Growth Animator Tori Mullin has some frank conversations with youth and young adults about their experience of going to church.
If you had told me when I was first hired as a Growth Animator that I would find myself on a two-day bus trip with youth heading to St. Catharines, Ontario for four days of worship and workshops, I would have been quite surprised! I thought my days of sleeping on church hall floors had passed, but that is exactly where I found myself in the beginning of July.
Travelling with youth and leaders from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, I was very lucky to have been invited to attend Audacious Hope, a 450-person event put on by the United and Presbyterian Churches, at Brock University. Because I’m no longer in congregational ministry, it was so energizing to spend some time with the younger members of the church, to hear their stories and feel the Spirit at work across our country.
There were dance parties, team-building games, vulnerably shared sermons, ukulele-led hymns and even Dungeons & Dragons style Bible games! Can you believe I get paid to do this? I can’t! However, I didn’t want to let this opportunity pass me by either—I wasn’t just there to enjoy myself. I tried to prioritize talking to youth and young adults about their experience of going to church, especially as a new person.
Overwhelmingly, what I heard from my one-on-one conversations is that youth and young adults are desperate for connection, and all too often are walking into church spaces and experiencing the opposite. The same story was told over and over again, experiences of attending a church for the first time where no one spoke to them. Or, if someone did, it wasn’t to get to know them as a person, but to try and wrangle them into volunteering on their first Sunday. “Oh, you have such a lovely voice. You should join our choir!” was comically repeated.
Youth and young adults are desperate for connection, and all too often are walking into church spaces and experiencing the opposite.
Obviously, the young people I was meeting were already predisposed to connecting with a community of faith. These are kids who grew up in churches, or attended a United Church camp, and found themselves in Sunday services looking for a place to belong. Their hopes were met with polite nods, but no genuine welcome. For a national church which bemoans the lack of young people in its numbers, this is bewildering and disconcerting to hear. Young people who are desperate for connection, who are seeking it out in our United Churches, are not finding it and leaving because of it.
On the second last day of the trip, a youth and I were chatting in the bathroom of Mount Bruno United Church, which hosted the Maritime bus pilgrims. This young person asked me a question which really struck me. “Do you think I could invite my friends to something like this?” Reader, a big part of the Growth Animators’ work is on strengthening invitation to the United Church. Here I was speaking with a young person who had had a positive experience at a United Church event, so much so that they wanted to invite others to be a part of it but they were concerned their friends might not be welcomed.
In Matthew 19 we hear that families are bringing their children to meet Jesus, and his adult followers are frustrated, and try to send the children away. Jesus’ response is to say: Allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children. (v. 14, CEB)
Our young people, youth and young adults already connected with The United Church of Canada, are experiencing a passive, if not apathetic, welcome in our local communities of faith. When they do experience the life-giving Spirit at work amongst us they hesitate to invite others because they are unsure of the welcome those friends will receive. At this moment, I feel like a climate scientist writing yet another plea to the global community to take seriously the climate crises wreaking havoc on our planet. Although it is not every community of faith, so many of our churches are contributing to a crisis of belonging without even knowing. Yes, they might experience the symptoms of this crisis with smaller Sunday school classes, low Sunday attendance, and dwindling membership, but there appears to be an unawareness of the central cause.
From my work as a Growth Animator, and my own personal experience attending different United Churches, I know the disheartening experience of feeling invisible at church. It is a profoundly isolating feeling attending a service or event in a place you expect to receive welcome and instead fade into the background. Frankly, sometimes I need a break from attending church because, even with the massive privilege I carry, I don’t need another Sunday morning of feeling invisible.
In 2023 the World Health Organization declared loneliness a global epidemic. This is an epidemic I believe our churches have the solution to, but so often we are a part of the problem. I am carrying so much joy with me from Audacious Hope, so many wonderful new connections, but I am also carrying that painful confirmation. And so, reader, it is for a church who welcomes all as Jesus did, without discrimination, not with a polite smile but ferociously open arms, I pray.
—Tori Mullin, Growth Animator for Eastern Ontario and Quebec
If you want to learn more about how your community of faith can better welcome newcomers of all ages, contact your regional Growth Animator at Growth@united-church.ca.
The views contained within these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of The United Church of Canada.