Growing Together

Growing Together. It’s started. On February 22-23 and February 29 - March 1, close to 600 people from approximately 90 Churches across Australia gathered to look at how we can Grow Together as local Adventist Churches. The Summits that facilitated these gatherings were held in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne.

You might be wondering why there is a push to ‘Grow Together’. Here’s some background - in 2018, the Australian Union Conference held a Summit that looked at Youth Engagement. One of the major concerns that was recognised at this Summit was that we are losing a lot of young people from the Adventist Church in Australia. We see them grow up in ministries like Adventurers and Pathfinders, but for some reason we can’t spot them in Church life in their early twenties. Maybe you know someone like this?

We all know it’s not supposed to be this way. Ellen White once famously said –

“With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world!”

We aren’t supposed to be losing young people. We are supposed to be sending them out to share the Gospel of Jesus with a world that desperately needs it.

If we are going to come to the place where we are developing an abundance of devoted young disciples who deeply live out their faith in Jesus, we need to seriously look at the key areas that shape their lives. Many believe there are three areas that have a huge impact on the forming of life-long faith:

1. The Home

2. The Local Church

3. The Local Adventist School

There’s no doubt that parents are the primary influencers in the shaping of a young person’s faith, but there is also no doubt that local Churches and schools have a powerful role to play as well.

Growing Together, while it certainly doesn’t isolate itself from what happens in the home and the local school, is primarily focused on building healthy culture in the local Adventist Church. The dream is that local Adventist Churches become places where -

• Young people are given, and mentored into, opportunities to lead

• Young people come and experience a warm and loving community

• Young people aren’t frowned upon because they are different to generations gone by, but are shown empathy as they grow up in the ‘craziness’ of modern western culture

• Young people can come and experience authentic Biblical teaching that points to Jesus, every-time! And, it’s not just ‘talk’ about Jesus – but His message is taken seriously in the way the community of faith lives

• Young people experience a Church that loves and serves it’s community

• Young people (and the families that shape them) are prioritised in all aspects of Church life

At this point, the dream could be making you feel uneasy. Where’s the mention of the older generations? Don’t worry, no one has forgotten about them. In fact, they are absolutely CRUCIAL to this journey!

Psalm 145:3-4 says –

“Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.”

If the Adventist Church is going to shape young people into sold-out disciples of Jesus, we desperately need the support of older generations. For it is “One generation who commends” God to the next.

We cannot Grow Young, without doing it together! The investment of time and energy, by older generations, into younger generations is eternally priceless. And, here’s the exciting point – when young people and families (that could be children, teens, youth, or young adults) become a serious focus point, the whole Church benefits. Vibrancy, vitality, energy, and life are injected into the local Church through an intentional focus on impacting the young.

Greater Sydney Conference has made a commitment to Grow Together (it’s one of our five Conference foci points). Reflecting on Christian Churches in Australia Barna Group reported in 2019 that - “Over 72% of Australian young adults who attended church in their teens will ultimately become spiritually disengaged at some point during their twenties.” The last thing we want to see is this becoming our reality in the Adventist Church. We not only want to see our young people spiritually engaged, we want to see them thriving as disciples of Jesus in Christ-centred communities.

The journey has begun. 18 Churches in our Conference have decided to invest the next 12-24 months seriously looking at how they can “Grow Together”, and implementing a plan to do so. Please keep them in your prayers as we see God lead in this space!

Simon Gigliotti – Youth Director, Greater Sydney Conference