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Where are all the young people? What can I do?

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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Young people are still part of the story

by Josephine Matthias

People love stories. Whether they’re true accounts of when your parents were younger or fictional tales of magical worlds, there’s something about telling or hearing a story that creates relationships.

Some of the most powerful stories are from the Bible. If you’ve grown up in a Christian home, you probably know off by heart stories like Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. But millions of people have never heard of Noah, the ark, the animals and the flood. You really notice the power of Bible stories when you tell them yourself.

Bible stories are the most basic and influential tools for sharing faith. If you are willing to share them, God can work in miraculous ways.

Another simple way to change someone’s life is to invite them to church. They may not come immediately but at least you have opened that door.

My sister Greta and I invited a school friend, Dale, to church last year. I love my church and the second family it has been to me. I wanted him to experience what it’s like to have hundreds of grandparents and aunts and uncles. I’ve invited many people to church before but mostly they politely refuse. He didn’t.

This year, Dale celebrated his first Easter. He received his first Bible last year and was part of his first Christmas service. These simple experiences are monumental in the life of someone who’d never known what Christmas was actually about.

Dale recently shared his testimony in our church confirmation class, that he lives in a non-Christian home and is teased for his beliefs, but still prays every night and wants to share the good news of Jesus with others. To see the way he’s changed since coming to church and believing in Jesus is life-changing for me also.

Although it may seem our church pews are filled with fewer young faces these days, young people are still out in the community, working hard to bring the light of Jesus to the world. Please pray for us.

Josephine Matthias is a member at Para Vista Lutheran Church in suburban Adelaide.

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Growing young leaders

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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Two communities, one heart for mission

by Lisa McIntosh

Many Lutheran schools in Australia have their genesis in a local Lutheran congregation. But having both school and church on the one ‘campus’ is a newer phenomenon.

At Queensland’s Murrumba Downs, just north of Brisbane, Living Faith Lutheran Primary School and Living Faith Lutheran Church do more than just share a site – they share one heart for mission.

Living Faith Primary was established after congregations at Sandgate and Petrie amalgamated in 2000 with the aim of starting a school. When the school built a new administration building a few years back, it collaborated with Living Faith congregation, so that visitors enter through one front door to access both receptions.

The working relationship between primary school Principal Jane Mueller and church Pastor David Schuppan, who each started at Living Faith in 2014, exemplifies this shared vision.

The pair meets each Monday over coffee. ‘There’s a lot of mentoring, from David to me. And that’s probably step one for us in the relationship between the church and the school’, Jane says. ‘It works both ways’, Pastor David says, ‘I learn a lot about educational processes.’

Pastor David takes weekly Bible studies with school staff, leads some school chapel gatherings and three times a year leads staff in theological or spiritual training. Each class from the R-6 school takes part in church services at Living Faith, but while a number of school families have joined the congregation, church membership numbers are not a motivating factor for the relationship. ‘It’s more about kingdom-building’, Jane says.

Both leaders have seen changes in the demographics they serve at Living Faith. In recent years, the congregation has planted Beyond Church, to reach out to unchurched people. Most youth now attend Beyond and Pastor David is keen to draw people of that age range to Living Faith, which is one goal of an LCA Mission Stimulus Grant they were recently awarded.

In her time at Living Faith, Jane says the school community has become more multi-faith. ‘We now have families from all backgrounds, we have Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, various Christian denominations and some people who identify with no faith’, she says. ‘When Lutheran schools were established they were for Lutheran people and now they’re an outreach, so I say, “Bring it on”.’

To that end, Jane says having the majority of the school board being – like her – members of Living Faith congregation, is critical. ‘When it comes to setting strategy … we can talk about things like compassion, we can talk about Christian love and forgiveness and that filters down into the school’, she says.

‘The fundamental benefit [of working together] is that when we serve, we grow’, Pastor David says. ‘Your own soul expands when you share Christ with others, share love with others, so it’s a healthy thing.’

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Sharing life with students

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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Living a gospel of hope

Being a Christian chaplain in a government school means you can’t explicitly preach the good news of Jesus to students and, understandably, many people find that a real challenge. But that suits Sharon Salomon just fine because there’s no rule against living the gospel as an example to students.

Sharon, a lifelong Lutheran who has been working as a chaplain at state schools in Queensland for 11 years, believes that’s more her calling and gift.

‘I’m not someone who can really share the gospel, I do better trying to be the person who lives it’, says Sharon, who has served at Oakey State High School and Oakey State School (primary), in Queensland’s Darling Downs, 30 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba, for almost six years. ‘I’d rather live by example and through building relationships. Showing that love … kids pick that up.’

Appointed, trained and equipped by Scripture Union Queensland, Sharon is known as ‘Chappy’ by the students.

As well as providing morning teas and lunches for the school staffs and pancakes for students during the recent Chaplaincy Week, Sharon has been visiting local churches to promote school chaplaincy. This has been supported by the interdenominational Oakey Combined Chaplaincy Committee, of which St Paul’s Lutheran Church Pastor Ken Schultz is vice-chair. Sharon’s work is funded in part by federal and state government funding, with local support critical in making up the shortfall, coordinated by the chaplaincy committee.

Sharon has no doubt about one of the most-needed things Christian chaplains can bring into the lives of students. It’s hope. ‘We’ve got more hope, we bring more hope than any non-Christian person’, she says. ‘These kids need hope. They don’t know they need God, but if we bring the hope that it’s going to be okay, they can say, “Chappy believes this is going to be okay”.’

And some students do face big challenges. There are family breakdowns and the resultant trauma, which may be brought about by alcoholism, drug use, domestic violence and sexual abuse. Others have mental health issues and some face homelessness.

Sharon has introduced programs covering topics such as forming friendships, and grief and loss. In addition, she has enabled high school students to make their own toasted sandwiches – a real benefit for those who haven’t had breakfast. There is also a chaplaincy committee-supported breakfast club at the primary school.

Despite the demands of juggling two roles across five days and endeavouring to serve the schools, the local community and the local churches, Sharon has no doubt what she loves most about chaplaincy. ‘I love the kids’, she says. ‘I love that I can be a support to them through the next stage of their life. That’s what I’d like to see, to see them grow in the way they need to grow. There’s a verse in Proverbs that essentially says, “Grow the children that they should grow” (Proverbs 22:6).’

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God’s love motivates our care

by Ian Lutze

It was a privilege to be part of the LCA’s One Loving God project team, which worked to update and expand the resources for people in our church who provide care across a wide variety of settings.

One of the results of this practical theological project – the 16-page God’s Love – Our Care booklet – is beautifully produced, with many heartwarming, and sometimes heartwrenching, photos of care in action.

It can be used for personal study or in groups, with Bible texts and thought-provoking questions to explore. There is also a ‘Digging Deeper’ section with more questions to ponder, other things to think about, and further reading to consider.

It’s a gem of a document. But does it say anything new? Isn’t caring for people a simple, responsive and intuitive thing for Christians to do? What more is there to talk about?

The document will indeed sound very familiar to Lutherans reading it, with its references to God’s love which inspires care for the needy, the focus on God’s saving action in Christ being the church’s primary interest, and connections to the gospel through word and sacrament.

But a practical theological project does not simply repeat the past. It seeks to restate our thinking about God in the light of real life in the world, where tough questions are encountered, and the challenge to proclaim the gospel clearly is always changing.

I work in aged care, an arena of dynamic change. Aged-care centres are required by law to provide non-discriminatory care to people according to standards set by the government, albeit with input from the peak bodies from the sector itself. Such standards include accepting, honouring and not trying to change the spirituality of any resident in our care. It is about treating people with due dignity.

This seems to present a problem, though, for mission-minded Lutherans, whose DNA is to proclaim Christ wherever we go.

Over against this thinking is our daily experience of living in a multi-cultural and multi-faith world, growing food for ‘the just and the unjust’, and developing our own life-giving connections to people, home, family, creation, art and culture, and to great causes. Our own ‘spirituality’ is more than our relationship with Christ. We still have a stake in a world we try to make as ‘good’ as it can be.

And more and more we belong to complex families in which our loved ones have a variety of spiritual expressions, too.

God’s Love – Our Care addresses this reality by talking about God having ‘two hands’ – one hand (the left hand) to care for and sustain people in this world, and the other (the right hand) to bring people into the kingdom of God, the new eternal reality created through the gospel.

The document suggests that God’s two hands work more in harmony with each other than perhaps thought in the past. So everything in the way God created people is ‘very good’, even people’s spirituality, their way of making sense of the world, their place in it and their connections. So we can celebrate a non-Christian’s healthy religious practice, as part of the way God created them, while also hoping and praying that God’s kingdom will come to this person, too – God’s right hand at work. Working with this way of seeing things is the art of spiritual care: we accept, and we hope, at the same time.

So, as Christians, it is entirely consistent for us to meet the many needs of any person who comes into our orbit, with grace, love and skill, without devaluing the person because they are not yet a Christian.

The concept of God’s two hands, of course, is, with different language, as old as the Reformation. I love it because it is a way to advance our mission in this world by being honest to God as he really is.

It allows me to get alongside a lady who has never been a Christian, to hear her real needs, and to respond, together with my organisation, according to my specialty.

She comes to church, occasionally, ‘just for you’, as she puts it. Will she ever be a Christian? Who knows? But she is hearing about a God who cares for her very much. Where that goes is God’s business.

Grace means unconditional acceptance, being generous enough to help connect a Hindu to his religious roots rather than place a Christian tract in his hands. Are we able to do this?

Despite being mandated to unconditionally accept people’s faith as it is, to do so also reflects the generous heart of a God with two hands, who will get his work done in the world and will sometimes use us.

I pray that God’s Love – Our Care will confirm the sense in your heart of what good care looks like. May it challenge and nurture your own spirit as you care in God’s name.

Pastor Ian Lutze is Aged-Care Pastor/Chaplain at Tanunda Lutheran Home in South Australia’s Barossa Valley and a member of the LCA’s One Loving God project team.

Interested groups and individuals can download and print from an electronic version of God’s Love – Our Care here or request a printed copy by emailing the LCA/NZ’s Committee for Ministry with the Ageing.

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Highlighting the ability in disability

Lutheran Services is one of the longest established community care providers in Queensland. Its origins can be traced back to 1935 with the establishment of Salem Lutheran Rest Home in Toowoomba.

Today, Lutheran Services provides care, support and accommodation for older people, young people and their families, people living with disability or mental illness, and families experiencing domestic violence and hardship. The organisation is a major presence in the many urban, regional and rural communities it serves.

As a diaconal ministry of the LCA’s Queensland District, Lutheran Services exists to serve, bringing Christian faith and love to life. As stated on its website, the organisation ‘walks together with congregations, individuals and communities to tend to human need in the spirit of Christian love and service’.

Lutheran Services, through its previous incarnations, established workshops, accommodation and support services for people living with disability and mental illness in the early 1970s. Many of these initiatives were the first of their kind in Queensland. Today, Lutheran Services provides disability support services at several regional communities throughout south-east Queensland. These include supported accommodation, in-home support, day programs, social support groups, community engagement and skills development programs.

The disability support initiatives are complemented by an array of creative engagement programs – activities and projects that promote personal development, wellbeing, collaboration and community. One such example is a mixed-ability cross-cultural performance project called ‘Confusion Inclusion’ – an innovative and ambitious idea that yielded spectacular results.

The project brought together performers from two disability services on opposite sides of the world – the Lutheran Services Keystone Centre in Logan, and Popeye from Nagoya in Japan. Employing music, dance and storytelling, Confusion Inclusion sought to ‘build a bridge from confusion to inclusion’. After much planning and rehearsal, the performers gave a public show at Butterbox Theatre at Logan between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. It lit up the theatre. The audience cheered and sang along as the grinning Keystone Crew ‘busted’ their moves.

Keystone’s Boden Nicholson says inclusion is central to the project: ‘It’s a great community effort in the true spirit of inclusion, where we strive to make the world a more accessible place for all. And what a great experience! For those in the audience, it’s a wonderful show. For those performing, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.’

Confusion Inclusion provided Keystone participant Matthew the opportunity to try new things, develop new skills and make new connections. ‘It was my first time on stage’, Matthew beams. ‘I loved dancing to the songs. The Japanese dancers were great and are good friends. I can’t wait to dance on stage again.’

For more information, click here.

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Walking with those seeking refuge

by Helen Lockwood

There are 65 million people across the world seeking refuge. People who have been forced to flee conflict and oppression and who can’t go home. Some reach the relative safety of a refugee camp, others continue to struggle to find a place of safety and many die.

A very small proportion of those 65 million people come to Australia and New Zealand. Most of them carry the effects of trauma through war, dislocation and witnessing the deaths of family and friends. But they also come with hope for safety and a new life.

How are these people received by us? What are we doing as members of the Christian community and as part of our Australian and New Zealand societies to welcome the most recent wave of new arrivals?

These questions are challenging for us as individuals and for individual churches. The National Council of Churches of Australia formed the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce (ACRT) to provide a way of combining the efforts of churches and church agencies in providing advocacy and support for new arrivals.

ACRT bases its work on the understanding that we are all created in the image of God and so lead lives that reflect love of our neighbour. Living out the Christian faith includes welcoming the stranger and supporting those going through hard times. We are also called to challenge unjust systems, and this is done more effectively when churches work together.

ACRT has advocated for an end to children in detention, for sanctuary for those who need to stay in Australia for medical and mental health reasons, and currently, through ‘Dignity not Destitution’, for an end to the policy that cuts off all support to some families who are waiting for years for an outcome to their visa applications.

No matter who is in government, Christians have the opportunity to influence the way people are treated. To say nothing can appear to condone what is happening to those who seek safety here. So, as a coalition of churches, ACRT ‘seeks to encourage truth and integrity in public discourse, especially that the truth of people’s lives be upheld. We seek generous, hospitable and compassionate policies because we believe that God’s will for society is that every person has the opportunity to flourish and that God’s abundant and grace-filled love is offered to every person without distinction’.

The taskforce is also interested in encouraging individuals and groups within churches to live out their faith in welcoming and supporting new arrivals. Many congregations, communities and individuals are already deeply engaged in this work, and we can learn from their commitment and care.

Helen Lockwood is the LCA/NZ representative to the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce, a member of the LCA’s Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence Campaign working group and a former director of the SA-NT District’s Lutheran Community Care.

For further information, go to the ACRT website or their Facebook page.

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Why do we need a plan for reconciliation?

At its General Convention of Synod last October, the LCA committed to developing a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). Shona Reid, who is part of the LCA’s RAP Project Team, offers her views on why this is a significant step towards living in unity as reconciled children of God.

by Shona Reid

I am an Eastern Aranda woman. I am married to a Wangkangurru man and together we have seven children. It is important that I share this because this is what grounds me and connects me to who I am.

I would like to acknowledge many of you who have dedicated your lives to building relationships with Aboriginal people and communities, to sharing God’s word and to working together with many Aboriginal children and families. For this I give thanks and hold in hope that you share my – our – vision that we can continue this.

When I shared similar words at last October’s LCA General Convention of Synod, I was asking for support to enable the church to build upon this very work. I was overwhelmed by the level of support we received from delegates for the LCA to develop a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

But why is it important that the LCA has committed to take this step?

Reconciliation can mean different things to different people. An example comes in the artwork Many Eyes, (pictured above) painted by my nine-year-old son Henry. For me, Many Eyes is about the many views on what constitutes reconciliation. It is about the many people who have journeyed before us; the many things that are yet to be done; and the many people who are needed to get those things done.

When I asked Henry what this painting was about he said, ‘It about how there is one God and there are lots of people … we are all different – that’s a good thing – because we can all see different parts of God and share that with each other … that way we can all learn from each other and love God at the same time’.

I don’t think I could capture a more pure and beautiful definition of reconciliation.

I know firsthand that the journey toward reconciliation can be very difficult.

Many have walked away from it in search of a so-called ‘silver bullet’ that promises an end to inequality and offers brighter futures.

We know there is no silver bullet. But ultimately, in this case, the journey is the most important thing.

Those who have walked before us have given their dedication and passion to Aboriginal ministry and mission work. The 1997 Convention of Synod passed resolutions relating to reconciliation, while in 2000 proceedings included a rite of reconciliation. There have been reports undertaken and plans made.

But without the dedicated resources and guidance needed, and without a clear overall direction, these visions have made only a part journey to achieving their intended goals.

A RAP is a tool, much like a business plan or strategic plan, structured in a way that enables Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together to be involved in all aspects of its design, delivery and evaluation.

It can help us listen more intently, plan together, publicly commit to this plan, follow through and keep on track, and be accountable for what we do, and, what we don’t do.

It is designed to enable ideas and plans to come to life. The RAP provides us with a list of agreed practical actions and accountability that will drive our church’s contribution to reconciliation, both internally and in all the communities in which we operate.

At its core, developing a RAP is about continuing to build upon our solid foundation of respectful and dignified relationships between First Nations people and other Australians. The aim is to enable us to come together and live reconciled in Christ.

The path to reconciliation is not a task that any one entity can undertake on its own. It is a joint movement of all people, places, races and identities.

For me, living within a church that has a RAP demonstrates that our church cares about such matters. Our church cares enough about First Nations people to want to be a part of our lives and cares enough about us to want to share in God’s love.

Shona Reid is part of the LCA’s Reconciliation Action Plan Project Team and its RAP mentoring group and a member of St Paul’s Lutheran Church Ferryden Park, in South Australia. She is also Executive Director of Reconciliation SA.

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