Comments on: Youth Ministries 2: What Do Young Friends Want?

By: Mackenzie

Mackenzie — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 17:53:42 +0000

13 years later, I don't think anything's changed. It's still the young adults saying we want to have more spiritual conversations. We're still saying "what do you mean 'young'? I'm grown!" We're still feeling like there are ...well, you said "AYF ghettos." I usually say the old people think everyone under 40 belongs at the kids table.

By: Margaret Obermayer

Margaret Obermayer — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:30:25 +0000

I’m concerned about the way that the HS age Friends seem to have lost their voices in the star thing. There was certainly less of us at the consultation… HOWEVER, we all did participate and we most certainly had issues that we felt strongly about. We were consistently voting to be more fully considered and to participate more fully in the YAF and Adult Friend activities. A data base of some sort to connect young Friends was seriously talked about and considered. I for one would like to see an online forum where isolated (like me) young Friends could talk with other Friends of all ages. Anther thing HS aged Friends felt very strongly about was intergenerational work. There is too much separation between age groups in the Society of Friends. A very important thing I learned from the consultation is that all Friends, regardless of age, have very similar needs.
Peace Friends

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 09:45:43 +0000

Hi Liz,
There’s something disturbing about your recantation. It’s okay to say an feel-good press release should have more depth. I think a lot of people are desiring more, just as you did. You shouldn’t have to be an organizational insider to find out what happened at an event like this. It’s the nature of an organizational release to be upbeat and exciting but it makes them predictable and unread. I think it might do us well to be a little less impersonal and corporate in our communications with the outside world. We can show our warts and have our conversations available for non-insiders to hear.
We missed an opportunity when whoever saw your comment talked to you privately. A conversation about how we communicate to the world would have been pretty interesting.
Martin

By: Liz Opp

Liz Opp — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:28:09 +0000

Martin and Friends,
I wish to clarify the parenthetical comment I made above, especially after recently having heard a Friend’s response to that part specifically.
I wrote that the online report from the ad hoc committee “seems to be more of a touchy-feely, give-ourselves-a-pat-on-the-back initial report…”
As I recall, what I had originally hoped for within the report of the committee, were some details of the experience itself, which Martin’s post here provided. I had also hoped to see direct quotes within the report from the young adult Friends who had participated—which is not fair of me, since I *didn’t* have an expectation for persons of color to be quoted in the FGC Committee for Ministry on Racism’s initial report.
In retrospect, my expectations and hunger to hear directly from non-committee participants, and my personal, temporary disappointment in not getting the information that I myself wanted, blinded me to how my comments about the committee’s report may have been received. As I re-read the report today, though, I certainly sense the movement of the Spirit as the committee’s work unfolds.
Posting this clarifying comment has been very humbling, as was the conversation that has led to it: I’ve thought about how, on the one hand, saying nothing might be better than commenting further, so as not to draw any more attention to the thing. On the other hand, now that I know some of the pain my comment has caused, it hurts me to let that comment be there, unanswered. I could ask Martin to delete the original comment, but that doesn’t feel clean, either.
Thanks to the Friend who shared so openly with me how my words were met by her.
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 19 May 2005 10:51:50 +0000

Martin -
I have a thought relating to your comment that YAFs placed very little emphasis on critical mass. It seems like we do not have critical mass of YAFs now because Quaker institutions do a bad job with all those other things such as spirituality.community/transitions. I think what the numbers may tell us is that YAFs don’t want critical mass in itself –but we can expect to gain that critical mass when deeper needs are met, because YAFs will be less likely to run away to the buddhists or presbyterians or whomever. Maybe I’m just being an optimist –maybe YAFs don’t care about Quaker institutions. But yes there are certainly more positive ways to read to information.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 15:07:33 +0000

Hi Liz: For what it's worth, I was asked if I would be interested in writing the Good News Bulletin but didn't feel it was quite right. I think the "mentoring to" and "mentoring from" is the desire for real, honest relationships with older adults: a recognition for who they are, not who they're related to (or not). I'm not sure this is going to happen: most older adults don't want or know how to have this kind of relationship. Tokenism is rampant (don't even get me started with stories, I'm hopping mad about some recent examples!) "Help with transitions" is interesting. The high school Friends strongly reacted against this. They did not want yet another older adult Friend coming up to them and asking what college they were going to attend. The Friends in their early twenties were more interested in "transitions" which I took to mean advice and discussion about how to balance life, spirituality, employment and relationships. I think this is tied into the desire for mutual mentorship. Robin: As we were putting up the stars, the high school Friends were confused whether they were allowed to put their stars in the AYF categories (the high schoolers were also outnumbered: there were only four in attendance). As a thirty-seven year old, I explictly said I didn't want to be named a "young adult" but I was anyway. Yes, infantilization is a serious issue. Historically, most of the important Quaker ministers were active in their early twenties but few get that sort of recognition they do and even then there's so much tokenism going that they all burn out after a few years. Elizabeth: I wasn't clear. It's not that the AYF's put down that they were "strongly" interested. Everyone got a handful of stars to place on the board and every star acted as a vote that there was one person interested in that topic. I've amended the post; I've used "develop spirituality" as an example of how the stars work.

By: Elizabeth O'Sullivan

Elizabeth O'Sullivan — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 10:16:44 +0000

It seemed like the adult young friends had a lot more "strong interests" and even "weak interests" than either the older friends or the younger friends. What's the deal with that? If you were talking about a survey taken in Minnesota, where I've always lived, I'd suspect that the older folks were reluctant to circle the bigger numbers for fear of being seen as making too much of a fuss about something. I thought this was part of a Scandinavian-influenced Minnesotan culture, but do you think that older folks in this survey were reluctant to "make a fuss"? Or did you tap into a particularly on-fire group of adult young friends? Or what? Elizabeth

By: Robin Mohr

Robin Mohr — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 01:29:09 +0000

Two questions:
What happened to all the high school Friends’ stars? Were there not as many of them or did they not vote?
Why are thirty-something Friends still considered “Young Adults”? Is this part of the forced perpetuation of youth or are 30–40 year olds really not ready to shoulder regular adult responsibilities in their attitudes and responses?
I feel pretty firmly middle-aged by now, myself. (Thirty-seven.)