Mature Christian Youth

by Rachel Alley, Synod Director for Youth Ministries

I love the hustle and bustle of Synod Assembly. I love the worship, meeting new friends and pastors as well as getting to visit with dear old friends. I especially anticipate working with the SESLYO Board. SESLYO is the acronym for Southeastern Synod Lutheran Youth Organization. The Board is made up of youth representatives from each Conference along with others elected to be chair, chair elect, chaplain, secretary, multicultural, communications, definitely-abled, and the synod council representative and of course awesome adult advisors. The previous year's SESLYO board as well as the newly elected board meet at Synod Assembly to SERVE the assembly. They also are tasked with watching and learning how to run their own assembly. You
probably saw these young people passing out papers, counting votes, welcoming you at the doors, handling the microphones, checking in on the workshops, etc. But what you didn't see was the community that was built sharing a piece of cheesecake after a meal, sitting on the floor of their meeting space discussing how can we get more congregations involved in youth
leadership in their churches, hearing the passion in their voices about how they want every youth to grow in their faith as well as become disciples and leaders on the congregational level, on the conference level, and on the synod level. Mature conversations for teens huh?

Elizabeth Hawkins, chair of 2010-2011 and Erin Ogle, chair of 2011-2012 gave their SESLYO report on Saturday afternoon. Elizabeth started her report by thanking her parents, other pastors and adults who have influenced her faith and helped her grow into the young leader she is. She talked about her congregation, mission experiences, and synod events. Then Erin thanked her pastor and also talked about the different youth events and how everyone
should come, that they were awesome and will change your life!

While sitting there listening to these two young women I started thinking about who Elizabeth and Erin really are. I realized that these two young women have all the characteristics of a "Mature Christian Youth" as described by the Exemplary Youth Ministry Study www.exemplaryym.com.

1) They seek spiritual growth both alone and with others
2) They Believe God is present in the world
3) They Act out a commitment of faith
4) They Are Active with God's people
5) They Possess a positive hopeful spirit
6) They Live Out a life of service
7) They Live a Moral Christian life

Elizabeth is a member of Advent Lutheran in Murfreesboro, TN and Erin is a member of St. John's Lutheran in Griffin, GA. Both relatively small congregations. Even though they don't have big youth groups and big youth spaces; they possess a big mature faith. We get so wrapped up in numbers and size as if numbers are going to increase the faith. But these two young women have had parents, pastors, friends, and congregations who cared about their faith and welcomed them into leadership and service. So what about your church? Are you focused on your youth's faith or in the numbers?