I just returned from our Parish's "Visioning Event", where we spent several hours in communal discernment. We were attempting to feel out where God is trying to lead us in the next three to five years.
It was very interesting, at least to me, because the youth were invited to bring in the perspective of the young people. Some of the adults felt as if we were just voicing for the youth ministries, but it was really about us voicing for our own faith lives.
One of the adult parishioners put it beautifully: "Young people are Christians just as much as we are. They have faiths that they tend to just as we do. They have ministries that they feel called to just like we do. They wrestle with scripture just like we do. They are people, and Christians, just like us."
We all have the same basis on which we stand, and you realize that more when you enter conversation. There are things for both sides to learn from one another, because, ironically, there are no sides at all. We are all on body. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it, "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all." (Holy Baptism, Book of Common Prayer).
Conversation is key though. It's how we learn from one another, not because we are different and separated, because we are so similar and connected.
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