each year. At last, we came to such a point it was obvious the next year would be IT. I suffered through months of agony, waiting for the new styles. Then the great day came. It was on TV news.

The new skirts were longer. Damn. How could that have happened?

Easy. That almost always happens. History does not go in a straight line.

The church has come close to the dumpster many times in the past two thousand years. \\But the straight line has always broken.

There were some of us who were members of the church board and chairs of the board and congregational presbytery alternates / reps when we were teens.

We were in congregations that believed that life-long learning is important... and that if people show gifts in areas then those areas need to be developed.

One note - I remember us saying, "The youth aren't the future of the church.  We are the present." in the 1980s. I know it was said in the 1970s. I listened to it in the 1990s, and here it is in the 2000s.

CrazyH... while this speaks to lack of change in the church, I think it also speaks to the reality of youth. Youth will *always* move faster, think faster, hope faster, and desire more than the generation (half-gen / quarter-gen) before it.

That's not a bad thing. But its also going to mean that Starboy's friend's shout is going to be a perennial - and perhaps never really achievable? - call.

Christ's peace - r

Thank you Richard for your post. I just wanted to add that I don't need to see youth be moderator, chairs of boards, or "at the top". I just hope that we can as a church, intentionally, give them a  voice at the table.