David Goatley Writes on Youth and the Church

Rev. Dr. David Goatley put his own thoughts together on the Lott Carey Youth Seminar that was held last week at Shaw University's campus in Raleigh, NC. I read the article on EthicsDaily.com. This article reveals Dr. Goatley's insight and commitment to the right kinds of priorities for keeping the church from becoming a museum of our past. Those of us who work with young people should be encouraged to know of his perspective.

Down on Today's Youth? Try Spending a Week with 500 of Them
David Emmanuel Goatley
Thursday, July 2, 2009 6:04 am
EthicsDaily.com

People who believe that young people are hopeless should have been with me June 20-26 at the 55th annual Lott Carey Youth Seminar on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C.

Nearly 500 youth and their advisors spent a week for missional learning, serving, worship and fellowship. One of the most beautiful sights in the world to me is coming across a bridge on campus in the evenings, seeing hundreds of young people who have gathered for this missional impact week in the quadrangle courtyard talking, playing and building relationships that sometimes last a lifetime. Each year I share with our youth seminar, I come away feeling that the world can be OK.




I remember feeling that way six or seven years ago when I was in Guyana with my then 10-year-old son. He accompanied my wife and me on one of my international mission assignments. He and two or three Guyanese youth went with me everywhere I went. They visited churches with me. They visited an Amerindian community that we had to reach via boat with me. They visited a Christian campground with me. They visited a hospital with me. They visited a rainforest with me. They worshipped God with me.

At the end of the assignment, I asked my son what was the difference between Guyanese and United States children. His response: "They play cricket, and we play baseball." I remember thinking, "Let's turn the world over to the kids who have not yet been corrupted by the grown-ups."

Our annual youth seminar is the major event in our International Youth Development work, where we help churches to nurture new generations of Christian leaders for the world. We believe that helping youth to learn through service is important to becoming a disciple of Jesus.

This year we included helping our young people to learn about advocacy – what it is, why it matters, why Christians must do advocacy along with ministries of mercy, and how they can make a difference. We included presentations from ONE, Genocide Intervention Network and NAACP College and Youth Division. We believe that connecting serving, learning, worship and fellowship is worth investing in for young people. It is hard work, but it is good work.

When my last youth director left to pursue other opportunities, we did not hire a replacement. The economy was rapidly turning downward, and we could not afford to pay someone fairly. Therefore, we divided the responsibilities, with me assuming my share of leadership.

I have had some of my colleagues look at me peculiarly because I am playing such an involved leadership role in our International Youth Development work. You see, I am the CEO. While I understand the arguments about good stewardship of time, why is it more important for the CEO to spend time with the adult leaders than with the youth leaders and youth leaders-in-the-making? Why should I spend time with potential donors and not with potential leaders?

Furthermore, I learn a lot from youth. How else can we learn to serve the present age unless adults take the time to listen and to seek understanding from youth? How else can we anticipate where the church needs to focus energy and invest resources unless we listen and learn from young people?

Last year, we arranged for many at our seminar to do some future planning for our organization. Wow! I had never heard adults dream how we can actually make a difference in any similar way. These young visionaries believe in the God who can do exceedingly abundantly beyond what we can ask or imagine.

Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention helps churches extend their Christian witness to the ends of the earth. Our youth seminar is the principle event in this area. It is worth serious personal investment of the CEO.

If we really believe that some of us plant, some of us water, and God gives the increase, perhaps more of our important leaders should invest more of our personal time and talent with the next generation of Christian leaders for the world. I do not know what the young people will get out of your time, but you will be better for it.

David Emmanuel Goatley is executive secretary-treasurer of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention.

It seems like too little . . . . These repeated words reflect the recent experiences of Amy Dean of Charlotte, NC, who traveled with four other women from her church to visit and work in New Orleans through the organization Churches Supporting Churches. Rev. Amy Dean is co-pastor of Park Road Baptist Church in Charlotte. Park Road BC has become a partner of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church #2 in New Orleans. You and your church can be part of rebuilding New Orleans by partnering with a church in New Orleans through this program.

The following is a report on Amy's New Orleans trip.

We’ve just returned from New Orleans. The weather was perfect – beautiful sun, no humidity – a rarity in that neck of the woods. The French Quarter is alive and well, though “well” is a relative term here. I’m not sure wellness has ever been a part of life on Bourbon street! But if by “well” I mean that shops are open and restaurants are serving and booze is flowing – then Bourbon Street is definitely well. But all is not well in New Orleans.

LeDayne McLeese Polaski, Wendy Watson, Lorie Gabriel, and I had a few great days in the Big Easy. We have stories share and pictures to show (be sure and make reservations for our last regular Wednesday night supper on June 6 and plan to stay and hear our full presentation), but in the meantime I’ll share a few of my highlights:

• The Lower 9th Ward is no more. We worked within spitting distance to the new levees – even walking up on them. And where hundreds of houses used to sit – now there is nothing but cement remainders of front porches and a few houses that were made out of brick or stucco. A few good minded folks are planting sunflowers and cypress trees to help draw the lead out of the soil, but it seems like too little. One man was cutting his grass where no house stood. And the dilemma? Should the land be used as wetlands or return to the people for whom it is home? And who gets to make the decision?

• We were a part of hosting a street party for this section of town. We cut green, red, yellow, and orange peppers and onions to make some kind of good New Orleans feast. People began to gather to eat and get some furniture or clothes and to celebrate life. And if you are apprehensive about how to start a conversation all you have to say is, “Where were you during the storm?” And then all you have to do is sit and listen. So we heard maybe 20-30 individual, personal stories of folks that stayed on their roof or brothers that fought off alligators, but it seems like too little.

• We worshipped with Corinthian Missionary Baptist No. 2. As we noted, it was the shortest 2 ½ hour worship service we have ever attended – and we mean that very seriously. Pastor Johnson just about preached up a storm and the choir sang their hearts out and Lorie sang the old spiritual “Give Me Jesus” until all that was left for the people to say was “My, my.” They hosted us to good, home-cooked New Orleans cuisine – apologizing all the while that “their best cooks had not returned home yet.” We broke bread around their tables and held their babies and learned some new names, but it seems like too little.

• I would have expected this part of the city to look as it did 6 months after the storm. But after almost two years, this was not what I was expecting. And this is just one of the popular locations – perhaps the most noted location. What about all the other neighborhoods? And all the other neighborhoods that have been destroyed by tornados since Katrina? Whatever we do and wherever we go simply seems like too little.

But we did not return with a defeatist attitude. We returned energized and excited and grateful to have gone to see for ourselves and to offer a little sweat of our own on the place. I was particularly struck on Saturday morning as I was sledge-hammering some signs into the ground and just about throwing myself on the ground with every swing. We started laughing so hard and I became aware as I heard my own laughter ring through the emptiness of the neighborhood that the air there has not heard very much laughter in the last 2 years. So we left a little sweat and some laughter and a few hugs, and strangle it didn’t seem like too little at all. It seemed just about right.