Panel Discussion Speech: :Taking The Plunge: Young Adults And The Church"

First spoken on 2019/02/08 at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo for the Bechtel Lectures In Anabaptist-Mennonite Studies Panel

Hi my name is Jonathan Klassen. I’ve been attending Breslau Mennonite Church with my family for 10 years now and before that we had been attending Mannheim Mennonite Church since I was born. 

At this point in my life, my faith is the most important part of my life and I think it always will be going forward. 

It’s very rare that I miss attending worship on a Sunday morning even though this isn’t the norm for people my age or for people in general for that matter. 

It’s not that my parents force me to go like they sometimes did when I was younger and it’s not that I go out of fear of disapproval from God or anyone else, I go because I genuinely miss it when I don’t go. I feel the need to have a day each week where I get away from my daily routine and commitments to simply be with God, to worship God, to think about God, to sing to God, and to reflect on what I need to do throughout the week to serve Him better.  

I’m pretty sure this is how God created things to be, and why one of the ten commandments is to remember the sabbath and keep it holy.

Now this doesn’t actually explain why I’m part of a church, and why I attend a service every Sunday. To be honest I don’t think I actually need to go to church to do any of the things I described, I could do these things anytime and in anyplace and I would probably be more focused in my worship and prayers if I was alone anyways. I think it is very important though and it’s more fulfilling to be able to worship God with others and be part of a community that fellowships with each other and supports each other in following Jesus.

Although over the past couple of years I’ve resonated a lot with the teachings of other churches such as The Meeting House church and have been part of a number of different home church groups and Bible studies which have been great experiences for me, I’ve continued to be part of Breslau Mennonite because I feel so strongly connected to the community here and have developed so many great relationships here over the years. 

Being part of the supportive, open-minded, and creative congregation at Breslau has also provided me with many opportunities: from being part of a youth group, to competing in Bible quizzing, to helping to lead worship and doing sermons, to being a summer camp leader, and most recently, to performing in a musical (which some of you may have seen this past weekend). I likely wouldn’t have been able to do these things if I had not been part of this church.  

I think fostering multi-generational communities where everyone knows your name, that not only worship together, but also eat together, serve together, and do fun things together, is something that the Mennonite church does well and is why youth and young adults continue to stay involved even though it’s starting to become less common to see people of this demographic come out to church on a Sunday morning. 

I’ve thought a lot about this trend of decline in attendance and interest in the church from young people and I think it’s partly a result of external factors, the cultural changes and technological advances in our society over the years, but I do also think there are things we could work on as churches if we want to stop this trend from continuing. 

For starters, church can be very unwelcoming and feel irrelevant for those who aren’t familiar with or don’t understand its norms and traditions. For example, as much as I enjoy and understand the significance behind four-part harmony hymn singing because I grew up with it and have received training in it through choirs at Rockway, it’s not the main reason I attend church and I understand that it can be intimidating and meaningless to a lot of people who aren’t used to it. 

As I implied earlier the style of worship, the style of music, the order of the service, whether or not a liturgical calendar is followed, etc does not matter to me very much: I go to church for the opportunity to worship God with others and to receive some guidance or something relevant to my life to think about, to be challenged by throughout the rest of the week. So I think if we want to make church more relevant to people, especially young people we have to put more time and effort into explaining and making clear why our traditions exist and why we continue to partake in them. 

We also have to be ok with re-evaluating, adapting, or moving away completely from certain traditions if this would help people worship God and understand His message better. We have to make sure we’re not caught up in the same mindset as the Pharisees in Matthew 12, when they were so consumed by their traditions and sacrifices that they didn’t realize the One they were sacrificing for, Jesus, “lord of the sabbath” was right there in front of them (Matthew 12:1-8). Although they might not always point it out or be able to put a finger on it, young people often do not have a hard time sensing the hypocrisy that exists in the church.

Next, with the many different entertainment mediums that now exist as a result of these technological advances and the many opportunities youth have to participate in social activities outside of church through school or sports for example, we have to make it clear that church isn’t just another entertainment option to choose from or another club to be part of. Church is supposed to be counter-cultural because Jesus was counter-cultural. 

It’s not supposed to just be a place you go to every once in a while because you have nothing else going on some Sunday mornings, church is meant to be an ongoing community of love and support for one another that provides spiritual meaning and direction to people’s lives, through worship, teaching, prayer, conversation, and fellowship. 

We need to make sure that this is not only what our churches are doing but that this is how they are being perceived by young people so that they can see the importance of being part of this. I think the model of church of the apostles and early followers of Jesus as Acts describes for us is what we need to be striving for.

Church has to be a place where young people can receive guidance on and have conversations with individuals or in small groups about issues that are truly relevant to their lives. This definitely includes sexuality. 

Humans were created with the ability to express oneself sexually, but the commonly held belief that sexual expression is a fundamental human need in my opinion is a myth created by our society. God had an intentional, loving purpose in creating limitations and conditions to how we receive sexual pleasure and express ourselves sexually but we live in a culture of oversexualization where casual and premarital sex is the norm and kids have access to pornography wherever they want, whenever they want on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. 

This isn’t the only area of concern though. The majority of high school parties and social gatherings are centred around alcohol and drugs as early as Grade 9 and Mennonite high schools and colleges are no exception to this. It always makes me sad when I think about the fact that so many of my peers see this as the only way to truly have fun. 

Young people face so many pressures - the pressure to succeed in school, the pressure to find a successful summer or co-op job to pay for school, the pressure to succeed in sports or music or art, the pressure to succeed socially, the pressure to succeed romantically, and now the pressure to post about all their successes on Instagram in a way that will get them hundreds of likes. They don’t turn to God to cope with these pressures though, they turn to the internet. 

I think God provides a lot of insight and answers to these things through Jesus and throughout the Bible but we have to be willing to dive into and talk openly about these issues. Aside from the big discussion there was about LGBTQ inclusivity, I think many Mennonite churches nowadays aren’t used to having a lot of teachings and conversations around issues that are uncomfortable or potentially controversial which to be fair I think is a result of the fear of repeating the many conflicts and divisions there have been throughout Mennonite history. 

If we want young people to stay in the church though, this needs to change because these are the issues that truly matter to them and they want guidance on even if they don’t ask for it.  We have to start providing young people with the support they need in these areas but it is essential that we do so in a non-judgmental way. Simply telling someone the way they are living is wrong, just gives them more reason to turn away from the church, I know this from experience.

So for this to happen, although I know this is a lot easier to put into words than to put into practice, in my opinion we need to make sure our churches are focused on balancing and bringing to the forefront the following three values: non-judgmentalism, open, authentic community, and unequivocal, uncompromising devotion to the message and teachings of Jesus because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. 

If we want young people to continue to be part of the church the message they get from the church shouldn’t be “you have to do these things and then you will be loved by us and by God”, and it shouldn’t be “you should feel free to do whatever you want because it doesn’t matter”, the message needs to be:

“God loves you no matter what and we love you no matter what so let’s walk together, let’s work together to love God and love others in all areas of our lives, the way God intended.”