A guest post from Victoria Mitchell, co-moderator of the General Assembly Young Adult Caucus:
Hey (amazing) readers of ‘Generation Yes!’ My name is Victoria Mitchell and I am the co-moderator (with Royal Forest) of General Assembly’s Young Adult Caucus. This year’s General Assembly (GA) is in Minneapolis, Minnesota from June 23rd to 27th. I just want to let you know about what we’ll be up to this year!
Young Adult Caucus is a young adult community with its own programming within GA. Young Adult Caucus has served many purposes over the years: it has been a social space, an opportunity for networking, a discussion forum for delegates, and a worship space. This year we plan on it being all this and more! GA is an exciting opportunity to serve and/or represent your congregation as well as be involved in the business and shared knowledge of our denomination. Young adults come to GA from all walks of UU life – as leaders, students, congregants, religious educators, professional staff, and ministers.
This year, Young Adult Caucus will be hosting two workshops to facilitate this sharing of knowledge. The first, “Young Adults and Worship: Soulful Sundown and Beyond” will be a panel talk by Rev. Michael Tino, Rev. Scott Sammler-Michael, Aidan McCormack, and Matt Meyer. Our speakers will talk about how to create new worship opportunities that satisfy young adults and how to bring contemporary worship elements into your Sunday morning service. Our other workshop is back by popular demand, and is essentially a question and answer session for anyone at GA and young adults regarding young adult issues. Titled “What Young Adults Look For in a Congregation,” the dialogue facilitated here can go anywhere. Last year there were questions on all topics, from use of technology to elements of a worship service, from social justice opportunities in congregational life to how to sustain a campus or young adult group. We hope to have the audio for both of these workshops recorded and available on the GA website.
We will also be hosting several worship opportunities through the Young Adult Caucus Chaplain, Michelle Collins. There will be a young adult contemporary worship, Synergy: A Multigenerational Celebration of Bridging and Collaboration, and a joint Youth and Young Adult Caucus worship. You can also look forward to our orientation dinner, bridging welcoming celebration (for bridgers to meet and greet with those of us on the other side of the bridge), and all of our caucus sessions (opportunities for young adults to discuss GA business).
Finally, this year we hope to begin creating a living history of Young Adult Caucus! We would like to record the memories attendees have of past Young Adult Caucuses so that we can remember our past and plan for the future. If you cannot attend GA this year but would like to contribute, either comment on this blog post or email me (about this and anything else) at vict.mitchell@gmail.com. I hope to see you there!
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