He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna... in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
(Deuteronomy 8:3)
Updated: Jan 23, 2022
Last week, I saw a tweet that said:
Describe what you do for a living, but make it sound scary.
"Challenge accepted," I thought.
So, I thought you all might enjoy my spooky description of being a priest; it's been making me smile to myself all week. Here it is:
Happy Halloween!
Yesterday, I had the privilege of presenting Resolution 6 at the 237th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. The resolution is called "Evangelism of and by Young Adults: Faithfulness to God’s Mission into the Future." This is a resolution I helped write after two years serving as co-convener of our diocese's Young Adult Task Force.
To my great joy, our convention voted 99%+ in favor of making young adults (that's people ages 18-39, not to be confused with "youth") a priority for our common life.
So below, I share with you what I said in my presentation.
My invitation to you, my St. Paul's community, is that you think about how this resolution and these words apply to our own context. And what you will do in response to this call to action.
Here, more or less, is what I said:
Hi everyone. I’m Helena Martin: Priest-in-Charge at St. Paul’s in Southington and bonafide Young Person (if only by church standards).
I’m speaking today as a sponsor of Resolution 6 and as a co-convener of the Young Adult Task Force, which our convention commissioned back in 2019.
At that convention, you recognized the crisis of young adult exclusion from our common life. (“Young adults” for our purposes means folks ages 18 to 39.) You charged us to bring back “specific proposals for evangelism of young adults in ECCT.”
We reported to 2020 convention with a video of young adult voices from around ECCT. Then, we worked with a researcher to create a written report, which we submitted to convention this year.
People assume that young adults don’t want church. But we found that young adults want to lead lives that make a difference, want to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves, want to know Jesus.
Our report—which I commend to your careful consideration—makes specific recommendations for how ECCT can serve (and serve alongside) young adults.
Given the current time of transition in ECCT, we’re not asking for anything like programmatic or staffing solutions at this time. Instead, we’re asking this assembled body to make two strong statements:
That ECCT make ministry for and with young adults a true priority. This also asks the Bishop Transition Committee to make this priority clear in its search for candidates.
To approve our findings in concept, to be revisited in earnest by our next Bishop Diocesan.
We’re convinced that God is already at work in the lives and worlds of young adults. So today, we ask you to join this movement of the Holy Spirit, and say “yes!”
“Yes” that we collectively are committed to including young adults in the Body of Christ.
“Yes” that we want to prioritize this work going forward.
“Yes” to God’s invitation to share the Good News of Christ with everyone.
Thank you.
This Saturday, our two St. Paul’s delegates and I will “go” to the Episcopal Church in Connecticut annual convention! I put “go” in quotation marks because the convention is online again this year due to COVID. So, we won’t be sitting in a convention center or large hotel ballroom. As for so many major events in the past 20 months, I’ll be sitting at my desk in my home office.
At convention, all the clergy in Connecticut and the lay delegates from each parish come together. Usually, we spend some time worshiping and praying together, some time learning about and discussing the state of our church, and some time passing resolutions for our work together going forward.
The resolutions always include the budget for the coming year, of course. But we do other important work as a gathered body, as well. For example, in 2020, we passed Resolution #7, entitled “Acknowledging & Confronting Systemic Racism, White Supremacy, & Anti-Black Bias.”
This Saturday, the topics we’re considering in resolutions are:
Budget of Convention
Clergy Compensation
Care for God’s Creation and Creatures
Fostering Right Relationship: ECCT, Indigenous Episcopalians and our Indigenous Neighbors
Sharing in the Work of Creating a Safe Church
Evangelism of and by Young Adults: Faithfulness to God’s Mission into the Future
Addressing Racism within Title IV Complaints and Processes
You can read the full text of each resolution, as well as the people sponsoring that resolution.
If you read Resolution #6, Evangelism of and by Young Adults, you’ll notice my name among the sponsors! That resolution came out of two years of work of the Young Adult Task Force, of which I was one of the co-conveners. We’re also submitting a comprehensive report of our research findings, which you can download and read.
Please pray for all the delegates to convention, and for the many people working hard to make it happen this year. It’s important that we be attentive to the way the Holy Spirit is leading us in this collective work, so your prayers are much appreciated.
