Date Night Conversation

This weekend I had the joy of attending yet another meeting where I was the youngest person in attendance. This time around, I was the youngest person by at least 35 years. When I first started attending Synod and Synod type meetings it bothered me that I was the only young person there. Now, however, it fuels me in a way. As the only young person in attendance I am the only voice for the "youth" of the church that they here.

The Moderator Elect of the Synod of the Northeast is in my Presbytery Partnership Group (PPG). She has some big changes in mind for the Synod Assemblies once she is installed in October. She was telling me about some of the changes she wants to make and I am a huge fan of all of them. I also voiced my opinions on some aspects of Synod and she listened to me. As I have voiced before, I often feel that the young adults of the church go overlooked. But in this meeting everything I had to say was listened to and unlike the actual Synod meeting, in the PPG, I have voice AND vote.

After the New England Presbytery Partnership Group meeting, I went out to dinner with my boyfriend. Considering we are total dorks we don't have normal dinner conversation. Add to the fact that we are religious dorks and it gets worse. David is a religious studies major. He has a minor in Christian-Jewish-Muslim Relations and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Yeah, he is pretty amazing. I'm a religion major but I study theology whereas he studies different religions. David plans to be a professor. I plan to be a minister of the Word and Sacrament. So our dinner conversation covers different theological ideas, classes, current events, the future, acpocalypse, and any number of topics that would be unusual for any other dinner couple.

Talking about the PPG meeting led us into talking about the future. I am a church geek. More specifically, I am a Presbyterian Church Geek. I am a Presbygeek. I hope you figured that much out at this point. I enjoy polity. I read the Book of Order for fun. I am a geek. I recently added a new item to my lsit of life goals: become the youngest Moderator of the General Assembly. The role of the youth in the church and the voice of the youth in the church. I have about 17 years to complete this goal.

20-Somethings in the PCUSA

Something that has been on my mind rather frequently is the role of young adults in the church. I wrote a bit about it in my post about the TAMFS webinar, but it continues to be on my mind so I will focus on it for this post. This topic is regularly on my mind because it affects me a great deal. Being twenty-two years old, in the church, contemplating my future as a possible pastor within the church brings the issue to the forefront of my attention. Additionally, I have been reading Jim Kitchens' book The Postmodern Parish, which I highly recommend and a quote from it has continued my thinking about young adults in the church. Kitchens writes, "We puzzle over why older members want to hold on to forms of church life that may have inspired them when they were young, but that do not meet the needs of today's 20-somethings." I find this to be very true, at least in my area. There are programs for the youth but once you hit a certain age, usually somewhere in the sphere of 20, it is difficult to find a place to belong within the church.


For the children there are Sunday school classes catered to their age level. For the youth there is youth group. For the adults of the church, they have their own Sunday School class and gender specific meetings (at my church [Clinton Presbyterian Church] it is Men's Breakfast and Ladies' Lunch Bunch). But what is there for those that fall in between. Those of us that are too old for a youth group and yet feel to young to be in the same Sunday school class as our 70 year old members? Outside of my congregation is exists as well. There are summer camps and youth retreats for those in middle school and high school, but what of those in college? When there appear to be no interest paid to this range of members how are we to feel?


The more I think about this gap within the church, the more I pay attention to the different things I attend. Yesterday, at church, I looked around the sanctuary and saw three people under the age of 35. If we raise the age to 40, it only grew be a very small number, which included The Pastor! This is not in just our congregation, according to Presbyterian Research Services, 8 in 10 worshipers in PC(USA) pews are aged 45 or older. I go to Presbytery meetings and look around and I am almost always the youngest person and unless their are seminarians present, the only one under 35. If I take a look at our Middle Governing Bodies, it is the same story. At the Synod of the Northeast meeting back in October, I was the only YAD. No other Presbytery sent a Youth Advisory Delegate, and for some presbyteries it was because they did not bother to ask a youth. At the meeting I stood up and asked who in meeting was under the age of 40. There were two people at the entire Synod meeting...myself and my pastor (Rev. Cindy Kohlmann).


I think it is time for the PCUSA to realize the role that the young adult members are capable of playing. Both the median and mean age of PCUSA members is 60 years old. I am a little over 1/3 of the age of the majority of our members. I wonder if we found a way to include those in that 20-somethings category, if that statistic would change? The Youth are the future of the church and we need a voice in the church. Furthermore, I believe that the Youth of the church need to have a voice and representation. From the chances I have had I have been able to meet people from all over the country. Attending Synod meetings and conferences has allowed me to meet amazing people within the church (like our Former Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow and Vice-Moderator Byron Wade). The young adults of today are the future leaders of our church and I think it is time that the 20-somethings have a chance to show their potential.

*My experience pertains to The Presbytery of Boston and the Synod of the Northeast. For those Presbyteries and Synods that have opportunities for the 20-somethings, that find ways to keep the 20-Somethings involved in church and have found a way to minster directly to them, I applaud you.*

That All May Freely Serve Webinar

Tonight I participated in a webinar hosted by Lisa Larges of That All May Freely Serve and our former moderator Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow. The webinar started by asking us participants where we think the church currently is, on a scale from 1 – 5, 1 being life support and 5 being freaking awesome. I gave it a 3. I do not currently think that the church is dying, however I know that there are many things that our denomination needs to work on. The second question was “On a scale of 1-5 (1 being low, 5 being high) how passionate are you about the Presbyterian church? 4 out of the 12 participants responded with a 5 and only 1 responded with a 1. I put a 5. I am passionate about the PCUSA and cannot see myself in any other denomination; I do however wish that there were more chances for me to show how passionate I am about the church. When asked “why do you think people remain dedicated or connected to the PC(USA) in the midst of this on going strife?” the most common response was “people love their local congregation”, followed by “have hope for the church”. My three responses to this question were 1) people love their local congregation, 2) believe in connectional church, and 3) have hope for the church.

Some of the interesting parts of the conversation focused on what we should put our energies into once the Amendment 10-A discussion are over. As Larissa said in the chat, “I wonder if we can even fathom putting our energy to something else?  And if we can, will we put energy behind the positive or something else we can disagree on?” Sometimes it is hard to live without opposition when it becomes a part of our daily lives. Most people said we should just wait and let the Holy Spirit guide us but I also feel that economic justice will be an aspect to look into. Many agree that we need to focus on church development and nurturing our leadership.

Then out conversation turned to the youth. Obviously as a youth this is of great importance to me and it is something I care a great deal about. Sometimes as a youth in the church it feels as if we often go overlooked. All too often it seems impossible to get involved with things because we lack the years of experience that those, decades older than us, possess. When there are so few youth in the church it is hard to make people take notice of us and make them listen to our ideas and hear what we truly care about. As I said in the chat, during the webinar, it is things like this, the ability to take part in a webinar with other members of the denomination, on a topic I care deeply about, and be taken seriously, even though I am a youth, that keeps me in love with our church. I love the Presbyterian Church (USA) and I appreciate all of he opportunities that I have been afforded thus far, I just hope that there will be a swing in the church, when our congregations realize the amount of youth we are losing, that will places a greater light on the youth and the role that we are more than capable of playing given the chance. Only in the PCUSA can people so far apart in age be considered young adults. One member of our webinar is the youngest at his presbytery meetings, and he’s forty. I thought I had it bad. Someone said that “young people just aren't feeling engaged by the church and many of them don't find it relevant to their lives”. It is a valid point. As a denomination we need to focus more on the youth, bringing youth into the church, and keeping youth in the church. We put too much stock in experience and do not provide youth the opportunity to gain the experience. As a youth in the church, things like this (the webinar) are what keep me passionate about our church.

Talking about youth in the church reminds me of the letter I wrote at the Synod of The NorthEast meeting back in October, which was distributed to the stated clerks of the presbyteries in our synod. 

Here is the letter:

Dear Presbytery Moderators and Stated Clerks,

My colleagues and myself are continuously told that we are the future of the church. I was under the impression that this was a good notion but more and more it seems that what you really mean by the future of the church it means “you are the future therefore I do not have to deal with you now.” I do not want to be a cynic so I hope that that is not what The Church has meant for all these years. And yet, you say we are the future of the church but you continue to deprive us of the opportunity to prove ourselves.

We are the future of the church so wouldn’t it be best to provide us the opportunity to begin to take on responsibilities now and gain experience now rather than to have us lead the church twenty years from now without any experience whatsoever? The synod is comprised of ministers and elders from different walks of life with very different experiences. Sounds like an environment that would be conducive to learning. It seems that synod would give us the experience that we so desperately need to learn.

The Synod assembly of 2009 had a total of 3 YADs. The Synod assembly of 2010 has a grand total of 1 YAD. This saddens me immensely! Last year was a learning experience for me. I met and learned form the Vice-Moderator of the General Assembly. I met and networked with pastors and elders from across the synod. I learned what a synod is and what it does and I learned how to moderate a meeting. I should not be the only Youth in the Synod that is provided the opportunity to have this experience.

Presbyteries need to make youth representation a priority. Presbyteries need to ask youth to come to Synod meetings. The Youth are the future of the church and we need a voice in the church. Furthermore I believe that the Youth of the church need to have a voice and representation on the Synod Council. If the future of the church is at all a priority action need to be taken now.

Yours In Christ,

Devin Berry