“Investing in young adults is a key way to move forward. Mennonite World Conference is the best way I can imagine to do that,” said Doug Klassen, executive minister of Mennonite Church Canada and the North America representative on MWC’s Executive Committee.
The member church of Mennonite World Conference puts its money where its mouth is. The church is organized into five regions – each of which sends a delegate to the Global Youth Summit. Together, leaders select one to serve as the official representative.
The practice started with the 2022 Global Youth Summit (GYS) in Indonesia. Church restructuring in 2017 had placed leadership development at the regional level, so it was natural for each region to select a young adult to serve as a delegate.
The national church gives each region $1 000 toward the cost of their delegate. It’s up to the region how to raise the rest.
The investment is paid back: the multi-delegate system showed its strength both coming and going.
GYS delegates have an assignment to survey young people in their country and write a report on the results.
They ask their peers about engagement with church (why are some young people choosing to invest time and energy in the work of the church? why do some young people leave?); about leadership (what are the barriers?); and about sensitive topics (which issues are difficult? How are conflicting ideas managed in the church?).
With a delegate for each region collecting answers according to their various strengths, MC Canada’s GYS report was more representative of the country’s diversity.
After participating in GYS, the five delegates reported insights into the church’s challenges neither Doug Klassen nor other leaders had named yet.
They brought back energy to engage their local church.
“Sometimes, all it takes is a captivating event or experience to bump a trajectory by one notch for a young adult to see ‘maybe there is room for the church’,” said Doug Klassen.
Doug Klassen wishes for as many young people as possible to encounter the deep faith found in the global church and broaden their understanding “beyond familiar Eurocentric stories.”
“To expose young adults to the global church is one of my highest priorities in this role,” he said.