Yesterday was a busy day, filled with three workshops and one lecture by Eboo Patel who is the founder of Interfaith Youth Core. IFYC is an organization dedicated to focusing on how interfaith groups can work together for the common good of communities around the world. It was actually quite appropriate considering one of the workshops I attended yesterday had to deal with doing youth ministry in a religiously diverse world, led by IFYC worker Cassie Meyer.
This was probably my most thought-provoking workshop yesterday simply because I'm not sure how religiously diverse my church's town actually is. I couldn't tell you how much interaction with interfaith groups my youth actually encounter. My town in central Illinois is very small. As I've mentioned in other posts, we not only have a national day of prayer held downtown on the square, but the mayor encourages and supports (and places!) a large nativity scene on the downtown square for Christmas. I know there is an Islamic Center in the city over the river, but on our side of the river I'm not sure we're all that diverse. I tried to check the US Census for my town, not recalling at the time that the census is prohibited from asking questions about religion. I found the prohibition to be interesting. What would be the purpose for refraining from asking about such affiliation? The census wants to know every other little intimate detail about us, right down to our racial and economic status. We ought to be proud of our religious affiliations (or non-religious affiliations) and ready to record that as necessary. Instead, we have to share our economic status, no matter how shameful that feels sometimes.
So I've been thinking about how to get my youth involved in an interfaith dialogue. The Sunday school program at my church ends on May 1, but I'm thinking maybe with the 10th anniversary of 9-11 quickly approaching on the horizon, it might not be a bad idea to invite interfaith dialogue in our church communities. As I mentioned, the Islamic Center is right across the river, so I wonder how it would be received if I invited someone from that organization to come and do a service project with us in the interest of promoting interfaith relations.
I say do a service project because this was the suggestion in the seminar. The focus of the IFYC is to hone in on the common good for our communities. This can lead to conversation, but the foundation that the IFYC is interested in creating is an atmosphere for relationship. They work off three basic principles:
1) respect: respect for religious and non-religious identities
2) relationships: mutually inspiring relationships (you love me, I love you)
3) common action: common action for the common good.
What would this look like in our community? How do we bridge the social capital in a way that we can have interfaith relationships without being concerned about converting each other?
Someone in the seminar said this might be a great place to let the youth lead, and I think this is true. This generation is much more familiar with interfaith relations because the schools are so much more diverse than they were in the last generation or the generation before that. Immigration has opened up amazing pathways into interfaith dialogue, though sometimes we don't see it that way for a whole host of reasons. After attending the seminar, I feel encouraged to sit down with my youth and talk about their interaction with interfaith groups and see how relevant this kind of conversation would really be. I have a feeling my town might be more diverse than I think it is (especially given that I've only been their nine months).
The other two seminars I attended yesterday were "Beyond Bathrobes" -- looking at how to incorporate drama into creatively interpreting scripture or prayer in worship or youth group events -- and "Church Systems" -- looking at the various systems that go on in our churches. While I thought Church Systems was the most interesting, the seminar on youth ministry amongst religious diversity was the most thought-provoking.
I am truly enjoying my time at the seminar and I'm looking forward to my final day of workshops today.
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