Young delegation leaders model inclusiveness for church

Matthew Johnson, 26, is leading the Western Pennsylvania Annual (regional) Conference delegation to General Conference. A student at Asbury Theological Seminary, he is one of four young adults who are delegation leaders. UMNS photos by Maile Bradfield.

A UMNS Report
By Vicki Brown*

At age 26, Matthew Johnson may be one of the younger General Conference delegates.

Even so, 2008 marks his third trip as a voting delegate to The United Methodist Church’s top legislative body, which makes him one of the most experienced members of the church’s delegation from the Western Pennsylvania Annual (regional) Conference.

Both age and experience were factors in his election to lead the delegation, according to Johnson, one of four young adults who are delegation leaders at the 2008 General Conference. All agreed that a desire to have younger faces visible and younger voices heard played a part in their elections.

All four are aware that they are having input into conversations that shape the denomination’s future as the assembly meets April 23-May 2 in Fort Worth, Texas. All four hope to represent an inclusiveness that will encourage more young adults to get involved in local church leadership. They also believe older members will see that young adults have a great deal to offer.

Johnson, a seminarian at Asbury Theological Seminary, recalled how a district superintendent mentored him when he was a 17-year-old delegate to the 2000 General Conference. “He really showed me how everything worked, took me under his wing, and taught me. He did so much more than would have been expected,” Johnson said.

Luke Wetzel is a first-time delegate and the leader of the Kansas East delegation. The 20-year-old Emory undergraduate formed a General Conference Facebook group that has 93 members. Members of the online social network group are mostly young adults.

“Many conferences, if they elect a young person, it’s as an alternate delegate,” Wetzel said. The Young Adult Committee of the Kansas East Conference successfully campaigned for one-third of its delegation to be under age 40. Three of the nine lay delegates and three of the nine clergy delegates are all under 40, said Wetzel, who is considering seminary.

Developing new leaders

The Rev. Meg Lassiat, director of Student Ministries, Vocation, and Enlistment at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, said the choice of young adults to lead their General Conference delegations is an exciting opportunity to develop new leaders. The board is the church agency with primary responsibility for leadership development.

“As young adults participate in and lead their delegations, they will have the opportunity to shape the future direction of our denomination,” Lassiat said. “Then, when they return to their local communities and ministries, we hope that they will also find the necessary mentoring and training there that will sustain them in their everyday leadership and service.”

Wetzel, the Rev. Molly Vetter, who leads the California Pacific delegation, and Devin Mauney, who leads the Desert Southwest delegation, all said they are conscious of the need to represent the diversity of young adults.

“I think the fact that I was the first elected clergy delegate reflects the value my conference is putting on empowering young people,” said Vetter, 31, associate pastor at First United Methodist Church of San Diego. “But I’m nervous about being asked to serve as a representative of young people because I’m not sure I am representative. I have a lifelong association with the church, and I’ve been a pastor for seven years. Young people have as much diversity and difference as older people.”

Wetzel believes it goes “a long way for older people to see young people who care about where the church is going.” But he adds that it is a bigger challenge for young people to take leadership roles in the local church.

“That’s where beliefs and practices are more ingrained. We need to go beyond asking a young person to read Scripture to having them part of the planning and mission of the church,” he said.

Empowering young voices

Vetter agrees that it is a struggle not only to invite but to empower young voices. “It’s one thing to have young adults at the table, it’s another thing to listen to them. … There is always a temptation to elect people with experience,” said Vetter, who was a reserve lay delegate in 2000.

“I’m trying to be prayerful and attentive to remaining in a conversation that’s grounded and connected to God in such a way that I’ll stay faithful to what most brings us together.”

Mauney, 21, who leads the Desert Southwest Conference, says that while he is young, he has experienced serving on the United Methodist Commission on Communication and at the 2004 Western Jurisdictional Conference.

The Arizona State student knows it is difficult to have diverse representation in his delegation when there are only two voting members to General Conference. He believes young people are calling out for the church to be more relevant in their lives and the world.

“They want the church to use more technology, to work for social justice issues. That’s why the Nothing But Nets campaign has been so important,” Mauney said of the church’s partnership in the anti-malaria initiative in Africa.

Johnson said one important lesson he learned in 2000 and 2004 was not to try to do everything.

“I need to figure out what I consider the pressing issues and use ‘my say’ to speak to those issues,” Johnson said. In 2004, as a member of the assembly’s discipleship committee, he worked hard on the issue of certification of lay speakers because he had grown up in a rural church with 40 members and believed it was especially important to rural churches.

“I also worked on allowing local pastors to be appointed to extension ministries. I knew someone who had an opportunity to work in prison ministry as a chaplain, but was a local pastor. I basically stood up and told this guy’s story.”

Johnson, a member of the Palo Alto United Methodist Church, one of six churches in the Hyndman Larger Parish, is also a youth minister at Nicholasville (Ky.) United Methodist Church.

“My work in our annual conference and at General Conference has affected the way I lead. I’ve developed a passion for The United Methodist Church as a whole,” Johnson said. “I’ve sat in lots of church and conference meetings where I was the youngest person there, and I’ve learned how to speak so what I say will be respected.”

*Brown is associate editor and writer, Office of Interpretation, United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.