Monthly Archives: December 2008

‘Lost Sheep’ view

This is a series of blog posts concerning youth participation. The articles will be published every Tuesdays in the coming 4 weeks. The last one was published on 23rd Dec 2008.

 

In your country, youth generally is a group being perceived as:

 A. a group that needs special attention to be taken care of

B. a group causing various social problems

C. a group which is heavily influenced by global culture

D. a group which the church normally finds it difficult to reach.

E. all of the above

   If your answer is E. Probably some of the churches in your country may adopt the ‘lost sheep approach’. With this view, young people are a target group to be preached by the gospel. Apart from that, churches may also see that keeping the youth too busy to create problems as one of their major objectives.

         In the late 19th century, it caught many churches’ attention that a newly emerged group – youth – started to leave the church. Both the church and the youth themselves find it hard to relate to each other. It thus gave rise to various youth Christian movements or organizations which were set up to tailor the specific needs of the youths.

         Even after many decades, many churches have been struggling how to attract and ‘manage’ the ‘lost sheeps’ who have stayed away from the church. In some places where Christian is still a minority in the population, proclamation among the youth has been a significant challenge and an important task to the churches.

         No matter what circumstances facing the churches, almost none of them would say we could leave the youth group to the Christian youth organizations. In order to evangelize or preach the gospel to the youth, many churches have set up their own arm of ‘youth organization’ which they would call youth department or ministry.

         With the ‘lost sheep approach’, the youth workers are practically the missionaries, caretakers, teachers and friends of the youth. Depending to the social context facing the youth ministry, the programs they offered can be very different even they are using the same approach.

         For examples, in countries where youth are the source of many social problems, the youth ministry may be focusing on organizing activities to keep them busy from causing problems. While in some cases the youth ministry try to attract more youth through various enrichment or outdoor activities.

        Nonetheless, whatever those activities are, they are the means to attract the youth so that they will stay in the church and be preached with the gospel. To use a metaphor, the youth programs are like the bell and good pasture. They are some incentives for the lost sheep to come back to where they are supposed to belong.

General Secretary-in-Training View

This is a series of blog posts concerning youth participation. The articles will be published every Tuesdays in the coming 5 weeks. The last one was published on 15th Dec 2008.

 Youth= the ‘future’ of the Lutheran chuches?

 You assigned an important task to a youth group and they turn it up like a mess. You… 

  1. regret that you have made a stupid decision to let such a group of immature and inexperienced kids to spoil the whole thing.
  2. tell them it is okay if they learn from the failure this time. But at the same time you say to yourself you will not engage them next time.
  3. feel guilty that you have not empowered them well enough to take up the task. You think next time both sides should have better communication.
  4. think they did not want to mess up the things. What they need are support, empowerment, accompaniment, and last but not least, a chance to make mistakes and learn from it. 

        Youth engagement is somewhat like roasting beef steak. Some people like it to be well cooked, some would say medium or even rare would be fine for them. The same applies to the ‘best timing’ for engaging youth. 

        During the LWF Council Meeting 2008 in Arusha, the youth stewards wore a blue vest with a LWF logo on it. If one paid attention, she can also see a few words under the logo – ‘General Secretary-in-training’.

  A funny thing happened though. The stewards chose not to wear the eye-catching vest in the second day of the meeting! The reasons vary from ‘The vest brought me too much attention which makes me feel uncomfortable’ to ‘General Secretary-in-training? I feel like I am ridiculing myself to have such aspiration’. 

‘General Secretary-in-training’ – those intriguing words made me think about a very common view of youth’s role in our Lutheran churches. I do not know whether there is an official name of it. Perhaps let me just name it the ‘General-Secretary in Training Approach.’ 

        In fact, this approach can be understood in another short sentence. This sentence, in my opinion, reflects a common view in our Lutheran Communion. Have you ever heard someone saying ‘Youths are the future of our churches’? 

        With this view, the church elders assert that the youths will succeed them as future leaders of the church. As such, they often see that a systematic training should be offered to the youths so that they could acquire necessary ministry skills. 

        When put it into a parish level, the ‘General Secretary-in-training’ approach may result in a relatively strong youth ministry or department.

        In this case, the youth ministry’s major mandate is to organize various programs for the ‘future general secretary’, ranging from bible studies to leadership and advocacy skill trainings.

        Those training foci may vary from church to church. It very much depends on, for example, whether a church prefer to train more evangelist or they would prefer more members good at diaconal work or advocacy.

        In your opinion, youths are the present or the future of our churches? For me, if youth are ‘the present’, I believe the church can have a better future.

Youth Toolkit on Climate Change

LWF Youth has put together a toolkit for youth groups, Sunday school etc. You can download it here or order it in paper. There is still much more information… Continue reading

Observing “World AIDS Day”.

Hey everyone!!!

Greetings to you all from all the energetic youths of J.E.L.C (Jeypore evangelical Lutheran church).

This is to inform you all about the awesome activities and the zeal of the youths, how we all observed World AIDS Day. I’ m very thankful to LWF and specially Roger for his encouragement and support, due to which all the youths are staying connected to each other and with the church, boosted to work for the welfare of the society and are committed towards the goal for creating awareness regarding HIV/AIDS. Here all the youths have joined hand to act in a coordinated manner to fight against the spread of the pandemic.

As we all know we just have to talk AIDS to stop AIDS. The louder we speak, the lesser will be the danger. While, it is true that youth is power and power is youth, so we voluntarily started acting to enable others around us to see in a right perspective.

30th November was a Sunday, during the service time we tried to spread the knowledge of AIDS among maximum people by giving them red ribbon” the sign of solidarity for those living with HIV/AIDS and a sign of hope to overcome.”

giving 'Red Ribbon'

giving 'Red Ribbon'

Had signature campaign, and disturbed booklet containing info.  about HIV/AIDS.

 

Rev.Ujwal Satman joining the Signature Campaign.

Rev.Ujwal Satman joining the Signature Campaign.

On 1st December in the morning we went to a nearby village called ‘dhepguda’.where we gathered the villagers and performed the street theatre and tried our best to educate them about some basic knowledge.

street theatre

street theatre

In the evening we performed a concert which attracted many people and there we tried to create awareness and spread the knowledge aboutHIV/AIDS. It was a grand sucess.There we presented the special worship order prepared by Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance,which was heart touching for all the audience.Some Government Officers were so impressed by our work that they have promised us to give their full support in our upcoming activities in the coming days. our youths also attracted the media people to write about us in the newspaper. So this was how we started working.

Please do pray for the youths.

music concert

music concert

presenting special worship prepared by Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance

presenting special worship prepared by Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance

Equal footing View

This is a series of blog posts concerning youth participation. The articles will be published every Tuesdays in the coming 6 weeks. The last one was published on 25th Nov 2008.

There are many youth participation models adopted by different churches. The most interesting thing is how the church leadership perceives their youth would have tremendous effect on what kinds of model they will use.

 

  The following models/views are not meant to serve as an example for churches to adopt. The major intention to illustrate them is to facilitate a comparison between different models that are commonly used. Those models may be oversimplified but it will help one to understand what kinds of youth participation model her church is using.

 

A list of views of youth and its resulted participation models:

  1. Equal footing
  2. General Secretary in Training
  3. Lost Sheep
  4. Seeds

Equal footing View

 

        In a morning service, you are invited to pray for the children and young people at the point they will be going to their children/youth groups. What would the most possible version of your prayer?

 

  1. Pray that God will provide the teachers with wisdom; and the kids and youth will learn more about god.
  2. Pray that the children will pay attention, behave themselves and understand the teachings.
  3. Pray that the youth and kids will have a good time worshipping and learning about god.
  4. Pray that God will guide both the teacher and the youth/kids and will learn together new things and build a closer relationship with god.

 

        ‘Youth have so much to learnt from the elders but also the elders have much to learn from them’. If your answer is D, you are very likely in line with this view.

 

        With the ‘equal footing’ view, youths are not seen as kids but the peers or partners of the elders in various ministries. The youths can enjoy equal terms and opportunities in most aspects, including the right to participate in the highest level of decision making process.

 

        Churches with this view are most likely to carry out what has been called on in the last LWF Assembly: to urge all member churches to encourage the participation of youth in the worship and decision making processes at all levels.

 

        It is interesting to note that some of the churches which embrace this view do not intend to build a prominent youth ministry. There is not even a youth worker especially for taking care of the youth groups.

 

        Those churches would rather call on all adult members to serve as a ‘youth workers’. To be more accurate, those ‘youth workers’ will be more like ‘youth mentors’ in the beginning and become ‘partners’ in the end.

 

        The rationale behind this is that youth should not be seen as a group of ‘kids’ which needs extra attention to be taken care of. Rather they believe the youths have all kinds of potential to serve God as good as the elders are able to. Perhaps they may need a period of guidance in the beginning, but they can pick up soon and becomes an ‘equal footing’ partners of the elders.

 

        As such, those church will deliberately engage everyone of the youth into different ministries, from a choir to an advocacy group, according to the gifts of the respective young person.

 

        In many cases youth would still have a regular fellowship but it will more like a place to worship and communicate than the ‘only place’ for youth participation.

 

        The above description should be seen as a kind of extreme case of churches holding this view. More often, the churches would still have a youth ministry which organizes a variety of program, from bible studies camps to leadership empowerment programs.

 

        Nonetheless, those aim of those training are meant to empower the youth to soon become the partner of the elders in the ministry. Youths are not expected or required to take a very long period of training before they could actually take up the responsibility. The equal footing approach emphasizes very much on intergenerational partnership in the ‘present tense’.

 

African churches call for stronger Youth Participation

Currently, many African churches meet at the Assembly of the All Africa Conference in Maputo, Mozambique. They came together and issued a convenant today addressing pressing issues for the African churches. Already, the second item of the 9 point convenant is calling for stronger youth participation. The entire document is worth reading but here I quote the youth section in full:

Covenant Two: Youth and Children in the Renewal of Africa

We recognize that the wisdom of the old and the strength of the youth and children are required for God’s mission in Africa. But we also realize that current mission environments in many of our churches do not bode well in allowing the youth and children to participate in God’s mission to redeem a broken and sinful world. Apparently, African youth and children are battling with the challenges brought by a highly technological world, human trafficking, drugs, HIV/Aids, violence in wars, etc. In addressing the problems of the continent, we must decide to live with a sense of collective responsibility, humbly dismantling the ecclesiastical structures that have long excluded the youth from the mission in the church. Together with the youth, the churches can take responsibility for the present and future renewal of the ecclesia and the entire continent.

Response

We acknowledge God’s endowments on the youth and children regardless of their age or status in life.

We affirm the youth and children as veritable partners in God’s mission in the renewal of Africa.

We commit ourselves to the dismantling of the ecclesiastical structures that have long excluded the young from mission in the church and society.

We commit ourselves to youth and children empowerment for effective leadership through capacity building, African education systems and curriculum, youth innovation and entrepreneurship.

Africa, step forth in faith!”

I think this is a very relevant statement and we should all work together to follow it up. Without any doubt, it is also very relevant for all other regions. I would be happy to hear your ideas!

We don’t want to destroy and rebuild

This is a series of blog posts concerning youth participation. The articles will be published every Tuesdays in the coming 6 weeks. The last one was published on 25th Nov 2008.

         In reality, it is common to see that youth participation has always been seen as a revolutionary or even an ‘ungodly’ term. My observation told me that in a number of occasions when the term ‘youth participation’ is raised, it was as if a problem to be avoided than a commendable idea to be favored.

         A Lutheran youth worker once put it this way, ‘It [youth participation] has been an ongoing battle for decades [between the elders and the youths], I am afraid it will continue until the second coming of our Lord’.

         Indeed in some cases, when the youths’ hunger for wider participation meet with the elders’ hunger for absolute power, serious intergenerational conflict arises and threaten the unity in the church.

         For many youth I have encountered, their primary motives to participate in a particular church structure, e.g. a church council, is as simple as to get their voices heard and their interests being taken care of.

         However, some perceptions suggest that when youth were allowed to take part in the decision making process, they tend to radically push for their agenda. In some cases it may be right, but do not forget even so the youth are still the minority in the decision making body.

         The ‘danger’ of engaging the ‘radical youth’ has been a popular reason for impeding youth participation. It is always framed as for the sake of unity. Some churches would prefer a consultative approach rather than directly ‘granting’ youth for a vote.

         All those intergenerational conflicts, both due to power struggles and disagreement on certain issues, may be avoided if youth are being totally excluded from the decision making process. At least for some churches, it seems to work quite well.

         Those churches, however, could not see that excluding youth could be disastrous to the health of a church. When they see their youth suffered from lack of affiliation, undefined identity, passive spirituality, timid to new challenges and responsibility, etc. As such, it may not be exaggerated to say stagnant growth in some churches were partly due to lack of youth participation. But then youth becomes the scapegoat and are often blamed as lack of passion.

         In a book called ‘Youth A Part’, a youth worker Denis Tully wrote, ‘Young people do not want to destroy and rebuild, neither are they intent on being given everything. Rather their desire is to have an experience of the church which is meaningful to them and to walk a pilgrim journey with either their peers and or other adults.’

60 years Universal Declaration of Human Rights – but nothing to celebrate…

A contribution by Julia Heyde from Germany:

A few days ago, lawyer Alirio Uribe Muñoz from Colombia visited Hamburg and I had the chance to meet him. He is a very friendly, approachable man who has been engaged in the defense of human rights for a very long time. With his lawyers’ association “José Alvear Restrepo” in Bogotá he works mostly with the victims of civil war in Colombia; he often defends journalists and unionists.

The greatest problem faced by Colombia right now, Muñoz said, is the high number of internally displaced people. One tenth of the Colombian population has been displaced, that means, that after Sudan Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced persons in the world.

“Right now we have to protect the people. That is the only thing we can do. Because in short-term we don’t see any possibilities for political negotiation or humanitarian agreements. There is probably no chance that this government will change its policy”, Muñoz commented.

Another problem is impunity. Continue reading

Say NO to violence against women

November 25th marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. This day is meant to raise public awareness of the problem of violence against women. This day is also the starting point of 16 days of activism against gender violence, and this year it will lead to 10th December, 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was signed.http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.

So last week, I commemorated this day with many others at the United Nations in New York where the UNIFEM High level event took place.

In March 2008 the Secretary-General launched his global campaign; UNiTE to end violence against women. On 19 June 2008, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1820, which recognizes sexual violence in situations of armed conflict as a threat to national and international peace and security. The resolution calls for decisive actions by all involved in the conflict to protect women and girls.

While there is reason to celebrate the progress made so far, much more needs to be done. Women are still experiencing violence all over the world, with some reported and others going unreported. We all know how sad the situation is in the Congo, where women and girls are raped daily, then we read of the Somali young woman who was stoned to death because she had been raped: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7694397.stm. and just last weekend, I read an article on women being disfigured by their husband who throw acid in their faces http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=1&em
It is estimated that worldwide, one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.

Culmination of the first phase of UNIFEM’s Say NO to Violence against Women campaign was when the Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon received 5,066,549 signatures from UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman and UNIFEM Executive Director Inés Alberdi. I know many of you signed on this campaign. President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania was one of the first heads of state to add his signature to the Say NO campaign. The UN Secretary General is urging all governments worldwide to make ending violence against women a top priority.

While all this is taking place at the highest level, your help in bringing an end to this human rights violation is most needed. Many women and girls remain silent because of the shame it brings to them and their families. We can support them by continuing to vigorously advocate for human rights for all. You can volunteer with organizations working to change attitudes and policies in your community.
A young man from Asian summarized in a video “Care, think, take action”.

For more information please visit http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/vaw/

Church of Sweden Youth active on Climate Change

(A post by Calle Olaison Jacobsson)

Church of Sweden Youth are working with two different kinds of global issues; fair trade (Fair Trade labelling and the Clean cloths campaign) and climate changes.

The work on climate changes includes a material which gives knowledge about the topic and also provides children and youths with tools for taking action. The material is called “Klimatlådan”, the climate box.

I connection to the Interfaith Climate Summit in Uppsala 28-30 november in Uppsala Church of Sweden were part of an ecumenical training for youths on climate changes. The yout learnt a lot on climate changes and were’re involved in work-shops on how to talk about climate changes; to children and to grown-ups. And they also learnt how to deal with media and how to act on the street to improve the knowledge among the public. It was a great week-end and not only did the youths became experts on climate, the ecumenical movement in Sweden was improved.