Update on the Youth Ministry Working Group
Update on the Youth Ministry Working Group Reported by Sara Eskrich and Judith A. Frediani, co-conveners
April 16, 2008
The Youth Ministry Working Group met Friday, April 11, through Monday, April 14, at the Walker Center in Newton, MA.
Members of this administration-appointed working group included Nick Allen, Laurel Amabile, Charlie Burke, Nancy DiGiovanni, Caitlin DuBois, Judith Frediani, Jesse Jaeger, Andrea Lerner, India McKnight, Alison Miller, Beth Miller, Laura Spencer, Judy Tomlinson, Jackie Whitworth, and Sara Eskrich as staff support
The meeting, ably facilitated by Rev. Dr. Terasa Cooley, was complex and very productive. A more detailed report will be available soon on the new Youth Ministry website, but here are some highlights of the work of this meeting:
Charge of the Youth Ministry Working Group
The charge of this group was articulated by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Administration as follows:
The charge of the Youth Ministry Working Group is to recommend to the UUA Administration and UUA Board of Trustees a framework and strategic imagination for Unitarian Universalist youth ministry based on the findings of the Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth and the recommendations of the Summit on Youth Ministry.
This statement provided much-needed clarity about the group’s parameters and priorities.
Mission
The group reaffirmed that its work must reflect the mission stated by the Summit on Youth Ministry:
We envision a youth ministry that is central to the articulated mission of Unitarian Universalism, offers multiple pathways for involvement in our faith communities, and is
- congregationally based;
- multigenerational;
- spirit-centered;
- counter-oppressive, multicultural, and radically inclusive.
Value Lenses
The group worked with President Bill Sinkford all day Saturday to focus on fundamental questions that could lay a foundation for a strategic imagination for Unitarian Universalist youth ministry. Important work focused on the value lenses we need to use throughout this work, including values of youth empowerment, congregationally based youth ministry, and anti-racism/anti-oppression/multiculturalism.
Interim Year
Even though important steps have been made by the Working Group in its first two meetings, it became increasingly clear, particularly after meeting with the Young Religious Unitarian Universalist (YRUU) Steering Committee, that the Working Group and the Unitarian Universalist Association need more time to develop a framework for a new approach to youth ministry. The Working Group therefore recommends to the Administration and Board of Trustees that the Association consider the coming year to be an interim year for Youth Ministry. It will be a time for Unitarian Universalists to work collaboratively to build a bridge to a new framework and support system for Unitarian Universalist youth ministry.
Organizational Principles
The major product of this meeting was a draft of organizing principles for the creation of a strategic imagination and framework for Unitarian Universalist youth ministry. The principles are as follows:
Service Delivery
Youth ministry will be strengthened in congregations by placing service delivery as close to the congregational level as possible.
Financial resources and staff of the UUA will focus on developing structures at district and regional service delivery levels.
These structures might include a full-time staff person in each region with relationships with congregations, district staff, youth and young adults, identity-based groups, social justice groups, UUA affiliate groups, etc.
Community
A key component of our ministry to and with youth includes building intentional and authentic relationships within multicultural and multigenerational communities of youth and between youth and the wider Unitarian Universalist population at all levels.
Resources of staff, volunteer time, and money will be directed at building intentional community at the congregational, district, regional, and national levels, giving priority to community at the congregational level.
Examples include congregational youth leadership training and support, district and regional gatherings, and focused national gatherings in partnership with UUA staff groups and denominational organizations such as the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM), Allies for Racial Equity, and Interweave.
Voice
Strengthen youth ministry through systemic change in Unitarian Universalist structures and culture by creating broader and more multicultural youth access to and participation in national, regional, district, and congregational levels of power and by providing opportunities for youth to develop and express a collective youth voice on issues that concern them.
Embedding a youth voice in existing UUA structures of decision making is an intentional change from the current isolation of a youth voice in a separate organization.
Last updated on Friday, May 9, 2008.
