Vox populi | youthful vision

How do we connect a disconnected generation?

M

y son just graduated high school and is preparing for university in the fall, and along with this transition goes time to reflect on his life and initiation into adulthood.  We had parties, gave gifts and participated in ceremonies to move him into this new journey.  We, in effect, initiated him into this next phase of life. It was a rite of passage.  Richard Rohr, in his book Adam’s Return - The Five Promises of Male Initiation, identifies that the western world does a poor job at initiating its males into manhood.  He contends that males require initiation unlike women who are self-initiators.  A young girl can mark her transition into womanhood by the onset of her menstrual period even if no other initiation rite takes place, but for males there is no comparable rite.

Failure to initiate is not true in all of western society.  Jewish boys, for example, are initiated into manhood through their Bar Mitzvah.  North American native boys celebrate initiation through hunting, although the rite of passage is lacking in certain tribes because of the devastation of residential schooling.  The Nisga’a people of Northwestern British Columbia [a western Canadian province] continue to initiate both boys and girls into adulthood through community celebrations, rites of passage.  It leads me to question the rite of passage of my own children.  Have I initiated them into adulthood.  Did I train them up in the way they should go so that when they are old they would not depart from it, or do I now cross my fingers and hope for the best that something has rubbed off?

What about the church?  Are we initiating our children, and what are our rites of passage?  In traditions such as Presbyterian or Roman Catholic, for example, there are rites of passage built into their worship, community life and ritual.  Catholic children take “first communion” at about age seven and then as teenagers celebrate “confirmation” as the child leaves the faith of their parents behind to pursue their own faith journey, a ritual celebrated in other traditions.  The Salvation Army seems to have abandoned, reworked or forgotten the rites of passage in regards to our children’s faith journey, at least in the west.  We abandoned Christian Ed in exchange for Kid’s clubs to attract a greater number of kids, but often seek to entertain without providing a consistent teaching through scripture.  Junior Soldiers, directory, and Corps Cadets (*) have gone by the way out of fear in a day where child soldiers is a harsh reality in other parts of our world.  I’m skeptical to believe, however that abandonment of Jr. Soldiers is really out of solidarity with the world.

What we’re left with is a TSA that is growing older in our constituency without the younger generation following behind, and I’m not talking about a generation that will hold up the old standard, but rather, a generation that will bring TSA into the future based on our values, principles and mission.  They are emerging, and are finding their place in mission schools, gap year programs and the like, but do so with a bent towards mission and no connection to the mothership.  How do we connect a disconnected generation.  Although I’ve highlighted former rites I don’t necessarily think resurrecting them is the answer, at least not in their former state, but the principle and practice behind them is desperately needed.  We need to disciple and mobilize our children and youth and train them in mission.  They need to see themselves a part of the community which fostered their spiritual formation, not as ambivalent to it.

That’s their part, but what about the mothership?  We have the vision to see we need to focus on the youth of TSA if we are going to survive into the future, but do we have the guts to do what it will take to bring them in, to initiate them into relevant forms of Salvationism?  I’m often humbled by the missional drive and determination of our youth.  They are bringing fresh ideas and approaches which often fly in the face of the status quo or the icons of our past.  Perhaps it isn’t the youth that need to change because they seem to be handling change quite well.

*In the Canada and Bermuda Territory Corps Cadets has been recreated into Cross Zone, but has not had the global acceptance or buy in that CC used to have.

Vox populi appears every Friday on theRubicon. Find past Vox populi posts and a bio of Capt. Rick Zelinsky here.

2 Comments to Vox populi | youthful vision

1. Rick:

   Thanks for writing this. I have argued on this blog that the Soldier’s Covenant which can be signed at age 14 is in no way the equivalent of the sacrament of Confirmation. And it’s more than disconnection teens feel–it’s disengagement, alienation even. And I don’t think that most teens are on a “spiritual” journey; they’re going nowhere fast…and that’s the fault of the church.

   Overlay this on a workforce where the difficulty of the school to work transition (or any “to work transition”) is at an all-time historical high. It’s the problem that we keep hush, hush; private family shame…the teens, twenty-somethings and even thirty-year olds who aren’t up to much, at all.

   Lay leadership was once drawn from the successfully employed and/or their wives. Again, under/unemployment, a time when people are often drawn to service, is a source of unspeakable shame. What a shame all this energy, adolescent and adult is lost to the church.

   My home church has started “teen talk” a facilitated discussion time about faith for teens and older pre-teens who are young enough to admit that it’s hard not to squirm during the sermon. It’s hard to keep this going in the summer, but I hope that the success of the spring will continue in the fall.

   Because, yes, it’s important to keep that connection. Without some deliberate effort it will be lost.

   Andrea
Andrea614Regent on July 11th, 2008

2. Rick…Oh yes, I don’t think that confirmation by itself does a good job of keeping teens and young adults engaged. I would be more hopeful for structured relationship building such as teen talk which is part of the corporate experience. Thanks, Andrea
Andrea614Regent on July 11th, 2008

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