Convoy
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Building Belonging with Young Adults
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Building Belonging with Young Adults
Some emerging leaders who are re-starting the young adult ministry at their vibrant urban congregation recently came to Camp Deerpark for a community-building retreat. We also did a follow-up coaching session via Zoom along with two of their supporting mentors.
While they were on retreat, the group set out a forward-looking schedule of activities for themselves; some social and some ministry related. In the coaching session, I encouraged them to think about they’re goals and “way of being” as these events draw lives together into common spaces and shared life rhythms.
The priority at the start of any Jesus-following group is to create belonging in the correct way — as connection on the level of spiritual identity (who is God, then who are we) as the foundation of mission with Jesus (verses mission for Jesus). The danger is building belonging merely on affinity — liking the same things, building belonging as a public benefit — we all get something out of this as individuals, or building belonging out of a psychosocial identity — we’re not like those other people. None of these motivations for belonging a fit for disciples of Jesus, nor do they lead to mission.
I encouraged these emerging leaders to practice the dynamics and skills of The Story Zone as they go to these events. Make it their goal in the next few months to know the real potential and pain of each person’s story, whether they are core group or occasional attender. They should so this, not as a community building activity — though that will happen — but as a quest for each young adult’s more fundamental created identity. If we dare to really see each other’s stories, and believe — whether they know it yet or not — that those stories call for the Kingdom of God, then we’ll be in the risky, beautiful, transformative possibility of bonding in the Spirit and saying yes to any mission Jesus reveals.
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