A BRAVE way to kick off some new Young Adult ministry!

Well, you'll never guess who turned up to our brand new Young Adult Retreat at Coolum on the weekend.

The Holy Spirit.

Some quick background: the Emmaus ministry has been giving youth (and more recently, young adults in particular) around Southern Qld a structured way to come together, learn more about faith and vocation, and have lots of fellowship and fun.  Not long after the last Emmaus weekend in March 2014, the organising committee came to a mutual realisation that they had largely aged out of the appropriate demographic, and it was time to revisit and, if necessary, reshape a format for achieving our larger aims for young adult Anglicans.

This was a sometimes emotional process of managing change, which took a lot of time and care. As a result, we found ourselves making a decision to go ahead with a new weekend retreat format only a few weeks out from the campsite booking we had made twelve months earlier.  Should we postpone or just push on with it and see what happened?

We pushed on.  Over the course of just a few weeks, we blitzed social media and parishes with advertising material for the weekend we called BRAVE (see earlier posts below), but many difficulties emerged.  All kinds of people wrote to apologise that they just couldn't make it with such short notice, which was fair enough.  Some registered but then had to pull out for one reason or another.  In the meantime, Lisa Ng and I had to pull together music, IT/AV, a spiritual director, elective topics and leaders, and all the admin around that.

Well, we got there - just. In the end, fourteen young adults aged between 18-25 or thereabouts joined us.  We know for a fact that we have quite a few active people across the Diocese in the 25-35 bracket, and calling on them could have increased our numbers substantially, but we had made a deliberate strategic decision to limit the age-range, so as to really focus on a group of people at a similar life stage.

They were still a diverse group, and not all Anglicans.  What really pleased me was that we had attracted a few people who were completely new to all of our ministries - that's what we want to see! There was also a reasonable gender balance (not always the case) and a fair spread of experiences and backgrounds.

As to the weekend itself, we began on Friday night with regos, dinner (meals at Luther Heights were superb throughout), a welcome to country from the Rev Cathy Laufer, an intro from me and GTKY games from Lisa, followed by Evening Prayer led by Jeremy Couch, AYCF minister at St Mark's Buderim, who introduced the theme of vocation (personal and collective) which would be the basis of his input over the course of the retreat.

 Our main musician, Nicholas Ng from Logan parish, was unexpectedly taken ill during the day, so we had to work around that, but the evergreen Tom 'DJ' Davis (now worshipping at the provisional parish of Springfield) had all the answers.

This first night almost immediately calmed a lot of my own anxieties as I realised that everyone seemed to have a positive outlook and we were all keen to make the most of our time together.

Saturday was huge: many of us began with an early morning walk along the beach, or just took in the magnificent views down the coast.  After Morning Prayer, led by Jeremy Couch (Buderim parish) and breakfast, it was time for our first batch of Electives.

Our Elective topics, leaders and times had all been altered over the course of the planning process, but thankfully all was now in readiness. First up was Mr Andrew Butterworth (Buderim) offering a seminar on Financial decision-making which was well-informed and well-attended.  The other elective was a panel on "Why Be Anglican?" led by Rev Cathy (holding a Hooker-style 3-legged stool), Rev. Michael Farragher from St Lucia, and myself.  I think we all enjoyed exploring the strengths and weaknesses of our denomination, and the Rev. Michael has since referred to it as a 'road to Damascus' moment in terms of his understanding of how committed young Anglicans are seeing our Church right now.

Following morning tea, we moved into a time of "Open Space Technology".  Explaining the OST format would take too long here, but essentially it means participants are able to set the agenda in terms of proposing a topic for which they feel passion and responsibility, and convening and recording a discussion on that topic. This format was selected as it seemed likely to appeal to Young Adults, and it certainly seemed to work in practice, with very positive feedback.

After lunch, we had another round of electives, and this time we welcomed David and Zoe Browne to lead a discussion on Relationships which we knew would be popular, and I went to a wonderful session from Scott and Sarah Windred on sharing the Gospel. I found this a really moving experience as stories were shared around the group, and we considered how we had come to be followers of Christ in the first place, and what might be next for us.

After this, we had another round of OST before free time saw some head back to the beach while David Hale and I headed off for a light spot of geocaching.  Following dinner, the Brownes facilitated an awesome night of wacky trivia in table teams, before a late night Evening Prayer and then a much-needed sleep.  I was very taken by Jeremy's introduction to the idea of "collective vocation" today, as well as the individual model, as the sense was growing among the group that there was a camaraderie here that could become the  launching pad for much more.

Sunday morning came with yet more fantastic weather.  As we cleaned out the dorms, it was very hard to believe that we would soon be heading home.  After the morning Office and another beautiful hot breakfast (a special mention here of the venue's Nespresso machine which took a pounding over the course of the weekend!), it was a crunch time for the group, as we introduced some ideas about where Young Adult ministry could go over the next twelve months.  The response was most enthusiastic, and so we are now looking at three connected arms of ministry: an annual retreat (like this one); quarterly diocesan youth services; and monthly gatherings in regional spots for the benefit of young adults wanting a group to which they can belong.  We proposed that the core 'text' for these monthly group catch-ups could be the program known as A Big Year, which we think is very easy to use (especially when downloaded as a phone app).  The founder of the program, Steve Drinkall, had offered to come to Coolum to speak to the group, but we assured him there was no need to travel so far.  He has instead offered to speak at one of our quarterly youth services, which is wonderful.

After a final OST session and lunch, it was time for our Q&A Panel.  The point has been made by the Sticky Faith team among others, that a reason given frequently for young adults departing the Church is that they felt their questions were either ignored, not answered, or that they would get in trouble merely asking them.  Over the course of the weekend, we had gathered anonymous 'questions on notice' from the group which were then put to the panel: the Rev Simon Keith (Noosa), the Rev Jeremy Greaves (Buderim), Imogen Sweeney and Cassie Boltmann.  Some were more controversial than others, but everyone appreciated the panel members' honest and sometimes revealing responses to how they saw a particular issue. An important learning from this was that committed Christians can and do disagree on particular aspects of the faith, and this does not necessarily mean that one is 'wrong' and one is 'right'.  The mutual respect shown by everyone throughout this session was appreciated by all.   

All too soon, it was time for the final Eucharist (presided over by the Rev Cathy Laufer, who preached on the Transfiguration, which I always think is particularly meaningful on "mountain-top" camps like this one), then thank yous and goodbyes.  Huge thanks from me here to all our guests named above, to whom I am most grateful, and especially to Jeremy Couch for stepping in and preparing so many stimulating and challenging talks; Nicholas Ng and our other musicians and singers for sharing your talents so generously and wonderfully; and Camps Coordinator Lisa Ng, who shared every up, down, fear and ultimate joy of what we were able to put together in this BRAVE weekend experience. We simply must thank God for every small mercy shown to us in this project, and for producing a Spirit-filled experience which was so much more than the sum of its parts, and which has enthused and motivated so many of us so strongly.

If you have a comment or question about the Young Adult Retreat this year or next, please contribute below or contact us at info@aycf.org.au!