wfn.org | Shared Mission Focus on Young People

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (434
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Note 433 by UMNS on Nov. 5, 1997 at 15:32 Eastern (3307 characters).

CONTACT: Linda Green				  621(10-71B){433}
	    Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470	Nov. 5, 1997

Mission focus on youth members join
European Methodists to organize youth forum 

by United Methodist News Service

Two United Methodists from the United States attended the annual meeting of
the European Methodist Youth Council (EMYC) Sept. 27-Oct. 3 in Poland to forge
a partnership and outline a youth forum to be held in Europe by the year 2000.
	The U.S. representatives were from the church’s Shared Mission Focus on Young
People (SMF), an initiative that calls on the United Methodist Church to
reorder its priorities to listen and respond to the needs of young people.
 	Linda Bales, director of the initiative office, and Bear Littleton, an
18-year-old from Sweetwater, Texas, addressed the council stressing how a
partnership of EMYC and SMF would strengthen both their ministries of
advocating for youth and young adults. 
Littleton is chairman of the SMF ministry team charged with organizing 10
youth issue forums in the United States and the central conferences. 
	Because the goals of SMF and the council are similar, they agreed to
cosponsor a joint forum on critical issues related to young people in Europe
during 1999 or 2000.
The EMYC brought together people with national responsibility for youth and
children’s work in Methodist churches of Europe and 40 young people who came
as church representatives. 
The gathering included members of the British and Irish Methodist Churches and
the United Methodist Church in Europe. They touched on such issues as children
and poverty, social and political concerns, evangelism, conferences, and youth
exchanges. A portion of the meeting also was devoted to a United Methodist
episcopal initiative on children and poverty.
	During the meeting, council members remarked about the wealth of the United
States and how the United Methodist Church "has it all," Bales said. She and
Littleton responded that although the United Methodist Church in the United
States has many members, "it is wrestling with its relevancy and survival,"
she said. 
	 In the United States, "young people" refers to people aged 12-30 while in
Europe "youth" refers to people aged 12 to 26 years.  "I was the youngest
youth at the meeting and that was different," Littleton said. "In the United
States, I’m considered a young adult," he noted.
	While young people in the United States and Europe are concerned about
relationships, the church in their lives and employment, Bales said, issues in
Europe are extended to include war, starvation, health care and religious
persecution. 
	"Poland is a land in transition and the church is part of that transition,"
she said. With the end of Communism, a "land where anything goes" took its
place, she noted. Those in religious settings see themselves as taking charge
of moral authority and holding conservative positions to reclaim some
semblance of order and values.
	Littleton said while much of the meeting had to be translated into English,
German and Polish, "it was amazing to see and hear three translations of the
Bible and to know we all were reading God’s word." 
"Too, often, we in the United States forget that our connection reaches beyond
our borders," Bales said.
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