Youth Assembly – Record Attendance!

A 75% increase in church involvement of young people since 2008

The Methodist church today reported that attendance at their annual Youth Assembly was up by an impressive 75% on a similar event last year.

“Maybe its the economic times we’re living in,” said Jude Levermore, Youth Participation Development Officer of the Methodist Church. “Or maybe it’s the attention given to global climate change, or Afghanistan.  But the age of apathy seems to be over. Young people want to see the world in which they live transformed. And they seem to see the church as being a place where that change can start.”

Over 200 11 – 23 year-olds gathered at Ushaw Conference centre in Durham this last weekend to take part in a programme designed by young people for young people and largely facilitated by young people, too. They came from as far afield as The Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, London, Birmingham, and from black-led churches in the inner cities to rural chapels in the Cotswolds. And the issues they explored in interactive workshop-style sessions ranged from youth violence to equality and diversity, and from ‘God and Me’ to human sexuality and self-esteem.

The young people also elected one of their own as their new Methodist Youth President to serve them and make their voice further heard over the coming year. Pete Brady will be Youth President, a full-time, annual paid post within the Children and Youth staff of the Methodist Church.

The Youth Assembly is one of the first major set-piece youth events to take place since the Methodist church adopted its new Youth participation Strategy (YPS) in 2007. The YPS is designed to enable the church at large to hear and then act on the collective voice of young people; to open up spaces and opportunities for young people to be genuinely involved in and to shape the church of which they are a part; and to encourage them to get involved in the communities in which they live.

The decisions taken and the actions committed to by the young people will roll forward into policy-making at the Methodist Conference next year as well as impacting immediately on the work of the Children and Youth Team, and, in particular, on the initiatives of Jude Levermore and her Participation Officers.

In terms of the young people’s challenges to the church, Youth Assembly wanted the church to:

• talk to them about civil partnerships, and about sexual matters generally and to be more open about these things;
• develop better ways of communicating with young people, asking them to get involved in things like stewarding in a real rather than token way;
• pledge to challenge stereotypes and to create safe places – metaphorical and real – for young people (recognising that many young people feel very unsafe);
• look into creating a Facebook petition around the Anti-Discrimination Act, which many young people felt actually discriminates against them.

And in terms of the young people’s challenging of themselves, Youth Assembly wanted to encourage young people to take more care to include people rather than exclude them in all areas of their lives – at school, college, work and in their churches. In addition, they will be collating their ‘personal challenges’ onto an online actions website which the Children and Youth Team are setting up with generous.org.uk which will enable them to keep the Assembly inspiration and momentum going.

“These are exciting times for the Methodist Church and for young people,” said Jude. “Anyone who was at Youth Assembly cannot fail to have been impressed by the level of engagement and passion and desire on the part of young people there to get involved and to be the change they want to see- in the world and in their church.”