For the first time ever, Mennonite Church Canada youth are preparing to actively participate in organized discussions and votes taking place during the national assembly—God~Faith~People,—to be held from July 6 to 10, 2016, in Saskatoon, Sask.
On the agenda: the future of the church as envisioned by the Future Directions Task Force and recommendations conveyed by the Being a Faithful Church (BFC) conversations.
To help with prepare youth, Future Directions and BFC curricula were developed by three Winnipeg pastors: Andrea De Avila, associate pastor of Sargent Avenue Mennonite Church; Moses Falco, pastor of Sterling Mennonite Fellowship; and Tim Wenger, pastor of faith development at North Kildonan Mennonite Church.
Youth sponsors are encouraged to work through each curriculum with their youth groups before Assembly 2016; at Assembly 2016, a few short presentations will provide them with further information about the ongoing conversations.
All youth and sponsors are invited to participate in the discussions and, in addition, congregations are encouraged to register a voting youth delegate. Each congregation is allowed one youth vote. For Assembly 2016, groups are encouraged to discuss the issues ahead of time and use the youth vote collectively as a group.
The curriculum development team faced a considerable challenge in determining how to condense years of discussion into a format accessible for youth. While they admit it isn’t perfect, youth and sponsors who have reviewed the curriculum see its benefits.
Anna Epp, a first-year Canadian Mennonite University student from Wildwood Mennonite Church in Saskatoon, reported that the BFC curriculum “provides a positive outlook and insight on the importance of learning to live in disagreement.” She noted that overlapping elements in with the Future Directions curriculum that encourage “all” people to be involved, and to love and care for one another. “I find it interesting that the document that discusses the future for the church and the community we are all a part of is rooted in inclusivity.”
Krista Loewen, a youth sponsor and an associate pastor at Wildwood, stated, “I'm excited to hear what my youth say about what they want the future of the church to look like and to provide them an opportunity to help shape the future of the Mennonite church.” She felt the BFC curriculum was a bit harder to follow. “I honestly can’t imagine my youth being that interested in engaging in this content since we’ve done a lot of it already and they don't really understand why this is an issue for the church anymore.”
The youth curriculum materials can be downloaded from CommonWord.
See more about the youth assembly:
Youth invited to join #thecovenantcrew
Keeping up with #thecovenantcrew
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