Woes of a UU young adult...

Let me preface this by saying a few things before I begin to let my mind wander in an effort to debrief parts of annual general meeting.
1) Despite occasional crises of faith, I am a Unitarian Universalist through and through.
2) Despite my age, I constantly wonder whether I identify with many peers in my faith community.
3) Most of my experience with young adults within the UU movement at some point always brings up the issue of why there aren't more young adults involved in their congregations. My opinions and feelings on this matter are something I am constantly evaluating.
4) Because I am really bad at unpacking my acronyms when I get all fired up about something, I should say for those of you who may not know them, UU= Unitarian Universalist, YA=young adults. A group loosely defined as ages 18-35. I have my own severe opinions on the appropriateness of that broad age range, but that is an entry for another time.

Looking around at the annual general meeting I was sad to notice that I could count on fingers how many people I ran into that were younger adults. Ok, so maybe there were more, but still not many. I know there are more out there. So where are they? Why aren't they present? In my district the issue of young adults and a district wide young adult community has at times been a very volatile one. When the shift of not only our district but of the UUA intentionally focused more on congregations, this meant re-examining the district communities of youth and young adults. A youth community is still present because they are all parts of youth groups within their respective churches. What was found within the young adult community was a majority of attendees to YA conferences that were in no way connected to churches, and a scary portion of adults, no longer YA's hanging on to their glory days and bordering on sexual predator. Not only that, the patterns that district YA leadership seemed to be repeating over and over was a vicious cycle of building up a community in shambles only to have it fall apart all over again. It was not healthy. Furthermore, district policy reflected the fact that the district exists to serve congregations. How to justify spending a large portion of resources on a large group of people that weren't tied to congregations?

This is the part where I wonder what is happening on a congregational level that is pushing away YA's. Because if you ask any UU young adult that doesn't attend church, they will say that there isn't much that makes them feel like a church is their spiritual home. And can you blame them? YA's that have grown up UU are transitioning out of a very vital and active youth community that is based on relational connections and acting upon shared values. Walking into a church where you sit and listen, do not interact, and don't find many peers to connect to is less than appealing. But here is the catch. Have the YA's doing most of the complaining ever approached said unwelcoming church to ask them if they could maybe think about providing for the needs of various spiritual age groups? They minister to youth, they have adult RE, maybe it is just that the church leadership haven't recognized the need for something there in between. Every YA I have talked to about this that has actually asked, has had an open response. More often than not congregations are more than willing to try and accomodate the needs that young adults are seeking to have met.

With all this said though...there is more. Once I let go the pain I felt at a lack of YA community, at home and district wide, it made space to examine what I am really wanting in a spiritual home. I think this is a natural and healthy step in spiritual development. What I am continually finding is several avenues that my spiritual needs are being met within church, I just have to stop and look around. I am not implying that YA's are not looking hard enough, they are. Some even more than they should have to. But I do think that in general, there is an expectation on the YA end that their needs will be met without the understanding that, as in all relationships, it is a healthy reciprocal nature that must exist for all to thrive. And on the congregational side, there is a lack of understanding that while adults, younger adults often DO have different spiritual needs that are just as important as adults in their 40's or older.

I would love to see a program that supports congregations in exploring how to make theirs a welcoming home for not only YA's, but for all ages. And I don't mean that this should be accomplished by showing them how to set up a YA or campus ministry group, I want to see an integrated form of worship that recognizes and respects all people that feel a pull towards the UU faith, a worship that they can come to and see their values reflected in a way they recognize, and understand, while learning to celebrate the differences in every one of us that come here. I want to see a deliberate fostering of leaders not only in the people we traditionally seek and call to serve, but among youth, young adults, across cultures and races, lifestyles and economic classes. People often wonder why, when they look around their sanctuaries, they observe a sea of middle aged, middle to upper class white people. It's not coincidence.

Ok, stepping off of that soap box now. There is another waiting for me to climb up on tomorrow.