by Richard Williams
“Relationship status update” was the title of a blog post from one of our Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs). Cringing just a little, I clicked, hoping not to learn anything I didn’t want to know. But what was inside truly shocked me.
The Young Adult Volunteer program has been sending out young adults into a year of transformative service at sites around the United States and across the globe for over 20 years. More than 1,500 young adults have taken the plunge to explore God’s call through a year of service, community building and discernment. YAVs serve alongside local partners who help show them what God is doing in the new city or country they serve. They live in intentional Christian community, deepen their faith together, live simply and explore the places and peoples of this world that are often ignored, passed over or hated. The YAV tag line is “a year of service for a lifetime of change” — helping us all remember that God calls us towards a lifetime of faithful service.
We put a lot of thought and care into running the YAV program. But needless to say, when I come across the blog post of one of our participants that reads “relationship status update,” I find myself trying to hold lightly to our deeply held program values — all while recognizing the reality of engaging in ministry with young adults.
But Alex’s “relationship status update” is a breath of fresh air. He wrote about his change of heart towards the idea of mission he grew up with. Alex served as a YAV last year in Boston and now in Little Rock. During the past two years, Alex described moving from an idea of mission that is one-way, self-assuring and safe and towards an idea of mission that is mutually transformative, self-critically honest and is willing to risk all for the call of God.
In this past year, 90 young adults took that leap to follow God’s call in the YAV program. Alex has explored God’s life-changing call in his work with an environmentally sustainable straw-bale conference center house, a small Presbyterian church and a local-food organization. This year, other YAVs will see God’s call in their lives asthey work in after-school centers, with people currently experiencing homelessness, in resettling and advocating for refugees and immigrants — and in many other organizations and churches that are working to make God’s love known and shown. YAVs serving with our international partners will work in education and subsistence agriculture, in peace-building and disaster relief, and in countless other ministries of partnership. Each of these young adults has said yes to the unexpected, surprising and transformative ways that God is working in this world. They’ve said yes to seeing this world differently, to living their faith differently and to hearing God in places they might not have imagined before.
Saying yes to God is what mission is really about. It is what our faith journey is about. It is hearing Jesus say “sell all you have, and follow me.” At its core, mission is a risk. It is risking our own safety, comfort and security to follow God’s call. It is walking the path of Jesus, which took him and will take us to places of social exclusion, fear and rejection. We cannot help but be changed by stepping into God’s mission. As Alex shows us, all of us can use a good “relationship status update” if we are too comfortable in our ways of following in God’s mission.
RICHARD WILLIAMS is the coordinator of the Young Adult Volunteer Program for the Presbyterian Mission Agency. Know a young adult that is ready to take this leap? Do you or your congregation want to partner with YAVs? Find out more about the Young Adult Volunteer program at youngadultvolunteers.org
