I am Young and this is My Church
My great grandmother was Adventist, my grandparents were Adventists, my parents are Adventists, and I love the Seventh-day Adventist Church with all of my life, my time, my resources, my words; I can say that I love the church with everything. I must add, my love is not blinded love. In my 33 years of life I have seen much; good and also evil, I have rejoiced but have also suffered. However, throughout these years, the thought of leaving the church has not ever crossed my mind and with the help of God I want to be part of our triumphant church till we get to our final destiny, heaven. I love my church because Jesus, my Savior, is in its midst; it was here that I learned about the blessed assurance of salvation and the blessed hope of the second coming and the resurrection. I love my church because it has a mission, the challenging mission to reach millions of people with the Gospel of Jesus, baptizing them and making them disciples; young people love challenges, easy tasks bore us to death.
Growing up in this church I have heard many statements about youth and their relationship with Adventism: “our best young people are leaving”, “youth are the future of the church”, “young people are not spiritual”, and “young people will finish the preaching of the gospel”. As I have analyzed these declarations carefully I have found some to be a bit factual, but not totally truthful. Personally, I believe these statements to be myths, clichés which generations repeat endlessly; these have eventually become common language, which if believed would shape and limit the young people of the AdventistChurch in the XXI Century.
Our Best Young People are Leaving the Church
It is a reality that youth and young adults leave the church, as well as adults. It must be alarming to a church when one youth goes astray. One youth who leaves the church is one to many and just as the Good Shepherd went a looked for the lost sheep and the Father would go out to the road trying to spot the prodigal son, we should all make the reclaiming of each youth, who leaves, a top priority of our church.
Nevertheless, there is a reality which I don’t hear many people talk about, the majority of the members of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church are young people under the age of thirty (30). This means that if it is true that there numerous young people who are not in the church today, it is also true that there are many millions, the majority of the Seventh-dayAdventistChurch, who have decided to join and stay faithfully. I would dare to go even further and proclaim that our best young people are not the ones who have left, but the ones who have stayed in the church, the ones who work hard to bring back those who have backslidden, as well as those who have never known Jesus, to His feet.
The Youth are the Future of the Church
This statement is partly true. If we look back to the beginning of our church, we will see that several of our pioneers were teens or young adults: Ellen Harmon, Urias Smith, John Nevins Andrews, James White, among others. They were young and played an impacting, vital role in the past of our church. If we go back some more years, we will encounter the real founder of the church, Jesus Christ. He developed a tremendous ministry in his young adult years (he ministered while he was thirty till he was thirty-three years old). John, the Baptist, his cousin and predecessor was also young while preaching and baptizing many at the Jordan River. Both, Jesus and John in their young ministries, though not limited to young people alone, faced opposition due to their new methods and modern approaches, and ultimately paid with their lives. The youth are not only the future, but they also played a key role in the past of our church.
As a Director of Adventist Youth Ministries, I get to visit several churches each month. Statistical studies are not needed to prove that churches with youth and young adults who are active in ministry are usually the liveliest, most feverous, and fastest growing churches; churches without youth and young adults, who are active in ministry, are in decay and dying. Pastor Jan Paulsen, President of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in one his Let’s Talk televised conversations with young people, projected that by the year 2020, if Jesus has not come, seventy (70) percent of the members of our worldwide church will be young people twenty five years old or less. Young people made an impact in the past of our church, young people are the majority of the church of the present, and if trained right and given the opportunity to share in the ministry and leadership, are a powerful driving force in the future of our church.
Former General Conference President, Pastor Robert Folkenberg had a famous phrase, “If we give young people a piece of the pie, maybe they’ll stay for dinner.” This phrase helped to get youth and young adult started thinking about their potential in this church. Nevertheless, today, young people in the Adventist church are saying, we want to help make the pie. It’s not the time for young people to come to the table and get a handout of the pie someone prepared for them to eat; it’s time for the young people to be involved in the making and serving of the pie.
Young People are not Spiritual
I have been a member of many boards and committees where I often hear the following prayer request: “let’s pray for our young people.” In several occasions I have suggested that we pray for everyone, youth, children, and adults who also need our prayers; no one, regardless of age, is exempt of the need for prayers, blessings, and power to overcome. Young people are a reflection, and at times, a reaction of what we see in adults. Regularly, the behavior of the youth is a reaction to what their parents, leaders, and brothers in the church do.
At times we relate the acceptance of the traditions of a previous generation or the traditions of a specific country, with the level of spirituality of the youth. Traditions can be positive or negative, but we must be clear, traditions are not commandments, nor are they an adequate tool to measure the spirituality of young people. I understand that a people without traditions can lose its identity; but I must also add that a people stocked in its traditions ends up loosing its relevance.
Through over 14 years of ministry with young people I have experienced that youth are willing to do what the Bible says, if it is explained well to them. Young people in this generation, even the post-modern, are concerned about spiritual issues and attracted to obey the “thus says the Lord.” The same young people generally reject the mentality which says: “it has always been done this way, therefore we must continue to do it this way” or “you must do this, because that’s how it is done, back home where we came from.” We must remember there are more than one country of origin among the citizens and residents of the United States; we come from many different countries and it would be very unfortunate to apply the traditions of my country to a young person whose parents came from a different nation.
I have also noticed that our young people are willing to follow the inspired counsels, revealed by God to our pioneer and prophet Ellen G. White. We would just like to receive the counsels in context and without manipulation. The youth of the XXI Century have the blessing of living in the age of information, where everything is accessible immediately, through the internet. Today we have immediate access to the writings of the Servant of the Lord, this way we can read and confirm her counsels for us.
Our young people struggle, just like adults do or perhaps a bit more, but when they are taught and challenged to live for Jesus, they too can become spiritual giants through whom the power of God can be greatly manifested. If you still have doubts, visit a young adult small group, or a Teen Prayer Conference, attend an evangelistic series, where the preachers are young people, go on a youth mission trip, go into the community with the Pathfinder Club of your church to give out Bibles, and fruit baskets, or accompany a Master Guide during a few hours of ministry and you will see young people with an incomparable fervor and devotion. If you are not seeing this in your church, remember, it could well be a reflection or a reaction to what they see from the rest of the congregation. The fact that your church does not have any young people is not a coincidence or a general problem in Adventism; there are thousands of churches with millions of active youth and young adults in North America and throughout the world.
The Youth will Finish Preaching the Gospel
I love to hear this phrase, I am sure that many of our readers have heard it before. Once again, as I analyze it in context, I believe that though well intentioned it is not the reality. No group on its own will be able to finish the preaching of the gospel. Young people or adults alone will not be able to complete such awesome and difficult task. The prophecy given in Joel 2:28-32 gives us the certainty that at the end of time, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, young and old will work together to fulfill the mission.
Young people posses creativity, energy, vision, and we have not lived long enough as to believe that there are some things which are impossible to attain; in youthful thinking anything and everything is possible. Besides these great characteristics, there are some other items which are needed to finish the work: experience, guidance, support when things go wrong, and finances; these are components that mostly adults possess. Youth and adults, together we will finish the mission that young leader Jesus gave us, before he ascended to heaven at the age of thirty three.
In closing, the Seventh-dayAdventistChurch is the church of the youth. Our best youth are staying faithfully in the church, where we are a main part of the past, the present, and the glorious eternal future. We are spiritual, we love Jesus, and we know that we’ll finish preaching the everlasting gospel together with our adult mentors, and with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and then Jesus will come.
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