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A semiannual newsletter by and for Church of the Brethren young adults
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Fall 2001
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By CHRIS DOUGLAS
Douglas
As the Young Adult Steering Committee talked last winter about a theme for the fall issue of BRIDGE, one of the ideas that we gravitated around was that of "Relationships"
If you've read the developmental theories of Eric Erickson, he posits that one of the primary tasks of young adults is to move toward intimacy rather than isolation. As a person prepares to leave the home of their parents, establishing and strengthening a variety of relationships becomes a high priority. Close friends and "significant others" are a central part of that developmental work. But re-configuring one's relationships to parents is yet another challenge for most young adults.
Some people have speculated that for this generation of young adults, the task has even more challenges than it had for previous generations. This generation has grown up with massive amounts of television, video games, and computer-screen time. That means that as children they spent less time on the playgrounds with other kids and more time alone or focused on electronic media. Less time is spent in childhood developing relationship-building skills.
Yet sociologists have noted this particular generation of young adults is more concerned about and hungry for relationships than even previous generations of young adults because many of them experienced family breakdowns, less time with parents, and less networks of extended family.
As I talk with young adults, I am reminded in those conversations how extremely important relationships are. Yet what is more difficult for any of us than negotiating the tricky business of forming and nurturing healthy, mutually-nourishing relationships?
Chris Douglas is coordinator of Youth/Young Adult Ministry for the Church of the Brethren General Board.
John Spittle and Josh Brockway discuss ideas during a small-group session at this year's Young Adult Conference, held at Brethren Woods in Keezletown, Va. The 2002 YAC will take place in the urban setting of Chicago.
Bright lights, big city in store for YAC 2002
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It marks only the second time that the annual event has left the peaceful serenity of camps and retreat centers for the bright lights of the big city. The previous time was 10 years ago, in 1992, when YAC was also held in Chicago.
YAC 2002 will again take place at the International Conference Center on North Sheridan Ave., in the northern part of the city near Wrigley Field and the "Gold Coast."
Sally Shreiner, Mennonite pastor of the Living Water Community Church and former staff person of the Seminary Consortium on Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago has been secured as the keynote speaker for the event. It will take place May 24-26, Memorial Day weekend.
Other features will also take advantage of the urban setting. Service projects will be held throughout the city, and Sunday will offer options for worship at an assortment of neighborhood churches of varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
The weekend will also include small groups, singing, fellowship, and other activities. Cost will be $110 per person, an increase from previous years due to the higher costs of holding the event in a city location.
Participants are being urged to ask their congregation for assistance. The General Board's Youth/Young Adult Ministry office, which plans and sponsors YAC, will assist young adults in asking for help if their registrations are received by April 2.
 Fred Miller of Greenwood, Del., stands at the head of one of the relay race lines during 2001 Young Adult Conference "Wacky Olympics." Others spent the sun-drenched afternoon boating, hiking, playing games, visiting with friends, or giving backrubs. |
YAC 2001 recap: About 70 young adults from as far away as Iowa, Kansas, and New England gathered Memorial Day weekend, May 26-28, at Brethren Woods in Keezletown, Va., for the 2001 national Young Adult Conference.
Annual Conference moderator-elect Paul Grout of Putney, Vt., brought to the conference a theme he has carried throughout the denomination in the past year—that of truly "being alive," particularly being alive in Christ. Using a variety of media and underscoring the importance of art in faith, Grout described his vision of the emerging church if it is to "get it" and be relevant and meaningful in the postmodern, 21st-century world.
The weekend also included several powerful worship services, with parts of them outdoors. A closing service used the image of water with a reminder that believers become a new creation in Christ.
Other highlights included small-group Bible study sessions, Wacky Olympics and other recreation, an annual variety show, and a chance to enjoy abundant sunshine—a marked change from the rain-soaked 2000 conference.
A skeptic of the virtual community
By CHRISTOPHER FITZ
Recently the young adult list serve (COB-YYA) came alive with messages. Spurred by one eager and ambitious e-mail message provoking a host of hot issues, the usually quiet list suddenly sprang to life. Words flashed across my screen daily from Dave, Travis, Beth, or Johnny. They told real stories full of life and conviction. How suddenly vibrant was our growing virtual Brethren young adult community! Or was it?
I assume you know—as all techno-friendly young adults should—that a "list serve" is a really a program on some server computer to which subscribed members send e-mail messages that automatically are sent to all other list members. While this program does not hold any other information than a series of commands for copying and resending a message to the other members, it still has the appearance of a virtual community.
The "list" becomes a group of people with a common set of stories. In our modern world of telephones, chat rooms, teleconferencing, and list serves, it often appears that these modes of "virtual community" are replacing communities of actual presence. And I think it's wrong.
Before you put me in a box, let me say in defense that I'm not a retro-conservative longing for the days of horse and buggy. For the most part I am just as worldly as the next brother or sister; I own a computer, three bikes, a guitar, a car, and too many CDs. But almost three years ago, my life of prayer began to blossom and further convince me that this skepticism was warranted.
One night my dance partner and I were driving home from our lessons when she became ill and unable to continue driving. We switched and I drove the last stretch, nearly overwhelmed by her sense of emotional heaviness. I spent the last 15 minutes driving and filling the car with prayer. It was a powerful 15 minutes. And it ended quietly with no more than a tired goodbye. But the next day she had not only completely recovered, she was more alive than I ever remembered seeing her. I smiled. God works amazement! And perhaps such are the gifts—the presents—of actual presence.
Experiences like that repeated themselves. In the presence of others, I found that my prayers were truly shared and the movement of the Spirit nearly tangible. This presence with its essential spiritual fiber—I am convinced—is the soul of real community.
Back in the list serve, I eventually decided to participate and once spent over an hour writing an essay full of earnest, even prayerful, passion. As these words and others flew around our virtually shared space, I began to realize again how lacking was this community. I saw from the continuity of messages that none of us were being truly changed. As far as I could tell, we were all clinging to our original ideas, our original realities, and our original faiths. At some level, we could not be transformed by the moving Spirit; we lacked presence.
I am not proposing that we abandon our high-tech communication devices. They have roles in our society that can't be ignored. But I have to protest, too, that these devices, these imagined communities, are no substitute for the living presence, the living presents of God in our present communities.
By BETH RHODES
I once saw a bumper sticker with this phrase: "A friend knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten how it goes."
At the time, I could not fathom such a relationship; I was an unhappy high school student "trapped" in dead-end friendships. I felt as if I gave of myself and received little in return, or that I always had to prove myself to my friends. Several years later, however, I have found people who know my song.
Sometimes, as I share my thoughts and seek advice from my friends, or when we spend hours doing nothing but talking and laughing together, I have to pinch myself to make sure this is really my life. One night, as some of us were urging a friend to take a step she did not believe she was ready to take, she jokingly told us, "You challenge me." Although we rolled on the floor in laughter, that line has become an oft-repeated inside joke. And it is also the key to the closeness of our relationship.
I believe that the most important aspect of my friendships, and an element missing from my high school relationships, is openness: an openness to learn from each other, to point out others' weaknesses, and to nourish our strengths. Furthermore, a community of friends should include opportunities both to give and to receive.
We grow close to our friends as we are humbled by all they have to offer us and buoyed by all we have to offer them in return. This exchange works best when the community is diverse enough to expose us to different backgrounds and points of view, and when it contains a balance of voices (supportive, humorous, spiritual) so that we can have the different facets of ourselves fed and challenged.
Love is in the (clean) air:
finding a lifetime of intimacy in outdoor ministries
By CHRISTOPHER FITZ
According to a recent poll of cool, youngish Church of the Brethren couples, 55 percent met or had formative experiences at a camp.
Actually, I just made that up. But it might as well be true. In the process of interviewing camp directors for this article, I found them consistently overwhelmed by the question, "What stories of lifelong romance began at your camp?" Story after story, it became clear: God's creation—lightly treaded upon—has to be about the best place on earth to plant lifetime intimacy and partnership.
Take Kevin Engle for example. In 1985 he spent the summer working at Camp Myrtlewood in Oregon, 3,000 miles away from his home in Elizabethtown, Pa. He relates about the camp, "I felt that it was going to be one of those places that I would want to share with my closest friends."
Five years later, after meeting a certain Amy and knowing she was "the one," they both journeyed west and eventually found themselves at Camp Myrtlewood on Thanksgiving Day. Aided by Myrtlewood's own matchmaking camp co-director John Jones, who pre-packed a celebratory picnic knapsack, the two hiked up to "Lover's Roost" on Vista Point, a romantically endowed bench with a breathtaking view of the Oregon mountains. That's where he popped the question. Eleven years later Kevin reports that they are happily married with two children back in Elizabethtown.
But that might be getting ahead of the story. Because now you might ask, "Chris, but how did they get that far?" To which I also say, "Go spend a few summers at a camp." In my four at Camp Eder, I saw at least one new significant romantic relationship each year, even sharing the privilege of ushering at the wedding for one such couple last October. And I even found myself among the star-crossed statistics.
The current program director at Camp Eder met her significant other there; so did the program coordinator of Camp Swatara in the Atlantic Northeast District. And why not? Both directors of Eder and Swatara met their respective partners through outdoor ministries.
Over 20 years ago Marlin Houff was hired as the director of Camp Swatara—single. That didn't last long. In his second year he met his soon-to-be wife, Jeanine, and soon after they were sowing the seeds of love.
 Why is this man smiling? Camp Eder executive director Curt Rowland met his wife, Karen, through outdoor ministries. Many other Brethren have similar stories. |
In fact, intimacy and commitment have become part of the tradition of some camps. Camp Swatara honored 50 years of matchmaking at a recent 50th anniversary dinner commemorating couples whose relationships were greatly formed there. The list totaled more than one couple per year of the camp's existence!
Camp Alexander Mack in Indiana has gone one step further in making such an event regular. Its first "Sweetheart Banquet" last year attracted more than 30 couples, many of them opting for an overnight stay. The attendees once again included regular camp supporters, former staff and volunteers, even board members.
Other outdoor ministries centers recognize this tradition of intimate cultivation in special places such as Camp Myrtlewood's scenic "Lover's Roost" nestled in the fork of a giant madrone tree, or Camp Eder's "Marriage Tree"—two beech trees joined by a common branch.
While such well-known romantic traditions can seem like a dubious blessing in a society whose children and adults easily confuse sexual and romantic intimacy with a committed, spiritual, whole-person love, it is nevertheless unmistakable that outdoor ministries play a huge role in engendering (no pun intended) lifetime commitments of intimacy.
A wonderful book could be written about the stories I heard—people finding powerful and lasting intimacy in the mystery of God's wilderness. But why don't you experience it for yourself? Maybe you already have. Even if you don't meet your mate there, like Kevin, it will probably be "one of those places" you will "want to share with your closest friends." Who knows—if my statistics are correct, it probably already is.
"Who has mentored you, and what is the most significant thing a mentor has done for you?"
Young adults speak out:
Jim Zerfing
(Lancaster, Pa.)
"Pastor Dick Shreckhise because of his spiritual support and prayer for my growth."
Abbie Miller
(Hagerstown, Md.)
"My dad because of the way he relates to people and to his family and his respect for creation."
Pete Barlow
(Dayton, Va.)
"My mother because she taught me humility and to have an open mind."
Margo Miller
(Hagerstown, Md.)
"Deanna Brown because of the way she loves and the way she has encouraged me to be a being of faith."
Anna Manikus
(Chester, Va.)
"My grandmother because she could answer questions, her support, and her own faith."
By SCOTT McDEARMON
Within the Buddhist tradition, there are examples of spiritual direction. Often disciples were, and are, encouraged to never journey alone. Spiritual direction from a Western perspective traces its roots back to the "Desert Fathers" and others who began the monastic traditions. These men and women believed that to become holy, one must follow a holy person.
There seems to be a re-emergence of spiritual direction today. Current thought on spiritual direction describes it as a relationship between one person who is attempting to learn more about their spiritual life and a director who is able to guide and pray with that person. Within the Church of the Brethren there is a network of spiritual directors spanning the United States from Virginia to California.
Selena Kilmoyer, a spiritual director from Olympia, Wash., says, "the object of spiritual direction is to midwife another person." Kilmoyer describes a midwife as someone who receives the pain and joy of another, and is also someone who is traditionally viewed as having had many life experiences.
Kilmoyer also believes spiritual direction is a form of holy listening, meaning that the director's first responsibility is to listen. This listening time is sacred time that is not to be disturbed by phones or other obligations.
Nancy Jones, a pastor and spiritual director at Codorus Church of the Brethren in Loganville, Pa., says that spiritual direction can be viewed as one beggar leading another to bread. Within the relationship between the director and directee it is made clear that the director does not have the answers, but is a guide that points to a power greater than themselves.
Jones says that in receiving spiritual direction she has been able to change her focus from looking for answers to appreciating all the questions.
Spiritual direction has sometimes been compared to forms of counseling led by therapists and others. But there are distinctions between the two that are worth noting. Therapy and counseling often focus on the recognition and resolution of issues and problems within a person's life. The focus of spiritual direction is not on solving problems, but on finding and responding to God during times of both trials and celebration within one's life.
Another distinction is that the experience of spiritual direction really includes a relationship between directee, director, and God. Jones says, "Within spiritual direction there is less of me and more of God." Through holy listening on the part of the director and the inclusion of centering prayer and silence, space is made for God.
Top 10 signs a Brethren may be in love
(although they're usually not very good at hiding it anyhow)
| 10. | Walks right by a table full of potluck dishes without taking a second look. |
| 9. | Keeps repeating the "Kindle our hearts" phrase of "Move in Our Midst." |
| 8. | Has a joy to share during the church service every Sunday. |
| 7. |
Urges the pastor to preach regularly from I Corinthians chapter 13.
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| 6. |
Begins figuring out which Annual Conference location would make the best honeymoon site.
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| 5. |
Turns down a free plate of ice cream.
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| 4. |
Starts looking for words that rhyme with "Dunkard" to use in romantic poems.
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| 3. |
Enrolls in Brethren Volunteer Service to secure a stable income
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| 2. |
Submits a query on the proper gift to give for a one-month anniversary
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| 1. |
Thinks "Love, as I have loved you" should be the Conference theme EVERY year.
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Compiled by Walt Wiltschek in his final act as editor of BRIDGE.
Best wishes to the next editor and to all our readers!
BRIDGE: Fall 2001
Volume 16, Number 2
Young Adult Ministries
Church of the Brethren
1451 Dundee Ave.
Elgin, IL 60120
Staff for Young Adult Ministries: Chris Douglas
Young Adult Steering Committee: Josh Brockway, Chris Fitz, Heidi Gross, Scott McDearmon, Heather Shively Kim Sittig
BRIDGE Editor: Walt Wiltschek
BRIDGE is a publication of the Young Adult Ministry office of the Church of the Brethren General Board. BRIDGE wishes to include on its mailing list anyone who would like to receive a copy. Send your name and address (regular or e-mail) to the address above; there is no subscription fee. Please inform us of any change in address, or if you no longer want to receive BRIDGE.
Contributions are welcome. Please submit items for the next issue by Jan. 15, 2002.
COB-YYA list server
Are you interested in chatting with other Brethren young adults? There is a free list server set up to connect dozens of young adults from around our denomination.
To join, write to: listserv2@bridgewater.edu
In the body of the message put: Subscribe COB-YYA <your name>
Once you've subscribed, send messages to the list at: COB-YYA@bridgewater.edu
If you've changed addresses:
Please let us know! It's hard to keep up with the mobility of young adults and get this newsletter to everyone. It helps save us money if you let us know, rather than having the post office charge us for the information. Plus you'll get your newsletter in a more timely fashion! If you're changing addresses, please let us know by sending an e-mail note to: cdouglas_gb@brethren.org or call 800-323-8039 ext. 289
If you would like to share your view on the focus topic for an edition of BRIDGE, please send your article to BRIDGE: c/o Youth/Young Adult Ministry Office, 1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
How to contact BRIDGE:
*By e-mail: cdouglas_gb@brethren.org
*By fax: Send to (847) 742-6103, ATTN: Chris Douglas
*By phone: 1-800-323-8039
*By mail: BRIDGE, Youth/Young Adult Ministry Office, 1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
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