Prologue

This five-minute address was given at the Massachusetts Conference Annual Meeting on June 8, 2001. It was delivered with respect to Initiative #3, which articulates youth and young adult ministry as one of four major priorities for the Conference. The audience received it with an enthusiastic response and deep-felt appreciation. If you read only one thing in this report, please read this. If you are interested in acting further you will find the entire report by following the link at the bottom.

Hello, my name is Gregory Morisse. I am a first year seminarian at Harvard Divinity School. I want to thank the Conference for their support and this opportunity to share with you a years worth of reflection, research and collaboration.

This past year I worked at First Congregational Church of Somerville, under the supervision of Reverend Heather Kirk-Davidoff. Together we explored the question and some answers to: “Why don’t young adults go to church?”

Some people want to know what 4 steps are there to increase young adult attendance. Early in the project it became clear that the answer is not programmatic—there is no single program that you can run that will bring in and keep young adults.

Then come the questions:

“I don’t live in a urban location like Somerville where there are a ton of young adults.”

“I don’t have the time or the staff or the budget.”

“What will we get out of it? Young adults rarely become members; leave faster than they came and they won’t pledge to the annual fund.”

“Their music is too loud, and they whine way too much!”

These are not questions. They are excuses. They are based in a frame of mind that seeks to maintain the present institutional church.

Ministry is not about pledges, membership, or even Sunday morning worship. Ministry is about people, about meeting and serving all people where they are. And young adults are not in our churches!

If we are going to be present to this population, if we are going to be resources to help young adults through their spiritual, emotional and physical lives, then we need to rethink what we’re doing. We need to reinvent, to re-envision the institutional church.

Our goal is not to get people into church every Sunday. Our goal is not to get pledging members. Our goal is to create spaces where young adults—where everyone—can feel welcome, invited, empowered and fed spiritually and emotionally.

This spring, a pivotal member of First Church Somerville’s community died suddenly. At the end of my year, the widow—who was not a young adult—thanked me for praying for her, and thanked me specifically for my ministry to young adults. She had always been a married woman in the church. And now, suddenly, her relationship to the church had changed. But as Somerville thought about inclusion and inviting outcast young adults, she felt included, welcomed, and loved as a widow.

20 years ago there were fewer choices. You married someone of the opposite gender. You had children. You found a home, a stable job and you stayed there. And the church structure was built to minister to those needs. Now, the needs have changed. Some young adults never marry. Some never have kids. Some move from job to job, city to city. We young adults face new and difficult challenges: education, jobs, romance, sex, drugs. Many of us feel we need to face those challenges alone. And we in this room have not adapted the church or our ministries to meet those needs. Our churches and this conference have done nothing but talk.

We can do this. Because we can. Because we have to. We can be present to young adults. We can help them through life and faith, and be resources. All we have to do is listen, ask questions, and keep listening. We have to leave the safety of our sanctuaries, and the regularity of our Sunday mornings. So we need to go out to the bars, to the coffee shops, and be there for them. Jesus does not tell us to set the table and wait for guests. We have to go out and meet them where they are.

Thank you very much.

Are you interested in learning more? In engaging in action?

Enter Here.