Yesterday, Bruce Reys-Chow, Moderator of the General Assembly for the PC(USA), addressed the participants at YAM JAM and stretched us with important considerations and thought-provoking questions.In addition to serving as the Moderator for the General Assembly, (What does the Moderator do?) Bruce is the Pastor of the Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco. The congregation primarily consists of young adults. (FYI: The median age of the elders on the Session is 27). Bruce invited us to consider the cultural shifts that are taking place among young adults, so that our larger denomination might find ways to embrace new understandings of authority, accessibility, and vision for Christian life.
Bruce believes that we must come into awareness that sociological shifts truly are happening. Our posture should always work to understand these shifts. If we don't, he believes that we cannot ultimately know what we want to embrace or how we hope to distinguish ourselves.
Bruce led the YAM JAM participants in a discussion about Modernity and Post-Modernity. How is our culture changing, and how does our church respond to those changes?
Modernity tended to value progress, fact fundamentalism, established values, and certainty. The structure of the Presbyterian Church at this time fit its culture, and as a result, the Presbyterian Church experienced its largest size and its greatest influence. In a culture of Modernity, structures of authority were clear and moved in one direction. People accessed those in power by moving upward. Communication was vertical. The generations who grew up in the period of Modernity also had great faith is methodology. They tended to believe that if certain steps were followed, results would be fixed and goals would be met. Bruce believes that the PC(USA) largely continues to follow these models of thinking, though the culture has shifted from many of these convictions. He argues that many young people today don't see the church as "relevant enough to rebel against." And for this reason, many young adults exist outside the church entirely.
In juxtaposition with Modernity, the culture of Post-Modernity has shifted many of these values. Bruce was clear that Post-Modernity is still connected to sociological contexts of the past, but it has moved beyond them in significant ways. In our Post-Modern culture, accessibility is really no longer an issue. Technology provides numerous ways to be in contact with others. Bruce argued that it is truly difficult to exist "off the grid" in our culture. Also in a Post-Modern context, important information no longer moves in a one-way, linear direction. Instead this cultural context values open-source conversation. Everyone contributes to the creation and re-creation of information through interactive dialogue. While Modernism tended to believe that methodology could overcome chaos, young adults in a Post-Modern context understand that this is not so. The world is chaotic and ambiguous. Bruce argued that one role of the church in this context is to provide peace in the midst of such chaos.
What does this mean for the church? In the demographic of young adults, authority is more shared. In the historical context of Modernism, the church upheld the belief that in worship, truth is discovered and disseminated. For decades, seminaries have taught that the sermon is ultimately a conversational moment, but too often, PC(USA) congregations have made the sermon a one-way information source. Bruce suggests that ministers in a Post-Modern context should experiment with ways to make sermons truly dialogical. In this way, the church is invited into a moment for open-source theology. Ultimately, this form of worship is very Presbyterian, for Presbyterians have always believed that the will of God is better understood when many voices are represented and heard. Congregations in a Post-Modern context thrive when multiple voices are embraced.
The participants at YAM JAM were grateful for Bruce's words and leadership. We look forward to continuing this conversation intentionally for the church contexts we serve.
Hearing From the Participants:
What do you love about young adult ministry?
"It's great to be taught by this active, thoughtful, playful age group. . . They keep me connected and engaged."-Diana Malcom, State College Presbyterian Church (Penn State)
"I love seeing different groups of young adults (college students, workers etc.) coming together and bridging the gap to fellowship and worship together."-Kelli Houpt, Young Adult Volunteer (Seattle)
"The young adults! They represent so much promise and so much hope for the faith of the denomination. Thanks be to God!!!"-Adrian McMullen, Associate for Youth and Young Adult Ministry at the General Assembly Council (Louisville)
"I love interacting with people who come from a variety of backgrounds and who bring different experiences and perspectives to discussions and activities."-Beth Essinger-Hileman, State College Presbyterian Church (Penn State)
"What I love about young adult ministry is the connections. I love how those involved have such a fire for Christ and connecting, that they do all they can to engage the young adults to share the same fire as well as learn how they can better connect with them."-Allison Peak, PSALT (Presbyterian Student Advocacy and Leadership Team)
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