An Interview with Rachel Alley

INTERVIEW WITH RACHEL ALLEY, PROGRAM DIRECTOR FOR YOUTH MINISTRY OF THE ELCA by Bunmi Ishola

Over the last 25 years, Rachel Alley has worked at three different congregations—small, medium and large—as well as within the Southeastern Synod. Most of her roles have involved working with youth and young adults, which she believes has helped prepare her for her new role as the program director for youth ministry at the ELCA churchwide office.

This conversation has been lightly edited.

Connect Journal: You just finished organizing your first event as the youth ministry director. How did it go?

Rachel Alley: Yeah, the Youth Corps Leaders Team just met in August. I actually have been serving as an adult volunteer for the past two years on the team, and so now I’m kind of in charge of it. We had a planning meeting to get ready for the Youth Leadership Summit in November. It was four adults and 12 kids from all across the country (chosen by an application process every year for a two-year term). And they spent the weekend doing detailed planning work—creating PowerPoints, writing devotionals, writing their scripts. It just was a really powerful weekend for them. There was some bonding time and some fun, like swimming and canoeing, but also a lot of work went into developing this event that’s going to be happening in November.

CJ: Shifting from a volunteer to a director role, were there any things you want to change for youth programs in the future?

RA: I really want to see more opportunities for these kids to be able to speak with their bishops and other bishops about issues going on. My hope is to figure out a way that they can easily get their questions asked and their concerns heard. And we’re actually working right now on getting all of (the Youth Corps Leaders’) pictures put up on the ELCA Youth Ministry website, as well as an email for them, so that bishops or anyone can reach out to them.

CJ: What are some of the projects you’re working on and hoping to accomplish in your new role?

RA: I’m working on creating some models of leadership camps for synods to be able to use. Our church is desperately in need of strong leaders, and we’ve had a really good experience in the Southeastern Synod equipping leaders through our discipleship and leadership camps. There are other synods that are doing that as well, but I’m thinking that every synod could do camps for equipping leaders and discernment. I’m pulling together a group of folks that either work with service camps, or similar discipleship and leadership camps and potentially mission camps, that have a history of doing well. And we’re going to come up with best practices and create different models for synods to be able to use. I think sometimes synods don’t do anything because they don’t know where to start. We know that faith formation does not just happen in congregations. It happens at camps, it happens in campus ministry, it happens in weekend events. So, to be able to give models to our synods will be really helpful.

CJ: What other initiatives do you hope to see grow within ELCA communities?

RA: I’m hoping that we can bring back, or create, some more faith formation resources for congregations. We already have a great one that details what should be accomplished at each level (life stage group). But I’d like to be able to create some more resources. I think our congregations are struggling with getting families to come to church on Sunday mornings and getting them to be super involved like they used to be 30 or 40 years ago. So, what do we need to do to help our kids and our families grow in their faith? I think we assume that our congregations are doing the work, but they’re not as well as they can. There are some that are certainly fabulous, but there are others that are really struggling. A number of years ago, churchwide decided to get rid of all of the faith formation positions, and I think we really lost track of how important those positions were to the church and to the congregations—especially in regards with providing resources. So my hope is that I can get back into that. I want to help move us forward into today’s world and today’s culture where we are so busy. I want to be able to work with others to help create resources that help congregations answer the question, “What does faith formation look like today?”

CJ: What ideals guide these resources you hope to create?

RA: Something that is really important to me is just welcoming all. And so, making sure that what we (the church) do is welcoming to the LGBTQ community, to our diverse communities—that’s important to me. Over the years, because of my experience, I’ve seen kids who have struggled and have had pain created by the church, and so I’m hoping that perhaps I can create a culture that is more welcoming to all.

CJ: What message do you have for the ELCA synods and congregations about the need for youth ministry and the value of investing in our youth?

RA: Everyone in a congregation should be involved in youth ministry in one way or another. It’s important that all adults are available and authentic and affirming to our kids. That’s been a mantra of mine forever and ever because sometimes, different generations think that because they aren’t young, or they don’t have youth themselves, they’re not important. But that’s definitely not the case at all. In fact, it’s more important that all generations are working with our kids. My hope and dream also is that every synod sees that youth ministry is so important, and that growing the faith of our young people is so important that they would have a staff person dedicated to youth ministry. Whether I can inspire that to happen or not, I don’t know, but I’m making that effort to reach out to each synod, find out who the person is that is involved in youth ministry in that synod—the number-one volunteer or the paid staff person—and really begin to help build the SYMBOL (Synod Youth Ministry Band of Leaders) network that we already have, and help them be even better and strong.

CJ: Any last thoughts?

It is really important to me to not only work with our churchwide staff in the different areas of faith formation, but I want to make sure that I am connecting with our synods and congregations. Passing on the faith is really important, and it is important that we are intentionally showing kids what’s next. When youth are finished with youth ministry, there’s campus ministry, there’s camps, there is discernment events and potentially seminary. I don’t think we do a really good job of helping our youth get to the next step and find their vocation. And that’s very, very important to me. No matter whether they are serving, if they are a nurse or if they are a school teacher, they are still called by God to serve in this world in other ways. And we can’t do it alone just in youth ministry, but we have to pass them onto campus ministry or camps or whatever the next step may be.

RA: Can I share my favorite Bible verse? Which is Jeremiah 29:11. For me, it is important to help our young people see that and to know that God is in control and the He has plans for us, for our future. And they need to have some peace rather than trying to be the best and make the highest scores and all that kind of stuff. So that Bible verse has always been important for me, but especially now as I see the stresses related to this latest generation. Helping them know that God is present with them in their lives and to give them some hope, that’s really important.

Bunmi Ishola recently relocated to Aurora, IL, where she works as an editorial assistant for an independent book publisher.