This Sunday, September 14, at 10:00 a.m. in the Gym, is Youth Kickoff. It’s a chance for 6th to 12th graders and their families to hear about events in the year ahead, play games together, meet the caring adults who will be looking out for the youth this year, and for adults to sign all the necessary paperwork. I won’t want to pontificate more than necessary at Youth Kickoff, so I think I’ll use this venue to share a bit about my hopes for the BMPC youth program – and for us.
Many of us will remember exactly where we were 24 years ago today. It is hard to believe that there can be people with their own ideas, dreams, ambitions, and opinions who weren’t even born yet on that day, but that’s our youth. They have only ever known the world after 9/11, with all the fear and uncertainty that we as adults feel and unwittingly impart to them.
Likewise, you may remember where you were when the early adopter in your friend group showed you their smartphone. I remember my friend Mark showing me an app – what is an app? – that could listen to music and tell you what song was playing. They changed everything, and our youth have only ever known a world where adults are buried in their phones.
Finally, our youth have spent at least half of their life in the political and social realignment that began in 2016. For those of us with longer time horizons, the normalization of violent rhetoric, which we saw again this week, will inevitably lead to acts of political violence, feels brand new. But for our youth, it is a fact of life – it has always been this way.
So, what does that mean for the youth program at BMPC? My prayer is that youth at BMPC spend time with caring adults who try hard to set aside their own fears and uncertainties and instead center the ideas, dreams, ambitions, and opinions of the youth. I pray that the BMPC youth ministry models something like an analog community, where people are present with each other and hang in there with each other, even when it would be much easier to escape into our phones. And I pray that the BMPC youth ministry is a place of peace, where the ambient violence of our culture is kept at bay.
I’m looking forward to kicking off another year on Sunday at 10:00 a.m. Join us!