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Commentary
COMMENTARY: More hopeful than ever Eric Van Meter, Feb 25, 2009
Eric Van Meter
By Eric Van Meter Special Contributor
Editor’s note: This is the second in a four-part series.Read the first part here.
A mentor of mine congratulated me last month on my 35th birthday.
“So you’re not a young adult anymore,” he said. “I guess that means that either you need to start realizing some of your potential or I have to stop thinking so highly of you.”
Ouch.
He’s right, of course. Now that I’m out of the young-adult age bracket, I’ve had to turn in my “young and inexperienced” card. I’m not a greenhorn anymore. I’m a full deckhand, expected to pull my weight on the ship regardless of how rough the seas get.
It’s not an altogether unwelcome position. In fact, this border country between “young” adult and unqualified adult offers a measure of perspective and authority.
Those of us in the middle of Generation X are maturing enough to understand the United Methodist Church and our place in it. We can navigate its interminable processes and procedures, and occasionally find some value in those. We can accept living in our parents’ church, even as we quietly work toward our own ideas of what a community of faith should look like.
At the same time, we’re gaining the respect of current church leaders. We’ve had sufficient time to prove that we, though imperfect, are at least competent. We may still be learning, but we’ve earned a seat at the grown-ups’ table.
A request from my annual conference’s leadership made this clear. Last year, the “Vision Team” approached several young leaders on how to “youthify” the conference.
Like most so-called vision teams, ours functions mostly to bless the status quo, regardless of the results. It had been carefully ignoring our opinions since its formation a half decade earlier.
Still, they asked. So 21 of us decided to make our best effort toward a solution.
Initially, our search for answers produced hours of blank stares and dead-end conversations. How do you trap a monster as enormous as the youthification of one of America’s oldest denominations? We felt like we were on yeti patrol, trying to catch something we weren’t sure existed.
It took a key realization to gain momentum: a formulaic approach to young adult ministry simply would not work. Canned programs designed to attract young adults might be attractive to publishing houses and preachers in search of a sermon series, but the fact is a just-add-water approach gets us nowhere. We have to establish principles and postures, not methodology.
We asked our annual conference to look less at programs and more at our attitude toward the world. Our list of qualities for young adult ministry reads like contemporary buzzwords: authentic, creative, transformative, missional, holistic, loving. But even though many of these words have been diluted by overuse, they retain enormous power.
The bad news is that such characteristics are exceedingly difficult to embody. Adopting such postures forces us out of the instant-disciple box and into a world of real people. We have to hold onto a tenacious love for young adults as well as a genuine humility that allows us to work with them in following Jesus.
We had other recommendations—from trimming a bloated conference structure to increasing investment in campus ministry to addressing the mistrust and cynicism that cloud so many clergy relationships.
Our leaders received our report with enthusiasm. The annual conference applauded its presentation.
But so far, our recommendations haven’t produced change in our institutional structure or allocation of resources. We have a bit more freedom to maneuver, perhaps, and a few more young adults on committees. Other than that, it’s more of the same.
This is where the 20-something version of Eric would rail against the lack of foresight of our denomination’s management. I would bang my head against the wall and wonder if my cousin could get me a job selling used cars.
The not-so-young adult version of Eric has mellowed a bit. I still roll my eyes at the silly politics and celebrations of mediocrity that hinder our efforts to do meaningful ministry with young adults.
But I’ve also come to realize two very important things: There’s good to be celebrated even in the midst of absurdity, and the responsibility for changing things rests more on me and my peers than on anyone else.
Both of these realizations are important. The first frees us to let non-essentials slide. It keeps us from fighting against people on our own team. While I may not like that my annual conference staffs 66 committees every year, I can grit my teeth and move on. I imagine John Wesley did a lot of that.
The second realization, however, strikes me as more critical. The perspective and authority we Unqualified Adults have gained means that we now have more resources at our disposal. We don’t have to wait for someone else to create the community of faith we long for. In fact, the responsibility for it rests squarely on our shoulders.
The exciting thing is people are taking initiative to make that happen. Last month, some fellow Unqualified Adults and younger colleagues put together a retreat for young adults who are exploring God’s call on their lives. I took along six of my Wesley Foundation students who were considering professional ministry, whether lay or clergy.
Most of the retreat was sharing and storytelling. The leaders conveyed information—notably an hour-long session that laid out the denomination’s mind-boggling candidacy process for our stunned college students. But they spent more time listening, encouraging and worshipping. They celebrated God’s call without any sales pitches or arm-twisting. They embodied the kind of nurturing community that is vital to the spiritual formation of young adults.
The success of the retreat hinged on cooperation. The annual conference provided resources for the event, but didn’t try to control it. They trusted their young adult leaders, and I think the leaders honored that trust.
Maybe I should be more skeptical. Maybe 10 years of ordained ministry has made me soft, quenched my revolutionary fires and worn me down.
Then again, maybe this new perspective I have is improving my vision. Maybe there really is reason to believe that God is still not finished with United Methodists, and that we aren’t finished with God.
I’m more hopeful now than ever. So onward and upward.
The Rev. Van Meter is director of the Wesley Foundation at Arkansas State University.
Eric Van Meter
