One of the things that excited me about First Presbyterian Church of Ashland when I was in the interview process, was the possibility of starting up something similar to what my friend, the very Right Rev. Greg Bolt, helped to start up in Bend, Oregon. Lutherans, Episcopals and Presbyterians have gotten together up in Bend to form the Bend Youth Collective. Their tagline is: “3 Churches-1 Community, 3 Traditions-1 Faith, 3 Histories-1 Future.”
I love the idea of churches coming together to form ecumenical groups, bringing kids together to do this important ecumenical (and interfaith: like the Interfaith Works event I organized last spring) work, so that it can build the groundwork of community and focusing on similarities (rather than differences) amidst other youth.
So, we are working toward that by creating the Ashland Youth Collective (we loved the Bend Youth Collective’s idea, and name, so much that we just decided to go a very similar route as they did; it’s okay – we checked with some of their leaders first). We are currently partnering with a Methodist and UCC church here in town, but there is also the possibility of working with the Episcopal and the Unitarian churches in town.
We had our first Ashland Youth Collective event last Sunday. We had almost 20 youth show up, and take part in a night of food, fun and fellowship (pretty standard youth group stuff here). We did some ice-breakers, got kids talking with one another, played cornhole (naturally!) and foursquare, and after two hours, they didn’t really seem to want to go home. Some of their parents actually joined in on the foursquare fun with us. All in all – it was a wonderful night with a lot of energy.
Was it a total fluke, and will our grand experiment fail? Maybe. I don’t know – but it seems like there is a lot of interest in partnering together here in Ashland, and the various communities we’ve partnered with, have partnered together on various ministries in the past, so it makes sense that we bring our youth together to form this ecumenical, community youth group.
Have you had any experience with such groups? What’s worked for you? What’s been hard about these types of youth groups?
did you know that I live in Bend (and have never heard of this either)
Hit me up @ggbolt16 on twitter, ggbolt16@gmail.com, Come to Common Table on Monday night at 6:00 PM
I’ve tinkered with this idea in Claremont. The UCC, Presbyterian, and Methodist groups have done some things together, and we continue to, but it has fallen far short of a collective. One thing that has seemed important to me is the relationships of the adults involved. I suppose that’s true of all collaboration: it works better if the people collaborating actually like to work together.
Are you trying to establish something that will become the primary youth ministry of the churches involved or something that will supplement the programs of those participant churches? Chris Folsmsbee’s “New Kind of Youth Ministry” book describes a think in Golden, Colorado, where the collective is the only youth ministry offered by the churches that make it up. I like that. Because I think our congregations need to be experimenting with these kinds of collaborations more and more to allow for some new things to emerge, and youth groups are a great proving ground.
I’m eager to see how your experiment progresses, and I trust you’ll be sharing it. Thanks for this.
Hey Rocky – thanks for the comment. I have a good relationship with one of the leaders from the other church and that definitely makes planning for this stuff a lot more enjoyable.
And yes – it is our hope that this will be the primary youth group for 3 three churches by next fall. We are doing monthly activities now (and will continue in the summer), we’re doing a joint mission trip and then we hope to fully launch the Ashland Youth Collective next fall as the primary youth group for these (and possibly other) churches. That’s the plan, and I hope it all works out. I think it’s a pretty exciting possibility.
It’s our primary youth ministry. We do all do different things on Sunday mornings, but all mid-week, retreats, trips are together
For the record, if anybody has questions about Bend Youth Collective and about what we have been doing, you can get me on twitter at @ggbolt16 or email me at ggbolt 16 at gmail dot com