Facing the future

Matt Alton offers a multi-pronged approach to change

While I have confidence that Our faith in the future is a truly discerned statement, I also believe the discernment and consultation process to reach it was not age representative. Meeting for Sufferings is not age diverse, and young adults rarely attend Area and Local Business Meetings. Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM) has the same voice as an Area Meeting in such a process, but did not minute a response to the consultation.

The statements that follow are to set the scene rather than to start a moan; and, after all, if nothing is perfect but God and God’s truth is revealed over time, there is always room for improvement.

In my work as an Eva Koch scholar this summer I facilitated discussion sessions with national and local groups of Young Adult Friends (YAFs) on the theme: ‘The future of Quakerism.’ Sixty Friends have explored where they see our faith now, where they want us to be in the future, and what they think Older Adult Friends (OAFs) and Local Meeting communities can do to enable them to be change makers. I want to disseminate my work to Friends, and will start by reporting to the Engaging Young Adult Quakers (EYAQ) project, presenting to the Woodbrooke community, and submitting an article to the Friends Quarterly.

I understand that these channels of power are useful and effective, particularly having seen the impact of EYAQ over the past year. I have, however, realised that I have been using a one-pronged approach: proposing to poke ‘The Power’ (the OAFs, the Local Meetings and the committees) and ignoring the fact that the YAFs may also benefit from a good poke.

Young Adult Friends

After conducting six sessions with YAFs, asking what’s wrong with British Quakerism and what ‘The Power’ can do to enable us to fix it, I feel that the ‘victim mentality’ can sometimes become pervasive and disabling. A key premise of my research has been that ‘we’ (YAFs) should tell ‘them’ (OAFs) what needs to be done to make change.

This is a good line of inquiry. However, I now see that it should be complimented by examining what YAFs can do to make change themselves.

I am encouraging YAFs to consider what they have done to be welcomed, included and ultimately be change makers within their Meetings. I will collect these ideas and produce some practical recommendations for YAFs in the form of a ‘cheat sheet’. For now, I will share a handful of recommendations from my own experience.

Introduce yourself with gusto

We know that Friends might have compromised memories, so it’s important to be noteworthy when you introduce yourself for the first (and second and third) time. My approach is to spring to my feet when I’m given the chance to say ‘hello’ after worship, to speak loudly and say something about myself. Wearing a loud shirt is a also good technique. What can you do so that Friends will remember you?

Be yourself

It’s easy, if you feel you’re being treated like a child, to play up your maturity levels. But in my book, mature is often synonymous with boring, and nobody is interested in boring people. I am often playful and silly, and I generally find that people will like me for who I am.

How do you change or water down your behaviour to ‘fit in’ at Meeting? How might you maintain your authentic ‘you-ness’ so that you are at once comfortable and loved?

If you build it, they will come

While at university I was Young Friends’ contact for my Meeting. Although the demands of social and academic life meant that I did not often organise events, the first time I organised a pub trip around fifteen people turned up.

Similarly, two Friends in Cheltenham Meeting, the only two young adults, recently set up a Young Adult Friends group. They welcomed two visitors from the surrounding area for their first meeting, had ten at their largest meeting, and now have around six participants each time. The Young Adult Friends in Cheltenham meet on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at seven pm.

If your Meeting is lacking in younger adults, how can you get the word out there and meet together?

As I am advocating a multi-pronged approach to change, I will make some practical suggestions for things that old adult Friends can do to welcome, include and enable young adults.

These are drawn from my own experience and the data I have collected.

Ask what happens for us in worship

Many of the Young Adult Friends I have spoken to would like more opportunities to discuss their spirituality, particularly with people in their Local Meetings. Some feel that older Friends assume they are nontheistic, whereas in reality I would wager that YAFs are just as theologically diverse as the wider Quaker population.

In a secular Britain, Sunday morning may be the only time a young adult has to discuss God.

Invite us round or meet for coffee

I have been incredibly fortunate with my own adult experiences of Local Meetings, forming close relationships with numerous Older Adult Friends as a result of their welcoming and nurturing actions.

Many young adults who are new to a Meeting or to Quakerism (and also some who are not new at all) will appreciate an invite to just hang out.

While there are the obvious benefits of getting to know someone in the locality and having the chance to talk about faith, a young adult may want to escape awkward situations in a house share, have some respite from a young child, or wish for something to do in the evening after work.

Offer a lift

Fewer young people are learning to drive. I have no plans to learn in the near future, and I am surprised when my contemporaries have a car.

You will probably know older Friends who drive to Meeting for Worship and even those who are committed enough to get the bus. However, for a working young adult, unless they have had an experience of transformation the first time they come to Meeting, why would they wish to spend their precious Sunday morning getting rained on while waiting for an unreliable bus?

Offering lifts is also a great way to improve attendance at Area Meeting; Young Adult Friends want to be involved in decision making, but they often find that decisions are made in hard-to-access locations.

I hope these recommendations for younger and older Friends will be useful in creating more intergenerational connections.

Having studied my data, I can say that the young adult vision of our faith in the future does not represent a departure from the text of Our faith in the future. The ideas that I am synthesising qualify and make more specific those set out in the vision discerned by Meeting for Sufferings. I am looking forward to sharing them.

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Comments

dear matt thank you for your timely article. I wondered what you think about young adult Quakers, as seekers, joining Quakers? I believe that Quakers are “Better together” (Ben Pink Dandelion) (Yearly Meeting 2014 minute 55 “that working in a group is better but harder than working on our own - and that recently Jocelyn Bell Burnell has reminded us that (its proven) the more diverse a group is, the more robust flexible and successful the group is! And young adult Quakers would be at the top of my diversity need. I believe that the body of Quaker members should want to invite seekers to Join Quakers. I believe Quakers have to want this and have to ask seekers including Young Adult Quakers. With the help of several Quakers I have produced a simple, visible and accessible way to Join Quakers with vibrancy and with the joy of a spiritual gift, that I would like to share with you. This way is called “The Join Quakers experiment”. I listen to Quakers talking and I think that Quakers often (unknowingly) exclude seekers. I believe that having a larger, more diverse Quaker membership will address this and promote our equality testimony. Please do get in touch. best wishes David Fish member constituent Local Quaker Meeting (and not area meeting minutes please not “merely a branch” meeting). PS Matt I contacted you on 15th August 2018 but received no reply - is this symptomatic of something?

By davidfishcf@msn.com on 20th September 2018 - 10:47

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In the time when I was 18 to 25 there were few YAFs in an area ranging from Worcester to Swansea and Bristol. Yet we met every 3 - 6 months in Meeting Houses around this region, slept on the floor, cooked if there was a kitchen, and invited weighty Friends to come and talk with us.
In Cardiff there was an old unused Gestetner (remember?) and I used my father’s typewriter to make newsletters and invite people to weekends together.
Nobody organised us, nobody censored our activity, and it was great.

By john0708 on 20th October 2018 - 22:19

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