Of course the teens should occupy the church; but not just teens.  Us!  We should occupy the church!  We should demand a better church!  We should lay claim to our leadership of an institution that today only benefits some!

Brian Kirk asks in a column for Patheos: “Should we help teens occupy the church?” which caused an audible “Hell yeah, we should!” which also caused strange stares from my wife.  And thankfully no questions from my daughter such as “What is hell?”

The premise though is lopsided.  Not in an intentionally biased way, but in an authoritarian way; as in ‘could the teens occupy the church without help?’ sort of way.  Of course they could.  And the point that I would make is that that teens need to be doing just that anyway.  If you doubt me, read my post about engaging youth in church and see if I mean it.

The role the rest of us play is to help level the playing field.  Most of our churches give teens no power, no real input, and send them down into the basement to sit in their old, hand-me-down couches and half-empty bean bag chairs so the adults can have the “real” meeting.  Kirk suggests the pretty radical point of lowering the voting age.  I’m all for it.  That is one way to level the playing field.  But I say go bold or go home.  Election of youth to vestry and quarterly congregational meetings are essential, but so are including the youth in planning worship, formation, and mission events.  Youth need to be on the front-lines of church.

And while we’re at it, let’s recognize the Baptismal Covenant makes the entire playing field level and there is no real central, dictatorial authority within spitting distance of the church.  Gasp!  Priests and Bishops, for all the pageantry and heavy rhetoric to the contrary, are but members of a team.  Excuse the baseball metaphor, but clergy are more like lead-off hitters or set-up hitters (#’s 1 and 2 in the batting order, though, let’s be honest, maybe we should hit #9), rather than managers or team owners.

In the end, the politics of this really don’t matter half as much as the intention.  The intention of the people to be motivated to claim ownership of an institution and change it to be more authentic and just.

Sounds like the perfect prescription for what’s ailing us.

Related articles

• Engaging everyone in church (drewdowns.net)
• Study Finds Teens Leaving Church Due To Judgment, Antagonism Of Others (lezgetreal.com)