When I was first called to serve as Assistant Pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Regina, Saskatchewan, it was in large part to focus on youth ministry. I had a big interest in youth ministry because I had been involved in that aspect of church work for years: from being a teenage leader of the youth group at Trinity Lutheran Church in my hometown of Brooks, Alberta to being a counselor at Camp Kuriakos by Sylvan Lake, Alberta, or working as a youth leader at Calvary Lutheran Church in Edmonton while taking the final year of a Bachelor of Arts degree at University of Alberta. And it didn’t hurt that I was pretty young when I was ordained, just 25 years old – still pretty much a kid in many ways.
In the early years at Christ Lutheran I functioned for the most part as an older kid when leading the youth group, engaging in the activities with lots of energy and enjoyment. As I aged I became less and less able to keep up with the kids, and there reached a point where I had to acknowledge that I needed some assistance with the youth program from someone younger, a person who could supply the youthfulness and cultural connection with the teenagers that I was no longer able to manage. Over the years we have had a number of excellent youth workers, starting with Rhett Soveran, then David Ruecker for many years, and most recently Markie Hembroff and Vaughn Schnell. However, even with these youth workers doing the bulk of running the program, I still kept involved in youth ministry through the planning process, and helping out with some of the events.
I have been attending Canadian Lutheran Youth Gatherings since 1976, missing only a couple of them in the early 80s. These biennial events have been an important part of my youth ministry experience, either by leading a group to attend the gatherings, or being on the planning committees of these national events. The best part of being on the planning committees was interacting with other creative people who were passionate about youth ministry. It is the creative part that I have really enjoyed, being able to ask the question “How could we do this?” over and over, brainstorming and dreaming, and then working to bring such creative ventures to fruition.
This creative freedom was not just experienced on youth gathering planning committees, in fact it functioned at every level of ministry: national, regional and local. What I discovered in the parish is that trying different things, especially in worship, can be controversial and met with great resistance, however, if I said the change was being done ostensibly to help involve and engage the youth, the older generations were more likely to put up with such changes (at least occasionally). In this way, being involved in Youth Ministry has enabled me to be far more experimental and creative with worship, and that freedom has kept things fresh for me throughout the past 25 years.
The recent Emerging Church movement, with its creative approach to worship experiences, has felt very familiar to me simply because what they were doing resonated with some of the things I've been doing in youth ministry throughout the years. When I visited some Emerging Church communities, attending their worship services (one called Church of the Beloved in Washington State, and one in London, England called Moot) I thought to myself “This could have been something at a youth event… except there are people of all ages here.” I think it is the creative aspect of the Emerging Church movement that I am attracted to the most, they are willing to rethink things, reconfigure things, and re-connect people disenchanted with traditional church into a worshiping community.
I remember being responsible for a late night worship service at the Canadian Lutheran Youth Gathering in Winnipeg in 1994 – we were taken by surprise with the dramatic increase in attendance at the late night worship services (previous gatherings had only a couple hundred youth participate, at this particular gathering the room we had set aside for the late night worship services could barely contain all the youth – it was literally standing room only – and we had to scramble to ensure there was enough bread and wine for communion). There were many reasons for this dramatic shift in attendance, one was that the worship space was right next to the room where the dance was being held, and when the dance let out and the worship began the kids still wanted to be together. But also of significance was that word was beginning to spread through the youth that these late night worship services were creative and interesting. I remember using a dramatic reading from the Iona Community at that service, having members of my youth group read various parts of the dramatic reading (based on the Last Supper) from various places throughout the crowd. I also remember having Sara Wahl and a worship band from the Eastern Synod leading the music at that service. Creative liturgy, new music, and an unusual time all combined to make the late night worship services of interest to the youth. Ever since that time, late night worship services at the national youth gatherings have been consistently well attended, with the majority of the participants coming together to end the day with worship, and I’m proud to have been a part of helping that happen.
I am grateful for the many ways in which I have been able to express my creativity throughout my time in ministry. I am grateful that my congregation has been willing to allow worship to happen in new and different forms as a way of trying to involve and engage younger generations or reach out to folks disenchanted with the traditional church. Now I find myself a part of the older generations, and I hope I will be open to new and creative expressions brought forth by younger members of the church.
No comments:
Post a Comment