"Coming of Age for the Young Adult Movement" by Rob Cavenaugh

Questions we need to ask ourselves:
How is our work in the UU young adult movement changing Unitarian Universalism? Are we making our religion-and our congregations-more welcoming and satisfying for young adults?

Currently, the focus of the young adult movement seems to lie with creating and improving young adult groups and structures: young adult groups in congregations, campus groups, district young adult and/or campus ministry committees, the General Assembly Young Adult Caucus, ConCentric, Opus and C*UUYAN itself. I think that what should be our core purposes-transforming the faith into one that better meets our needs-tends to get lost in all this work.

It is not a surpise to me that this happens. Indeed, it makes complete sense that when confronted with a huge, daunting task, we tend to focus instead on the types of organizing and work that we know we can do. Being spiritually sustained by a community might be a necessity if one is to the frustrating, burnout-inducing work for long-term change. So, which do we focus on? Short-term community building or long-term transformation?

The current work of the movement-as noted above-tends toward the former. Incredible gains hav ebeen made in recent years, from the creation of ConCentric to C*UUYAN becoming a sponsored organization to the hirign of a young adult intern. These are things we should celebrate and be proud of. Still, though, very little has changed for individual young adults in the UU Church of________.

Now is the time for the young adult movement to have a "Coming of Age" of its own. It's time to recognize the focusing primarily on creating our own strucutures does not truly serve our long-term goals. Work should still be done on creating and improving groups and strucutres, for sure, but other work needs to start.

Like what?
While I don't pretend to have The Answers, I have though of several areas in which we can have a profound and rewarding impact.

1. Reaching out to/forming ties with seminaries and seminarians. Most seminarians, I think, either converted to Unitarian Universalism after young adulthood or were not highly involved in the movement as young adults. If they reach congregations without any contact with us (the young adult movement), or education around our strengths and needs, methinks it is too late. We need to learn more about hte theological schools process so that we can create resources and programming that will be helpful to both the students and us. It would be excellent to have working relationships with theological school faculty and staff. We should not be afraid to lobby them for young-adult specific course offerings. We should be prepared to help them develop such courses.
2. Second, and related to the first, we should encourage and facilitate networking among young adult religious professionals and allies within our faith. Doing so has several benefits. First, it creates conditions where the sparks of creativity can fly. Since religious professionals are part of the institutional framework of the faith, they are in a great position to both provide information on it AND work to change it. Second, sharing experiences may help individuals to realize that what obstacles they belived to be bias against them personally are actually an insitutional or cultural bias. Third, this work can be very hard, and having support is essential. There is truly strength in numbers.
3. Third, we should not be afraid to face the challenge of recruiting-and the challenging questions it presents. I have talked to DOZENS of people who seem totally sold on UU principles and theology, yet who don't identify as UU or have any interest in attending events or services. Why is that? Consider this: Unitarian Universalism is growing in numbers, while many of the "mainline" Protestant denominations-including our close friend the United Church of Christ-are losing membership markedly. However, UU membership as a percentage of the population is decreasing, so we're not exactly keeping up. Who is? Conservative religious groups like the Mormons are, for example. How can we change this? How can we attract people who dislike organized religion to our organized religion? In what ways can we "meet people where they are," rather than trying to convince them to come to us? The Catholic diocese in my area recently held a "theology on tap" program that included 6 different events at local bars. The only acitivity (in addition to regular bar activity) was a speaker and discussion, I think. They had so many people come to the first one-over 300-that they had to find a bigger venue. I'm not saying that we should move all our events to bars, but that we should really think about venues and programs that will mesh with things that people are pretty much already doing. The Soulful Sundown concept is a step in the right direction, but we need to keep going.
4. Lastly, and related to recruiting, we should take the lead in encouraging congregations to redefine what it means to be an active, contributing member. If attendance on Sunday mornings is a litmus test, should it be? Why can't those who worship in different ways on Wednesday or Sunday evenings be considered just as active? What would it be like if people who never or rarely came on Sunday mornings were still valued by the congregation and encouraged to take leadership positions?

Rob Cavenaugh is a long-time young adult UU activist and organizer in the Washington DC campus ministry. Working as Legislative Director for the UUA Faith in Action Washington Office, Rob has brought a positive institutional and structural perspective to C*UUYAN. He also served as GA Young Adult Caucus Moderator in 1998 and 1999 as well as the ConCentric 2000 Co-Chair. Rob also served as the YRUU Youth Programs Specialist.