A Place to belong ..

A Place To Belong By Rev. Joe Torrence There is a restaurant down the street from where I work. Every day after work, it is full of young adults eating food from local food trucks and hanging out in the parking lot. The place is not really that nice. There are a few picnic tables. It is outside. It has no air conditioning and no comfy chairs. Nothing screams young and cool. But, every afternoon they flock to this local establishment. They come from all walks of life; young bankers and business people, artists and poets, and even the occasional clergy person. They come; they gather; they connect and they often stay late into the night. They have found what we are all looking for, a place to belong. As I am thinking about the question “where are all of the young clergy?” It leads me to another question, “where are the 20-30 year olds in our congregations?” The answer is looking for community, looking for a place to fit in. It drives everything from the work we do, to what we do for recreation and who we have dinner with. Is there anyone out there who gets me for me? Recently, studies have shown how most mainline denominations have lost tons of people over the last few years and decades. There are fewer youth and young adults in our congregations than there were just 20 years ago. The average age in our denomination continues to go up because we are losing more and more young people. In Richmond, where I live, the kickball league participation and wiffle ball clubs have sky rocketed over the last five years. The point is 20-30 year olds are looking for a place to find community, and they are creating their own. And it isn’t just any community, but a community that is authentic, real and tangible. The folks who show up to the restaurant are not just eating and socializing, they are doing life together. They are friends walking through life together. Sometimes a messy life, but they stick around for one another. The kickball team does the same. There is something powerful about doing life together in a real sort of way, all of the good things and not so good things. We find relationships that are real, and we commit ourselves to the place we found it. I mean that is what Jesus did, he gathered his 12 together and they did life together. He even had an inner circle who really knew him. In fact, Jesus said in John 15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends. NRSV Jesus is surrounding himself with community, real relationships, people who knew him well and that he was connected to. I have a pastor friend and we were talking about friendships in the church. He said “I don’t think I have ever had a real friend in my church, certainly know one who really knew me”. I find that incredibly disappointing. We all need others. We need each other. If I were a young clergy, I know that I would not want to sign up for a life of solitude, a life of no authentic relationships, or no place to belong. And if our congregations see us as real people who have authentic relationships like Jesus did with his disciples, there is a powerful witness in that. We, as ministers, are real life examples of not having it all together. But, God’s grace is working in our lives. This reality is what young clergy and young adults are searching for because realness leads to belonging and belonging to transformation. That is the Gospel. Doing life together and being a community is the church in its most pure form. When we are with people as Jesus was, we show a life of healing, compassion, inclusion and restoration. It becomes less about the issues and more about a relationship. It becomes about community. Of course, a relational God wants us to be relational. That is how it all makes sense. In the end, to see more young adults and clergy in our congregations, it requires us to be authentic now, to seek relationships with others, and to live the Good News out in those relationships. In so doing, we will be a part of a transformational community that is inviting others to join. Doing life together, no matter what that crazy life may look like. When we do that, kickball and restaurants will have nothing on the church, Jesus said so.