Willimon Wallaby Woo (1 of 2)

I just couldn’t resist the title. I hope some of you appreciate Raffi. Here are some cute kids on youtube doing the song I’m referencing.

Bishop Willimon has posted recently about “empowering a new generation of United Methodist leaders” and I want to address what he said there in this post and then write in the next post a little about what one of his commenters said.

His post contained the text of letter from Dorothy, a pastor in his conference telling him about the great experience that a couple of younger people had at the annual conference session and the great leadership and hope they offer the church. Then, he issues a challenge, or perhaps a mandate:

Dorothy’s story is far from unique. This is what happens when we really focus ourselves upon the priority of a new generation of Christians. I’m recommending that next year our entire Annual Conference be focused upon the single priority of empowering a new generation, that any reports be made exclusively by those under forty, and that every church send lay delegates who are all under forty. Jenny and Izy (the two people Dorothy refered to) are in every congregation. We must notice them, nurture them, and empower them for God to use them in giving our church a future. By God’s grace, we will!

My first thought is, wow that’s a gutsy challenge. There is some firmly entrenched power that this comes up against. It is clearly an ambitious and probably idealistic goal, but if you’re going to cast a vision, make it bold, right? If I recall, Bishop Willimon has taken other steps to try to encourage young people to come to Annual Conference by shortening the session and moving it over a weekend. I’m sure he knows that not every church will send someone under forty, but if even half or a quarter did, the change would be monumental.I say the change would be monumental because the simple presence of younger people is such a powerful thing in an annual conference.

I have absolutely seen the effect of young people in meaningful leadership in an annual conference. When lay people see competent, confident young people in leadership they are energized. They are excited by the present and see that the future is in good hands. It transforms clergy attitudes. I’ve seen a clergywoman in our conference go from skeptical about and maybe even threatened by young people who didn’t want to “pay their dues” or acknowledge experience, to being thrilled about going forward into the future in partnership.

Now, this is just the first step, and I’m sure Bishop Willimon knows that. There is more to meaningful leadership in the annual conference than attending the session once a year. It is important to engage younger people in the real mission and ministry of the conference. The next step is finding younger people in the church who are passionate about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world with gifts for administration, and passion for missions or campus ministry, and inviting them into the committees, equipping them as necessary and watching the transformation begin. In my mind, young people in leadership is by definition transformative. We are failing to be the church for all ages when certain people aren’t in leadership. Additionally, young people can bring the new and add it to the best of the old so that the church can be in more vibrant, effective ministry.

Beth Quick has commented on this post already and she asks some good questions and her commenters make some good comments.

Obviously this is much more challenging than I’ve made it sound. I am the first person to acknowledge the difficulty of getting young people to commit to coming to meetings. There are a myriad of issues around this that I may get to blogging about one day.

What do you think? Should the lay people who have been coming to your annual conference for 30 years keep coming? Are the young punks too uppity? Do they need to pay their dues?

-Luke