Youth Challenge Convention by Their Speeches and Presence
Episcopal News Service. July 25, 1991 [91163]
Rachel Roberson, Youth Editor for Episcopal Life
Hearing the response they sought -- that youth are the church of today, not the church of tomorrow -- youth representatives to the General Convention addressed the bishops and deputies on behalf of the 18-member youth presence in Phoenix.
Their stories were poignant but filled with hope for the church.
Beverly Ho-A-Yun, a Chinese-American from San Francisco, told the bishops of discrimination she experienced as a young Asian-American. Ho-A-Yun, 17, said members of minorities in her congregation were passed over at the communion rail and not informed of church events. Several years of exclusion caused her to question her faith and the church, she said. "I felt as if being Chinese was a sin because I wasn't being fairly treated," she told the bishops.
The parish's overt racism stopped after the rector's death, but Ho-A-Yun said she still felt exclusion until she was invited to last summer's national Episcopal Youth Event in Missoula, Montana. Her experience was so positive, she said, that she is now proud to call herself an Episcopalian. But she will not soon forget her early experiences in the church.
"There are many teen-age minorities out there who are united with God, but are not united with their brothers and sisters of this large Episcopal family and don't know how to solve this problem." she said.
Her speech ended with a plea to the bishops, asking them to take "bold, active steps" to ensure that young people of color are included in diocesan events. "It's up to you to see that your congregations are doing their evangelical work of being truly inclusive to non-Anglos of the Episcopal Church," Ho-A-Yun said.
Unity and balance between adults and youth was the subject of Giselle Daniel's speech to the House of Deputies. Citing a passage from 1 Corinthians 12, she likened youth and adults to separate parts of the same body that must work together to succeed. "We have all been baptized into the same spirit, and so there is no division in the body and all its different parts have the same concern for one another," she told the deputies.
According to Daniel, youth and adults must work together in order to reverse the endless cycles of societal diseases such as suicide, rape, and drug abuse.
Blowing soap bubbles to illustrate how the inner and outer pressures of today's world can cause separate bubbles to explode, Daniel suggested that youth and adults work together to keep their "pressures constantly balanced."
"I challenge us to work together and to communicate using the three languages of God given to the human race," she concluded, "the language of faith, the language of hope, and the greatest of these is the language of love."
The speeches were received with enthusiasm and given standing ovations by both houses. The Very Rev. David Collins, president of the House of Deputies, said, "We want to thank you for coming and assure you that the youth are not the church of tomorrow but the church of now."
In legislative activity, the convention resolved to renew the church's commitment to God's gift of children, and make ministry to children a high priority (A-125).