UU Youth and Young Adults, part one
I’ll be serving as a delegate for my congregation at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly this year, so I’m looking carefully at the Youth and Young Adult Empowerment Resolution that has just been placed on the agenda for a vote.
I plan on writing a number of posts on this topic, so this one will serve as background.
First, on the resolution: it came about, to my understanding, due to actions of the UUA Board of Trustees cutting funding for national support of the Young Religious UUs program, preferring to focus resources directly on congregations rather than nationally. The Board was not very transparent about this process, apparently, and the YRUU steering committee, with support from the District committees and individual youth and young adults have created a resolution to call on the UUA to affirm its support of youth and young adult “empowerment.”
Second, on my perspective: I came into Unitarian Universalism not quite nine years ago as a young adult parent. I have to confess that since the beginning of my time in this faith I have been puzzled by the fervor with which many youth and young adult members hold up “Cons” as the end-all be-all of youth and young adult involvement in Unitarian Universalism. As a young parent with no extra money and no access to affordable child care in order to travel to a Con, my involvement has always been only directly with my congregation.
As a young parent, also, I never felt welcome at any of the young adult events even locally, since they seemed focused around hooking up rather than spiritual pursuits. In short, I wanted religion, “grown-up” religion, and those programs geared toward young adults that I had access to never seemed to offer that.
The various online forums that have been available over the years have also seemed to be focused around Cons, hooking up, and anti-racism/anti-oppression work, the language of which seems indecipherable unless one has attended some kind of training, which is only available at a Con or GA. The first time I logged in to FUUSE, for example, I read a long forum conversation about the ethics of having sex at Cons, most of those participating being in favor of it. Color me confused.
In short, I have always felt like an outsider when it comes to the young adult “movement” within the Unitarian Universalist movement, even though I am still squarely within the target demographic.
As a parent, and as the wife of a seminarian-now-minister, I have seen youth programs in several congregations act as an isolation of this particular demographic, rather than serving youth as valuable members of the greater, intergenerational, whole of the congregation. In my observation, youth involvement in these congregations has been all about getting to District and Continental Cons, and not about their individual involvement in the congregation itself.
And then there is the question of youth and young adult worship. I attended the youth-led worship service during the 2005 GA, and was left wondering just what our movement was teaching our youth about worship — because it was more like a getting-to-know-you workshop than a time of worship, or worth-shaping. I’ve also been to a number of “Soulful Sundowns” and “Circle Worship” services, and on every occasion left with the same feeling. There’s been good music, perhaps a good reading or two, but then also some kind of disjointed group activity that seemed to have nothing to do with the material surrounding it. I have found those experiences to be painfully empty.
Having attended GA for several years, I’ve gone through a progression of feelings about the national youth and young adult movements. At my first GA in 2005, I was very impressed when the Youth Caucus swarmed the microphone during Plenary in opposition to a resolution they felt did not reflect anti-racist/anti-oppressive progress within UUism.
However, during that same GA, there was an altercation at one of the youth events, where volunteer doorkeepers charged with checking convention badges were accused of being racist as to who they would let in or not without a badge, among many other reported incidents that led the UUA Board of Trustees to form a special commission to investigate. And while I don’t doubt that our movement as a whole and individuals within have much work to do on eradicating racism and oppression, this particular kerfuffle seemed, to me, to be overly extreme and histrionic. And this, quite honestly, soured my opinion of youth “empowerment.”
At the last two GAs, I’ve made somewhat of an effort to get involved with the Young Adult Caucus, but when I’ve gone to a Plenary session with the intention of sitting in the Caucus-designated seating, it’s been empty. No young adults in sight.
So I’m left with a sense of the disconnect of the youth and young adult movements within our Unitarian Universalist movement. It certainly seems to me that something just isn’t working.
Next up: the resolution itself.
Comment by kisi
April 28, 2008 @ 11:14 am
I’m with you on this - I’ve had all sorts of conflicting opinions about this YRUU and Young Adult Network question. Our young adult group at our church is quite strong (200ish on the email list) but we pretty much do absolutely nothing with the national stuff. Likewise, we have a very strong youth group program, but they do a little more on the national level and love those “con”s.
I think there is some need for a national organization, because I see the value in having cross-congregational events with youth and young adults, because many congregations don’t have strong programs and they need a place to go. How it’s been done though, especially on the young adult level, hasn’t been working really well.
I’m not sure about putting young adult and youth under the same office. I think young adult programming would be secondary, and I think there’s a distinct difference between the type of programming young adults and youth want and need. I think we just need to redo young adult ministry, and get people like us on board :)