I was given permission to pass along this data from the FGC-sponsored Youth Ministry Consultation that took place Third Month. A number of goals and projects had been brainstormed beforehand. The thirty-or-so participants at the Consultation were each given ten stars, which they were asked to put next to the projects they thought should be pursued. Every star acted as a vote that there was one person interested in that topic. The stars were coded to indicate the age range of the voter: High-Schooler, Adult Young Friend (18 – 37 years old) and older Friends.
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| One of the “stars” charts at the consultation |
Being the information design geek, I converted the resultant votes to into qualities and colors and put them into a chart showing interest level. Projects that received no votes from a particular age range are labeled “none,” for no interest; 2 – 3 stars is “weak” interest and so forth, up to “HOT” which are projects which received over 7 stars from an age group.
As an example, take “develop spirituality.” Seven adult young Friends (aged 18 – 37) put a star down for this, indicating they thought it was something FGC should promote, hence “strong” (bright red) interest from this age group. No Friend over forty used one of their stars to indicate interest in this work, indicating that none of them thought FGC should be promoting spiritual development. Here are the results:
| High-School Voters |
YAF Voters |
Older Adult Voters |
|||||||
Expecially for Adult Young Friends |
|||||||||
| Community | weak | strong | weak | ||||||
| Develop spirituality | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Outreach & how to explain our faith | none | strong | weak | ||||||
| Critical mass at MM, QM, YM | none | weak | strong | ||||||
| Mentoring by older Friends | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Mentoring to younger Friends | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Mentoring to older Friends: | none | strong | none | ||||||
| Help with transitions | none | *HOT* | weak | ||||||
| Advertising programs | none | weak | none | ||||||
| Suggestions: | |||||||||
| Traveling Ministries for AYF | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
| Groups throughout the year for support | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
| Support for AYF groups at the YM levels | none | weak | weak | ||||||
| Database to help isolated friends | none | none | none | ||||||
| Clearness/discernment process: | |||||||||
| For HS to College | none | lukew | none | ||||||
| For work transitions | none | weak | none | ||||||
| For relationships | none | weak | none | ||||||
| For parenthood | none | weak | weak | ||||||
| Intergenerational Spiritual Conversations | |||||||||
| About Vital Friends Issues | none | lukew | none | ||||||
| Vision of Quakerism in 50 years | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
| Financial support for AYF | weak | *HOT* | lukew | ||||||
| Retreats for youth workers | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Materials specifically designed for AYF, | none | none | none | ||||||
| General Questions: | |||||||||
| How do we handle the broad age span? | none | weak | none | ||||||
| How do we tap the energy and passion of this group MMs, YMs & FGC? | none | lukew | strong | ||||||
| How do we meet the needs without separating AYF from larger community? | none | lukew | none | ||||||
| How do we sustain community when we only meet once a year? | none | lukew | weak | ||||||
Especially for High Schoolers |
|||||||||
| Needs: | |||||||||
| Adults who are better prepared to work with them… | weak | lukew | strong | ||||||
| FAP�s that have self confidence | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Help with discernment process around college | none | none | none | ||||||
| Help with disc: C‑O | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Help with discernment around life choices | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Discernment questions: #3, #4, & #5: | none | weak | strong | ||||||
| Building community | weak | weak | weak | ||||||
| Networking | weak | none | none | ||||||
| Bible study, RE curriculum | none | none | weak | ||||||
| Training how one person can have impact | none | none | none | ||||||
| Training on how to develop group dialogs | weak | none | weak | ||||||
| Help to get more teens involved | weak | none | lukew | ||||||
| Programming help | none | none | none | ||||||
| Leadership Development | weak | weak | weak | ||||||
| Suggestions: | |||||||||
| Youth newsletter | lukew | weak | none | ||||||
| Email forum | lukew | weak | none | ||||||
| Email data base | none | weak | none | ||||||
| Event b’ween Young Quakes and Gathering | weak | none | none | ||||||
| Youth exchange | weak | none | none | ||||||
| Programs to facilitate rites of passage | weak | none | none | ||||||
Things Younger Friends wanted more than Older Friends:
In order by AYF popularity:
- MENTORSHIP: The AYFs really want cross-generational mentoring relationships. When the questions were first posed, there only “mentoring by older Friends” and “mentoring to younger Friends.” Check the math and you’ll see that’s the same question (whoever put the questions together forgot that the Quaker understanding of eldership is not necessarily a function of age, hmm). I grabbed a pencil and added “mentoring to older Friends” and it was instantly popular. Even though the mentorship issue was spread over three questions, AYF’s voted “strongly” for each of them, showing terrific popular support. Almost no over-40 Friend voted for this. This is not something that can be forced onto disinterested older Friends, which means I think we young-in’s are going to have to rely on one another for mentorship.
- SUPPORT FOR AYF CONFERNCES: Younger Friends want to spend more time together. Note should be made that the voters were Friends attending a conference and that we were a selected and self-selected group who presumably like to attend conferences. Still, this is popular.
- TALKING ABOUT OUR FAITH: It’s sad that only two older Friends thought explaining the faith was worthwhile. At the same time it’s encouraging that 13 AYFs wanted this. It’s very clear that younger Friends aren’t as afraid of talking about serious faith issues as the Baby Boomers (it’s nice to see some of my essays confirmed!).
Things Older Friends wanted more than Younger Friends:
- TAPPING THE YOUTH: There was what I thought was a semi-obnoxious question about how to “tap the energy and passion” of younger Friends. This is very close to the all-too-common generational mindset that sees “values young people as a resource” (as a ad in heavy-rotation at NPR proclaims). We are not a resource for extraction. Young people are too often seen merely as a source of cheap labor for projects initiated, designed and run by older Friends; they are wanted as passive audience members for older Friends’ pontificating lectures; they are endlessly proclaimed a far-off “future” of Friends rather than the very much here-and-now present of Friends.While older Friends at the consultation felt strongly that young people should be tapped, Adult Young Friends had lukewarm interest in being tapped and high school Friends showed no interest whatsoever. While not all older Friends think of young Friends as “resources,” it’s a common-enough theme that we need to flag it as a part of the generational gap. I suspect that power issues will surface when Quaker institutions try to pull together projects that “tap” youth: twenty-something Friends are going to want more involvement in the design and operation of these projects than older Friends will be willing to give.Similarly, older Friends seem to be more interested that younger Friends attain “critical mass” at Quaker institutions like monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings. The phrasing of the question is a little ambiguous and I see two likely explanations. One is that younger Friends don’t feel they need critical mass to be involved in Quaker institutions and want integrated intergenerational participation rather than “AYF ghettos.” The other possibility (the scarier one) is that younger Friends simply aren’t as committed to Quaker institutions. I suspect the generational differences in responses are the result of both these factors, plus others perhaps.
Things no one particularly cared about:
- No one wants materials specifically designed for AYF. No one wants advertising programs. No one wants a database to help isolated Friends.
- An AYF traveling ministries was lukewarm, 4 YAF stars, 3 over-40. This surprises me.
- Any other patterns that should be lifted up?
Disclaimer
I should note that this was not a scientific survey. Though the organizers of the Consultation tried hard and the participants were surprisingly diverse for an collection like this, they weren’t representative. There were only four high school participants and I didn’t adjust their votes: “lukewarm” support from them should really be relabled “strong” support.
While this is a small sample size, this is one of the few recent surveys of it type in FGC Quakerism and it bears close study. It confirms a lot of what I’ve been saying all these years (yea!, I’m not crazy) and echoes what I hear a lot of high school and twenty-something Friends talking about. Take it for what its worth!
Related:
- I first wrote about the Youth Ministries Consulation in “It’s My Language Now”
Hey Martin! I’d been waiting to hear more about the Youth Ministries Consultation, and now I’ve got some specifics, thanks to you.
(I’d recently read the online summary from the clerk of the ad hoc committee on youth ministries, which seems to be more of a touchy-feely, give-ourselves-a-pat-on-the-back initial report. I was hoping to see the summary somehow “endorsed” by at least a few younger Friends who had particpated in the consultation, though, to give it more weight and validity…)
Back to your post and the information you present in the charts, based on the consultation. I have two questions — and no, I really don’t expect answers:
1. How would each group define the characteristics and behaviors of giving (receiving) mentorship?
2. Similarly, how would we each define “help with transitions”?
After all, one person’s good intention to help is another person’s feeling patronized!
It’s clear to me there are lots more conversations to be had between older Friends and younger Friends – about ageism, paternalism, spiritual and personal development throughout the life cycle, desired mechanisms for authentic interaction and reciprocal learning, etc.
I think this is really just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll be curious to see how the Spirit moves among us as we go into deeper waters.
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up
Two questions:
What happened to all the high school Friends’ stars? Were there not as many of them or did they not vote?
Why are thirty-something Friends still considered “Young Adults”? Is this part of the forced perpetuation of youth or are 30 – 40 year olds really not ready to shoulder regular adult responsibilities in their attitudes and responses?
I feel pretty firmly middle-aged by now, myself. (Thirty-seven.)
It seemed like the adult young friends had a lot more “strong interests” and even “weak interests” than either the older friends or the younger friends. What’s the deal with that? If you were talking about a survey taken in Minnesota, where I’ve always lived, I’d suspect that the older folks were reluctant to circle the bigger numbers for fear of being seen as making too much of a fuss about something. I thought this was part of a Scandinavian-influenced Minnesotan culture, but do you think that older folks in this survey were reluctant to “make a fuss”? Or did you tap into a particularly on-fire group of adult young friends? Or what?
Elizabeth
Hi Liz: For what it’s worth, I was asked if I would be interested in writing the Good News Bulletin but didn’t feel it was quite right. I think the “mentoring to” and “mentoring from” is the desire for real, honest relationships with older adults: a recognition for who they are, not who they’re related to (or not). I’m not sure this is going to happen: most older adults don’t want or know how to have this kind of relationship. Tokenism is rampant (don’t even get me started with stories, I’m hopping mad about some recent examples!)
“Help with transitions” is interesting. The high school Friends strongly reacted against this. They did not want yet another older adult Friend coming up to them and asking what college they were going to attend. The Friends in their early twenties were more interested in “transitions” which I took to mean advice and discussion about how to balance life, spirituality, employment and relationships. I think this is tied into the desire for mutual mentorship.
Robin: As we were putting up the stars, the high school Friends were confused whether they were allowed to put their stars in the AYF categories (the high schoolers were also outnumbered: there were only four in attendance). As a thirty-seven year old, I explictly said I didn’t want to be named a “young adult” but I was anyway. Yes, infantilization is a serious issue. Historically, most of the important Quaker ministers were active in their early twenties but few get that sort of recognition they do and even then there’s so much tokenism going that they all burn out after a few years.
Elizabeth: I wasn’t clear. It’s not that the AYF’s put down that they were “strongly” interested. Everyone got a handful of stars to place on the board and every star acted as a vote that there was one person interested in that topic.
I’ve amended the post; I’ve used “develop spirituality” as an example of how the stars work.
Martin -
I have a thought relating to your comment that YAFs placed very little emphasis on critical mass. It seems like we do not have critical mass of YAFs now because Quaker institutions do a bad job with all those other things such as spirituality.community/transitions. I think what the numbers may tell us is that YAFs don’t want critical mass in itself –but we can expect to gain that critical mass when deeper needs are met, because YAFs will be less likely to run away to the buddhists or presbyterians or whomever. Maybe I’m just being an optimist –maybe YAFs don’t care about Quaker institutions. But yes there are certainly more positive ways to read to information.
Martin and Friends,
I wish to clarify the parenthetical comment I made above, especially after recently having heard a Friend’s response to that part specifically.
I wrote that the online report from the ad hoc committee “seems to be more of a touchy-feely, give-ourselves-a-pat-on-the-back initial report…”
As I recall, what I had originally hoped for within the report of the committee, were some details of the experience itself, which Martin’s post here provided. I had also hoped to see direct quotes within the report from the young adult Friends who had participated — which is not fair of me, since I *didn’t* have an expectation for persons of color to be quoted in the FGC Committee for Ministry on Racism’s initial report.
In retrospect, my expectations and hunger to hear directly from non-committee participants, and my personal, temporary disappointment in not getting the information that I myself wanted, blinded me to how my comments about the committee’s report may have been received. As I re-read the report today, though, I certainly sense the movement of the Spirit as the committee’s work unfolds.
Posting this clarifying comment has been very humbling, as was the conversation that has led to it: I’ve thought about how, on the one hand, saying nothing might be better than commenting further, so as not to draw any more attention to the thing. On the other hand, now that I know some of the pain my comment has caused, it hurts me to let that comment be there, unanswered. I could ask Martin to delete the original comment, but that doesn’t feel clean, either.
Thanks to the Friend who shared so openly with me how my words were met by her.
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up
Hi Liz,
There’s something disturbing about your recantation. It’s okay to say an feel-good press release should have more depth. I think a lot of people are desiring more, just as you did. You shouldn’t have to be an organizational insider to find out what happened at an event like this. It’s the nature of an organizational release to be upbeat and exciting but it makes them predictable and unread. I think it might do us well to be a little less impersonal and corporate in our communications with the outside world. We can show our warts and have our conversations available for non-insiders to hear.
We missed an opportunity when whoever saw your comment talked to you privately. A conversation about how we communicate to the world would have been pretty interesting.
Martin
I’m concerned about the way that the HS age Friends seem to have lost their voices in the star thing. There was certainly less of us at the consultation… HOWEVER, we all did participate and we most certainly had issues that we felt strongly about. We were consistently voting to be more fully considered and to participate more fully in the YAF and Adult Friend activities. A data base of some sort to connect young Friends was seriously talked about and considered. I for one would like to see an online forum where isolated (like me) young Friends could talk with other Friends of all ages. Anther thing HS aged Friends felt very strongly about was intergenerational work. There is too much separation between age groups in the Society of Friends. A very important thing I learned from the consultation is that all Friends, regardless of age, have very similar needs.
Peace Friends
13 years later, I don’t think anything’s changed.
It’s still the young adults saying we want to have more spiritual conversations. We’re still saying “what do you mean ‘young’? I’m grown!” We’re still feeling like there are …well, you said “AYF ghettos.” I usually say the old people think everyone under 40 belongs at the kids table.