Youthful ramblings.

[rivka]

It seems as though the common pattern for non-evangelical churches is that people stop attending once their parents stop making them, in adolescence, and don't return until they've got kids of their own. Most of the churches I've attended or visited have been that way - the congregation is mostly over 50 and the younger people are all couples with kids, settled down leading a suburban life. One of the things I liked from the start about the church we're attending now is that it's not like that at all. On a typical Sunday, 10-20% of the congregation are in their 20s and 30s. Of those, most of them are childless, most of them are city folk, and probably close to half of them are gay or bisexual.

The Unitarian-Universalist Association defines "young adults" as people aged 18-35. (By that definition, Misha just slips in under the wire, but my sense is that, as with many aspects of Unitarianism, the boundaries are fuzzy.) Today was "youth and young adult Sunday," or something, and the retired visiting minister had been the campus minister at Princeton and had worked nationally with college Unitarians. I'm sure she was very nice, but her sermon set my teeth on edge. Looking out over a church with a generous proportion of people under 40, she kept talking about how "you" ought to reach out to young adults, how "you" could guide "them" and make "them" feel welcome in the church. In other words, we members of the congregation who met the UUA definition of "young adults" were always part of her them, not part of her you. I don't think she realized that in her very efforts to promote inclusivity she was pushing us to the margins - defining us as peripheral people with needs to be met by the real grownups, rather than central contributors to church life. Ergh.

Much more congenial was the "young adults" lunch afterward at the Monument Cafe, organized by an actual young adult. About fourteen of us squeezed into a tiny section underneath a TV showing the football game and had a great conversation and planning session. The guy next to me was a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and had just come back from five years in Mongolia with the Peace Corps and UNICEF. (I'm tempted to say something snide about his obvious need for guidance from the 40-something accountants and lawyers in the congregation, but I'll give it a rest.) He had some interesting things to say about his travels, including this: "Your view of your country really gets warped when the only people you see or talk to are other expatriates. You think, 'Oh, Americans are so ignorant, their culture is so awful.' ... but then you come back and realize, there are a lot of very thoughtful people here."

Anyway, we decided that we would meet once a month for potlucks or for lunch after church, and that we might do more than that. A couple people there were from the Towson church's miniscule young adult group, and they said there are curricula available from the UUA we might want to go through together - they'd done something on defining and exploring your spiritual path, and something else on planning for life changes. There was a lot of interest in social activities - museums, ball games, camping, concerts.

I'm really pleased about this. Part of the reason I wanted to join a church is that I was looking for ways to make deeper social connections - not just people I know from a particular online venue or people from work. There was a while there last year when the only people I saw socially were my partners or my fellow interns - and that just doesn't seem like a viable way of living. The Unitarian church seemed like it would be a good filter for people who would have a higher probability of being smart, aware, involved, and interesting. So far it seems to be working.

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