Good morning. My name is Julia Antonyshyn. For a little background on me, I’ve been a part of the United Church my entire life and I have been a full member of St. Mary’s Road United Church since February 2014. In recent years, the church has become very important to me. I’ve become more and more involved in St. Mary’s Road United through our youth group and youth band and the opportunities that stem from that.
I’ve been blessed in attending numerous events for United Church youth, including Conference youth retreats, Rendezvous, which took place here in Winnipeg last August, and most recently the 42nd General Council Youth Forum’s Winter Gathering in Paris, Ontario in February. If you want to hear more extensively about youth forum give me your email and I’ll send you the link to my Youtube video on that.
There are two important things to take away from it: the sense of community and the comprehensive review.
If you don’t already know, the Comprehensive Review is a series of six proposed changes to the United Church of Canada that will be addressed at General Council in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland this summer. This is super super important to the future of the church so if you want to learn more you can find the document on the Conference website or again just give me your email and I’ll hook you up.
So, the point of me being here is to emphasize the importance of youth ministry… so I want to open this with a question. Why are you here? If your answer is “well, I’ve ALWAYS gone to church” then let me rephrase that… what keeps you here?
Ha Na asked me a similar question when we met here over a week ago. The question was what has made me become so involved in the life of the church? For me? Three words: Conference Youth Retreats. Our Conference holds two youth retreats per year: ALF in October and Zeebu in February (shameless plug). They are open to youth in grades 7-12 and the gist of it is that you sleep in a church for a long weekend with 50 something other youth and leaders and you dance and sing and learn and laugh and just have a generally awesome time.
It’s difficult for me to try to explain to people just what youth retreats have done for me. To do it justice I have to go back to the beginning. I attended my first retreat when I was in grade 7 and, like a lot of kids, middle school wasn’t really my cup of tea. I was the nerd of my grade, constantly being bullied and harassed for daring, for having the audacity to care about my education… Sounds ridiculous now, huh? I assure you, this is reality for a lot of kids, and it got to me, a lot. I didn’t feel comfortable being myself… heck I didn’t even know who myself was! I felt like I was wearing a mask, like I couldn’t trust anyone to accept me. I built up a lot of walls and I was so paranoid that everyone was out to make fun of me.
So there I am, this insecure 12 year old, when two of my friends from church tell me about Conference youth retreats. They had been to one and really enjoyed it and they thought I would too.
Now… I was not a camp kid. I never EVER went away from home. When I was eight I freaked out and had to go home during my friend’s first sleepover birthday party.
So, it means a lot to say that I went and wished I could have stayed another three days.
It was incredible… I’m going to jump ahead to my second retreat, because that was the one that really got me. This was the one that had me hooked. It was a year later, so grade eight. The bullying situation had gotten a little better by comparison, but I still had a lot of hurt.
Every retreat has a theme and this one was called “Born This Way” (as in, the Lady Gaga song). The theme was learning to love and respect yourself for who you are and a lot of conversations centered around bullying.
This was EXACTLY what I needed at that point in my life. It was empowering to sit in a group of other people my age and hear that many of us had had similar experiences. Even more so to see a video made by the Planning Team, all of whom I admire, about how they’ve been through it too, and as cheesy as it sounds it DOES get better. It was incredible to see how youth retreats had shaped their lives for the better and to realize that they were doing the same thing for me.
So since then I’ve been hooked. I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to be both a home group leader and a planning team member myself. I remember when I was asked to be on Planning Team I got really emotional afterwards, which anyone who doesn’t know the story just I told you would probably think is pretty weird, but anyway being on planning team really got to me because I thought back to middle school me, insecure, afraid… and I realized that I now have chance to be that role model and that I can help other kids get through the same stuff I had to deal with. It’s my goal through being a Planning Team member to make sure that everyone who comes to a retreat leaves knowing that there is a place where they belong and where they can be themselves no matter what.
Ha Na asked me to think of transformation as a theme for today and I think that’s a good word to describe my story. Youth retreats have transformed me, made me even closer to the person I want to be, and I hope to share that experience with every new participant I encounter.
Ha Na also asked me to think about ways youth can get involved in the church…
Now, I may be a little biased, but my first piece of advice is, if you haven’t already, come check out a youth retreat! It’s a great way to meet other youth and make friends to last a life time.
Secondly, don’t be afraid to get involved with the adults of the church… I’m 99% sure they don’t bite. If you hear about an opportunity that interests you, don’t let it pass by. I was unsure about Youth Forum at first because I had to miss a youth retreat for it, but it ended up being one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
Also if you have an idea for how to make the church better, don’t back down. Make sure you get heard! Even if the idea turns out to not work, it’s a great learning experience about how the church works and hopefully you can transform that idea into something that will work!
Like for me, I went to Youth Forum and DIDN’T get a spot at General Council. Did that stop me? NO. I’ve applied to be a Commissioner for our Conference and I’ll know either way on that at the meeting in a few weeks.
So don’t be afraid of trying to influence the church. Everybody always says “those youth, you know, they’re really the future of the church”… I don’t like that phrase. To me it implies that we don’t matter yet… when in reality we are the here and now of the church: learning, growing, sharing, loving. People can’t keep saying we’re coming, because we’re already here. God says “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43: 18-19). The church needs to change in order to survive. The church needs to follow God’s lead and “do a new thing”. Take risks. Contemporize the music, talk about things that matter to people TODAY, whatever it takes! We, the youth, we have the chance to stand up and be that change, to build a sustainable and relevant united church IF… if we accept the fact that we are the church of today… not just tomorrow.
Thank you.
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