“No one is special, and everyone is needed.”

― Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

I have previously talked about my own experience caught up in a Youth Leadership Pipeline and the unintentional harm that can come from placing high expectations on our youth to become “leaders.” Identifying a problem is useful. But in this blog, I hope to offer a dream for a future of youth leadership that is slowly emerging.

The upheaval of many systems in recent years brings possibility. We can both honor and value the contributions of the past while meeting our youth in this moment—their moment—to create something new.

What can we do in the present moment for our youth? How can we build a youth leadership culture that can flexibly sustain our movement as we move into the future? I believe that collaborative community building provides us the key.

The model of youth ministry that emerged in the mid-20th century was based on a vision of creating youth-specific spaces, often attempting to make church seem “cool” according to the youth culture of each era. This happened across many different religious expressions. The focus on youth space was an important noticing of how teenagers often sat at a particular, interesting place in their self-development. However, this model also brought along many of our other cultural assumptions, especially around leadership: what it means, and what it requires. We believed we had to cultivate youth “leaders” who we then could cultivate into young adult leaders and hopefully then into future Unitarian Universalist ministers and leaders.

Yet what did this often create? Youth who felt disconnected from the life of their congregations—because their experiences were cultivated to be separate. For those who became youth leaders, it often led to burnt-out youth who gave 110% because they felt a strong sense of expectation, and didn’t want to disappoint other youth and their adult advisors. We’ve been unable to leave behind a framing of leadership focused around the idea that you have to be a specific type of person, with specific qualifications, to become a singular leader in a system—this system, the institutional hierarchies on which most religions in our contemporary society are based.

Recent decades have seen new ideas around leadership emerge in Unitarian Universalism, especially around the concept of “Shared Ministry.” Shared ministry means many things, from recognizing the role of religious education (and religious educators) in communities to recognizing our interconnected congregational life; in UUism, we believe anyone can give a blessing. Dr. Janice Marie Johnson, in an April, 2024 UU World article, offers us this definition: “Shared ministry means sharing in the responsibilities of the community.”

I believe that youth ministry and youth leadership development must shift into this shared ministry lens. It is my hope that we can shift to collaborative communal leadership, that we can build a sense of partnership including adults and youth, a partnership based on the understanding that the work of community building and the experience of belonging are valid expressions of leadership

Can we build systems that help youth feel integrated into the lives of our congregations and our Association? Can we create communities where youth can thrive and find what feels like their truest sense of belonging? Can we build communities of sustainable connections, where young people can develop a variety of capabilities, explore their sense of self and their sense of belonging, and try on roles without necessarily making a lifetime commitment, either to our faith movement or to who they want to be within it?

I believe that we can nurture all of our youth to grow into collaborators in our shared work, without expectations of a pipeline to leadership. We see the gift of all of our youth- because involvement in community building is the leadership we need. Let us grow alongside our youth in community.

To assist in this work, the Youth and Emerging Adult Ministries Team is in the midst of building The Stream, an ecosystem for the liberatory youth community. This is long range work, operating off of a five- year vision to begin to shift to a new model.

The first three tributaries of The Stream are community building, worship, and General Assembly. We are developing resources and opportunities for our movement to be in community with our youth across all of these facets, which you’ll learn about over the coming years. It is my hope that we can build a sustainable youth leadership ecosystem that is accessible to youth of varieties of experiences and congregation sizes.

Our first major resource will be the Deeper Joy Roleplaying Game, coming September 2025, a curriculum focused around storytelling and community building. This is connected to our Deeper Joy project which also focuses on community building. Learn more about the Deeper Joy project.

As you finish reading this blog, I invite you to grab a piece of paper or a journal and consider two questions: What does belonging look like for you? How can you help UU Youth and Emerging Adults cultivate their sense of belonging in our communities?

In the coming weeks, activate your curiosity: Consider simply taking or making time to hear about the interests of young people in your community, without any agenda.