Dear Church: A Letter on Being a Young Adult

I actually wrote this much earlier this summer after a perfect storm of events, but the final one was a lunch with Bishop Elizabeth Eaton and the other interns. It seemed like I had been hearing just so much about how the Church was dying because we didn't have enough young adults. And I am not really sure that's true. It didn't end up getting posted in the other locations I thought it would, so I figured I'd share it here. Certainly my denomination is not the only one experiencing dwindling membership, but I can only write about my experience in the ELCA.

Dear Church,

I’m not your token young adult.  Please stop treating me as one.

It seems every other week or so there’s some news story or “recent” study coming out to say that mainline Protestant Church membership is declining. And the following week there’s another news story about the best way to get young adults into your church to save it from decline/collapse.

I’m going to be bold and just say it. I hate these articles. I never read them. And I don’t find any truth in them. The notion that young adults will swoop in and save the Church seems harmful and blatantly misleading.   

You see, young adults are already in this Church.  Some have committed to years of volunteer service both domestically and abroad. There are young adults doing amazing work at camp. And campus ministry. And even in your parishes doing any number of things. We are in the trenches doing justice work and on the hill doing advocacy work.

But sometimes you don’t see us. Or sometimes when you do finally see us, you hover and overcrowding turns us off to showing up in traditional worship spaces. And other times you use these gimmicks to get our butts in the pews that we see right through. Big flashy church with lights and professional singers on a stage with the newest and hippest contemporary Christian music is personally not my thing. It’s so shiny and staged.  And I hate it (don’t get me wrong, I love shiny things generally…my favorite color is silver, with glitter being a close second). But I don’t want shiny Church.

I want real.

I want a safe space, rooted in tradition, re-imagined in the modern world, that allows me to question, to converse, to discern, to get it wrong before I get it right, to work, to worship, to serve, to play, to love, and to be loved. I don’t need programmatic experiences especially designed to hook Millennials. I’m not really interested in this. I am much more interested in how Church interacts with the world.

I am much more interested in the intersections of my own life, and the lives of those around me, and how those play out in the world. I am much more interested in how privilege can be used to find voice and space from those that are oppressed. I am much more interested in conversations about how being female in the world and in the Church has shaped my perception of the world. And especially how this femininity both gives me power and also relegates me to second-class citizenship, depending on the situation. I am much more interested in learning how being a child of God should affect how I interact in the world.

My favorite and most transformative moments in my faith journey have been with small groups of people conversing about faith and secular worlds colliding in the justice work they are doing. Other “mountain-top” moments for me include the time I spent in silence at a monastery in France. These experiences are not new and shiny; they are “boring” and “old.”

I’m not asking you, Church, to come up with some beautiful, new, shiny plan to get me into the building. I’m not asking for a strategic 3-year plan about increased membership and offering intake from the under-35 demographic.

I want you to be genuine. Authenticity is what I value most. Don’t try to be hip. I, and others, will see right through it. You know why? Because I’m not hip. I play bassoon and I get really amped up when I talk about neuroscience and Lutheran theology. If your congregation is really great at High-Church liturgies and welcoming people to the Table, do that. If you are really great at being a feeding or clothing ministry, do that. If you are really awesome at inviting others to share their stories during worship, do that.

I am asking you to accompany me, Church, as you have thousands of others before me, on my spiritual journey. I am asking you to accept that Church might be happening outside your four walls and that’s okay. That’s actually part of the imperative we get from Jesus (Matthew 25:35-40 among others) and the example that he set for us (I mean how many times were any of his miracles within the 4 walls of a synagogue?). I am asking you to stop considering me as your token young adult that will somehow change your ministry, evangelize and save your congregation someday.

We are already here. We may not be inside, but we are here. Some Sundays, you may not see our bums in the pews, because we are out and about, doing the work of the Church. Come see us. Come join us. But please remember to invite us back with you, too. We can both learn from each other; let’s be Church together and bridge the gap.

Sincerely,

Jenny

rain, rain go away!: week 3

walking out and about in the neighborhood

I'm so tired of the rain. For real though. It's been raining almost every day at some point since I've been here. And it was rainy in Omaha for several weeks before I came also. I need some sunshine and vitamin D in my life pronto!! An unfortunate morning of rain and missing the bus resulted in some of the worst blisters in my life. I have new respect for dancers who deal with blisters more frequently than I care to. I was quite stoic through it all, I assure you. I promise I didn't whine or waddle around like it was the end of the world or anything... ;)

Other than the dreary weather, this week was a good one. More Netflix watching and more reading ("Sea of Tranquility",  "Breathing Space", and "Friendfluence"). If you haven't read "Sea of Tranquility," I recommend you stop whatever you're doing and go read it. Now. I couldn't put it down! This week also featured lots of great projects at work. Bowling with a friend from my MPH program in Omaha and her Chicagoan boyfriend and friends. I even got over 100 on 2 of 3 games! Pretty stellar for my bowling abilities. Homemade chile rellenos (thanks Pedro! They were delicious!) and fun conversation with Chicago transplants from Nebraska. I actually lived with/in the apartment of one of them in Lincoln the summer before I started med school. The world is small. I am so happy to have "home" people around while I start getting homesick.

Glazed and Infused donut stand

Another bonus was the fabulous care package from my parents. I got Eileen's cookies!! The taste of home was the most perfect Saturday surprise. I feel a little guilty that I haven't shared the goodness of Eileen's with the other interns or my roommate, but selfishly I want them all to myself! :)

This week the interns had lunch with Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, the presiding bishop of the ELCA. She's sort of the figure head (and does lots of other things too) of the ELCA. She's absolutely hilarious also. She shared with us her favorite place she's visited since becoming bishop and also told us more about her job. We talked about many other things as well. We also had lunch with the Young Adult Ministry team--the always lovely, Rozella White. The fiesta they provided for lunch was especially delicious, but also the conversation rewarding. If you're a young adult and think you're alone in this church, you're wrong. It might seem like we are few and far between, but I promise amazing things are happening here. Let me know if you want to be part of them too!

The week was a bit of an emotional one for me, truthfully. The Charleston shooting hit close to home for ELCA congregations. Bishop Eaton, our presiding bishop, released this statement:

It has been a long season of disquiet in our country. From Ferguson to Baltimore, simmering racial tensions have boiled over into violence. But this … the fatal shooting of nine African Americans in a church is a stark, raw manifestation of the sin that is racism. The church was desecrated. The people of that congregation were desecrated. The aspiration voiced in the Pledge of Allegiance that we are “one nation under God” was desecrated.

Mother Emanuel AME’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, was a graduate of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, as was the Rev. Daniel Simmons, associate pastor at Mother Emanuel. The suspected shooter is a member of an ELCA congregation. All of a sudden and for all of us, this is an intensely personal tragedy. One of our own is alleged to have shot and killed two who adopted us as their own. 

We might say that this was an isolated act by a deeply disturbed man. But we know that is not the whole truth. It is not an isolated event. And even if the shooter was unstable, the framework upon which he built his vision of race is not. Racism is a fact in American culture. Denial and avoidance of this fact are deadly. The Rev. Mr. Pinckney leaves a wife and children. The other eight victims leave grieving families. The family of the suspected killer and two congregations are broken. When will this end?

The nine dead in Charleston are not the first innocent victims killed by violence. Our only hope rests in the innocent One, who was violently executed on Good Friday. Emmanuel, God with us, carried our grief and sorrow – the grief and sorrow of Mother Emanuel AME church – and he was wounded for our transgressions – the deadly sin of racism.

I urge all of us to spend a day in repentance and mourning. And then we need to get to work. Each of us and all of us need to examine ourselves, our church and our communities. We need to be honest about the reality of racism within us and around us. We need to talk and we need to listen, but we also need to act. No stereotype or racial slur is justified. Speak out against inequity. Look with newly opened eyes at the many subtle and overt ways that we and our communities see people of color as being of less worth. Above all pray – for insight, for forgiveness, for courage.

Kyrie Eleison.

The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, Presiding Bishop; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 

I'm struggling with how I am supposed to respond to the very many events of racial tension and violence that have been in the media much more frequently over the past year. I know that, unfortunately, these events are not new. These types of events have been going on for years. It's only now that mainstream media has been picking them up. And it's only now that the conversation about racial injustices have become trending topics. I am thankful that those conversations are happening, that I can be part of them, and hopefully that change is possible. But I am sure that there is much more to be done beyond conversations. Still working out what that actually means for my life practically though.

What a week.