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Prayer. I find it so hard.

My prayer journey over the decades has been fraught with difficulties and failures, but at the same time has opened up for me some fascinating and marvellous experiences.

Ever since I was a kid, I have been encouraged to pray and have been taught the deep value of prayer. I can remember my dad buying me a little notebook when I was in primary school. He sat down with me at the kitchen table to divide the pages into seven sections, one for each day of the week. We then assigned people, groups and world needs to each of the days. I used this book to guide my prayers each morning or evening, starting with praise, then thanksgiving, then requests. I recorded answers to my prayers at the back of the book. This method instilled in me discipline, but it required so many words from me. Words, words, words! If prayer was so important, why was it so hard?

When I was young we had an unspoken motto in our family: if the church opened its doors, we were there. This included the Wednesday evening prayer meeting. I was usually the only kid among a bunch of adults. The prayers seemed to go on and on for hours –so much talking I had trouble staying awake. More words! I often wondered if God got mad with me because I got bored. In my more daring moments I wondered if God got bored, too! Why didn’t God sit down with me and have a normal two-way conversation?

Since then, more than four decades have passed. I’m older and bolder. My prayer journey has had many twists and turns.

A little while ago I came to live and work in South-East Asia. ‘Allahu Akbar Ash-hadu an-la ilaha illa llag …’ The call to prayer reverberates out from the mosques five times a day. It is a constant reminder that people who have surrendered to God have a life centered on prayer, time with God. Listening to the call (there is nowhere here where you can miss it!) is slowly working towards a change in me. Five times a day I am reminded that I must continually surrender to God if I am to have any influence here as a follower of Jesus.

Read the full story in the October edition.

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The history of Finke River Mission (FRM) in Central Australia dates back to the mid-1870s. However, while there are regular milestones recalling significant events across more than 140 years, there are also new and exciting developments in the 40 Lutheran communities of the region.

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the dedication of the church building at Haasts Bluff, 220 kilometres west of Alice Springs, while recently a new church was dedicated at Engawala, 150 kilometres north-east of the region’s largest population centre.

Haasts Bluff was the first church built in the Pintupi-Luritja language area when it was constructed predominantly by the work of Aboriginal people in 1949. The church’s bell, which is still in use, had been donated by the Lobethal Lutheran congregation in the Adelaide Hills.

The church was built 26 years after the first tentative survey mission trip was made to the area from Hermannsburg.

It was 19 years after the start of official ongoing evangelism work at Haasts Bluff, eight years after it had been formally established as a ration depot, and only a few years after Pastor Hermann Pech and his wife Elizabeth (who passed away only this year) had arrived. Seventy years on there will be an evening singalong and a service of thanksgiving. Celebrations will be led by local Indigenous pastors Trevor Raggett and Simon Dixon.

Another reason to celebrate is the new bush church at the small community of Engawala, situated on Alcoota station.

Until recently, the congregation had gathered for monthly worship on a basketball court. Several years ago, locals decided that they wanted their own church building. Assisted by local community development workers, they have been converting an old house into a small church.

While work on the church is ongoing, FRM support pastor for the Alyawarr Region Michael Jacobsen reports that an opening service was held in June, with FRM support workers officiating, and other Aboriginal pastors and linguists, and the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir participating in the service.

Church vessels were donated by St Paul Lutheran Church Morawa in Western Australia and Pastor Michael says a plaque will be placed in front of the new church with the inscription: Aboriginal Lutheran Church of Engawala.

‘The Lord made us, and we are his; we are his people’ (Psalm 100:3).

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by Jodi Brook

Have you ever found yourself asking this or similar questions? Do you sit in church and look around at the generations of people visible on Sunday mornings and wonder? As parents, grandparents, those involved in the work and life of families in our communities and all of us – this question can lead to great frustration and sometimes be very personal and cause considerable grief.

A lot of research has been done over the past 10 years to help us to understand why some young people leave the church and perhaps where they go. These studies have all had similar outcomes.

Over the past six years, Grow Ministries has been doing the hard work of processing this research.

What we have learnt is that we need to encourage congregations to rethink how they do ministry with children, young people and their families, and that this ministry needs to include the whole church community. Yes! That means each person of all ages needs to see themselves as part of ministry with children and young people.

Young people often do not feel like they are an important part of life in the congregation and belonging is really important to young people – as it is to all of us. For a young adult, in the years leading up to them deciding to leave the church, they have been unintentionally told that they are not welcome as part of the ‘big’ church.

We told them they were too young to understand what was happening in worship – ‘you can go to Sunday school’ – and then, when they are finished in Sunday school, they don’t feel as though they belong in worship because they have never been present there!

Next, we said: ‘Go along to youth group. Hang out with other Christian kids – you’ll have fun!’ Yes, they had fun. Yes, they made great Christian friends, but they never got to know the church, the congregation or the people. So what is the church that they are leaving? Perhaps it is a church they never felt they belonged to in the first place.

It is not easy to understand how we help young people to feel part of our congregation. It’s much easier just to run another youth program, or employ a youth worker and expect that to be our ‘silver bullet’ or quick-fix answer. The former requires us to rethink the ways we’ve always done things.

Part of our rethinking is not to put our time and resources into hiring an energetic youth leader or into providing a more contemporary worship service. Of course, these things may help, but they’re not the whole answer.

The key is to be intentional in providing opportunities to get to know our young people. We can help them belong by planning intentional ways of building relationships across the generations. Take time to speak with the young people in your congregation – particularly following your worship service. Find out what interests them.

Is there a way in which they can serve or contribute to the ministry of your congregation? Intergenerational ministry is about doing life together. It’s about taking the time to get to know the people we sit next to each week, no matter how old or young they are.

Can we provide learning opportunities that include all ages? Opportunities that build understanding of one generation to the other? Could we consider inviting a larger group of adults to assist with teaching confirmation and first communion?

Could we rethink small groups to make them intergenerational? Intergenerational ministry is not just about – and of benefit to – children and young people. It is about – and of benefit to – people of all generations.

It is essential for congregations and their leaders to invest some time and energy into understanding what role they have to play in implementing this new way of thinking – it’s about changing culture. It’s about doing ministry differently and this requires leadership and guidance. Permission to try new things.

Young people need to feel they belong to your congregation. But the research also tells us that our families still play a critical role in teaching and passing on the faith.

Families enjoy opportunities to pray, learn and be together – even if parents are a little reluctant to get started.

A growing number of congregations within the LCA are taking up this opportunity to rethink what faith formation looks like for their church family. They are now celebrating a renewal of health and vitality in their contexts as they minister to each other in faith and life.

Jodi Brook is Director of Grow Ministries.

If you would like to learn more about the ways in which Grow Ministries can help your congregation to rethink ministry with children, young people and families, please contact us via email at growministries@lca.org.au or by phone on 08 8267 7300.

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by Vicki Rochow

Where have all the young people gone?

I wonder whether this is the wrong question to ask.

Imagine a farmer standing arms folded and asking, ‘Who didn’t shut the gate?’, while watching his sheep flee up the road and onto the highway. Would he not instead close the gate to protect the sheep still in the paddock, before going out to look for those who are lost?

Likewise, as a church, could we instead ask, ‘How can we love and encourage the young people who are still here, while reaching out to those we no longer see?’

I have met many LCA/NZ young people who have a vibrant faith. They are active in their local congregations and communities, sharing and serving.

Grow Ministries has been working for six years to support and equip congregations to move from isolated programs for children and young people to an intergenerational ministry culture that nurtures faith for life. Part of that process is to share with congregations the 10 Guiding Principles that have been developed to assist congregations to disciple people of all ages, including young people.

One way we can ‘grow’, equip and encourage young leaders is through the LCA/NZ’s Grow Leadership (GL) program. GL is an 11-month part-time commitment targetted at young adults. It involves two face-to-face intensives, a ‘Stretch and Grow’ experience overseas (in partnership with LCA International Mission), regular one-on-one mentoring and involvement in local congregational leadership.

The aim is to provide participants with a mentored faith adventure, enabling them to grow in the gospel and empowering them to become leaders with skills to contribute to the church and the wider community.

The 2019 Grow Leadership team met in the Adelaide Hills in July for Intensive 1. During that time we discussed the theme of this issue of The Lutheran, ‘Where have all the young people gone?’ One young person felt frustrated by the theme – ‘It makes me angry because I’m still here!’ As well as asking for their reactions to the theme, we asked why they are still engaged, involved with and participating in the LCA/NZ, including through GL.

Vicki Rochow is communications and Grow Leadership coordinator for Grow Ministries.

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by Adam Yeager

What is school chaplaincy? After nearly nine years I am still trying to answer that question.

The life of a lay chaplain in Lutheran schools can be wild and varied. Whether it is kicking a footy with Year 6 boys, tackling questions about science, history, philosophy and theology with Year 12s or supporting staff through seasons of grief and doubt, chaplaincy is rarely easy and never boring.

My vocation is to journey with staff and students through the daily routine of school life. I have sat with students struggling with their sexual and gender identity, strapped students into waterskis though they didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and led countless chapel services – all with the aim of sharing life with students and reminding them, through word and deed, that they are loved by God.

We live in a time when family and community connections often break down, leaving young people desperate for something that explains what’s happening in their world and in themselves. The idea of a stable community rooted in a local church is a foreign concept to most students. They are more likely to connect with young people in a different country through online gaming than with those in a local community of faith.

This is where school chaplains bring something countercultural into the lives of young people. As students share their lives with us, we share the love of God with them. They are loved, regardless of how popular, sporty or intelligent they try to be. We journey with them, regardless of what they believe, through the good days, the bad days and the often-boring milieu in between. A school chaplain can be a theologian, a counsellor, an administrator, an executive, a coach, a mentor or whatever we are needed to be. The words of Paul resonate for me:

‘I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings’ (1 Corinthians 9:22–23).

To the diehard Taylor Swift fan, I become like one who likes her latest single (though I don’t think it’s very good); to the boy who can’t focus in class and acts out because of his insecurities, I become one who empathises and never judges; to the principal wrestling with teacher-performance issues, I become a listening ear and a voice of comfort.

In an age in which the dynamics and demographics of Lutheran schools are drastically changing, chaplains serve to keep our schools anchored in the gospel – one collegial cup of coffee (or juice box) at a time.

Adam Yeager has been serving as College Chaplain at Faith Lutheran College at Tanunda in South Australia. Later this month he takes up the same role at Unity College at Murray Bridge in SA.

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