I'm a young adult who wants to stay with the church!

I don't really know where to start with this one, but I have some feelings I want to put in writing while I'm on this crazy spiritual journey of vocational discernment. It's been an interesting few years navigating my relationship with my church and The Church, especially this past year as a mission worker. I've had some really great GREAT conversations this week with wonderful people working for the church all over the country, some at the national level, that leave me feeling hopeful.

Some of these conversations have surrounded the fact that I'm going to General Assembly as a Presbyterian Peace Fellowship intern, to sit in on the (Immigration and) Environmental Committee (parenthesis are mine) and get sent to the Presbyterians for Earth Care lunch. Or, in one pastor's words, I'm a big ol' "Presbyterian hippie". True, and I'm growing quite fond of that as my angle from which to approach the church.

One of the conversations this week had to do with my fears of growing out of my "young adult" age group before I can really embrace being part of it, and contribute to The Church as one of those elusive young adults.

I've also had several conversations this week about environmental and food initiatives at Presbyterian camps and conference centers. One was a conference call with a lot of people doing great work in really lovely places, all directors at different camps around the country. I introduced myself something like, "I'm Colleen, and I don't currently have a camp or garden, but I am (doing all sorts of environmental work with YAV) and (have a long history in camping ministry), and I'm a young adult who wants to stay with the church!" to which people responded with some Amens and Awesomes and even a Bless You, Child.

That last one was kind of the opposite of what I was going for with the whole trying-to-be-successful-at-being-a-young-adult-in-the-church thing, but I appreciated the sentiment.

After the camps phone conference, one friend on the call, who works for the national church, followed up with me individually. We talked a lot about what the national church is doing to hang on to and connect with young adults, and he offered me personal encouragement and support.

And I do feel encouraged and supported. I'm feeling really hopeful about what this denomination is doing, and I want to be part of it. I'm still floundering on a local level, but I'm not giving up. I'm still enjoying learning, and exploring different faiths and worship styles, and being part of a lot of good work happening through different congregations. Doing environmental work for the church is really exciting. I feel like I'm part of something big, some change in the conversations: for the environment, kind of reversing this idea that God created earth and left us in charge to do whatever we want; for the young adults, that we still matter after we're too old to be in youth group but before we're old enough to have kids in youth group. I'm not even quite sure what it is yet, but it feels good to be connected to a lot of good people doing good work. My relationship with The Church is getting pretty good, which motivates me to keep working on my relationship with the church/ my church despite the many challenges that entails.