This is the first history of the life and work of the Alliance between two general councils in which there is a chapter on youth! In Seoul a seed was put into good soil, later to grow and make youth concerns a real part of the Alliance.

The youth rally which took place immediately prior to the 22nd general council wrote a report with three recommendations. The council referred it to the new executive committee; youth work was referred to the department of cooperation and witness. In 1991, the executive committee created a committee on youth concerns and appointed Ms Andrea Stuker as its moderator. One year later the Svenska Missionsförbundets Ungdom (SMU), the youth organization of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, offered to second a full-time youth worker to the WARC staff. The implications of the offer were discussed. In 1993 the executive committee accepted this offer and in 1994 it agreed to appoint Rev Anna Ljung to the seconded post. In February 1995, she started a three-year contract as the coordinator of youth concerns.

The youth rally, Seoul 1989

The youth rally took place in Yonsei University, Seoul from August 11 to 12 1989. This was the first time in the history of the Alliance that a youth meeting had been held prior to a general council. The rally was organized by a youth preparatory committee, drawn from the youth leadership of the Presbyterian Church in Korea and the Presbyterian Church of the Republic of Korea, together with the Geneva office. The aims of the rally were:

to discover, articulate, and share the experiences of youth in confessing the faith in their different contexts,
to explore the participation of young people in the work of the Alliance,
to build up solidarity among Reformed youth in struggling for justice, liberation and peace, and
to enable the young participants to meet together and to get to know each other.

Half of the 54 participants came from Korea. The other half came from 15 different countries. Africa was represented by participants from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. European participants came from Czechoslovakia, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Great Britain, Sweden and Switzerland. There were participants from the United States and Canada, but none from the Caribbean. Young people from India and Sri Lanka, together with the Korean group, made up the Asian representation. South America and the Pacific were not represented.

Ecumenical delegates from the youth desk of the World Council of Churches, the youth department of the Christian Conference of Asia and the World Student Christian Federation made presentations. General secretary-elect Milan Opocensky gave a keynote address. There were also regional presentations from Korea, South Africa and Sweden. "For human rights, peace and independence (autonomy of the oppressed people)" was the theme at the closing worship attended by 500 people. Instead of a traditional oral sermon, a drama expressing the commitment to a just and peaceful society was performed, and the rally ended with communion.

The youth rally recommended:

That the general council commit itself to fuller participation of women and youth by working towards having 50% of women and 15% youth on all WARC decision-making bodies, beginning with the executive committee, elected by the 22nd general council. (Youth: young people up to 30 years.)
That WARC create a position of youth secretary to facilitate this work, as a part of building a youth movement of the Reformed church community, to facilitate a full and self-determined participation of youth towards a common confession of faith, faith-praxis and the work of renewal and unity.
However, in appreciation of financial and other constraints upon WARC, we offer an alternative to the recommendation number 2. We make clear, however, that we feel that number 2 is more preferable. We recommend, as an alternative to number 2, that WARC include in the job description of one of its executive officers specific mention of responsibility for youth work, to help such work become a more recognized aspect of WARC's responsibilities.

Policy reference committee 1 received the report with appreciation. The general council referred the report to the executive committee for study.

An open letter to children and young people

One of the most surprising and provocative outcomes of section III on "Justice, peace and the integrity of creation" at the 22nd general council was the section report, which was written in the form of "An open letter to the children and young people of the planet". It introduced a new theological style and has been widely circulated, but without any clear follow-up.

Geneva 1990

The recommendations from the youth rally were studied by the executive committee in 1990. The report of the department of cCooperation and witness concluded with a small section on youth: it recognized that it was not financially possible to appoint a youth secretary at that time, but asked that possible strategies for dealing with the recommendation of the youth rally be brought to the committee's next meeting. The committee agreed to look for a volunteer.

Sao Paulo 1991

In San Paulo the executive committee committed itself to take seriously the recommendations from the youth rally. It took several actions concerning youth based on these recommendations, on a letter from Ms Andrea Stuker, the only executive committee member under 30 years of age, and on recommendations from the department of cooperation and witness. It named a four-member committee on youth concerns whose task was to update the executive committee members on current youth concerns across the Alliance and to function as the drafting committee of an annual "Letter to the youth"; and established a "youth advisory delegate" programme whereby each church hosting a meeting of the executive committee would be invited to send three to five youth as youth advisory delegates. It agreed:

to seek the opportunity to send a representative of the executive committee to the 1992 youth triennium, a gathering of Presbyterian youth in North America;
to make every effort to become aware of youth events in other parts of the Reformed world, commit itself to facilitate youth exchanges in such events, and encourage Reformed youth to participate in other ecumenical programmes;
to encourage youth participation in twinning relationships; and
to direct the staff and the department of finance to investigate the feasibility of establishing a full-time post for youth work before the 23rd general council.

Wellington 1992

At the 1992 executive committee meeting, the youth advisory delegate programme was initiated and two youth advisory delegates were present. In Wellington the executive committee took further steps in its commitment to youth concerns by deciding:

to schedule youth committee meetings immediately before the beginning of executive committee meetings and again after the department reports;
to appoint Ms Andrea Stuker as the moderator of the committee on youth concerns;
to seek to utilize the participation of former youth advisory delegates at the 23rd general council;
to develop a network of Reformed youth;
to feature youth concerns in Update at least once a year;
to address the issue of fundamentalism as it effects young people;
to seek ways to cooperate with other ecumenical youth organizations and groups; and
to inform member churches about the Ecumenical Global Gathering for Youth and Students (Eggys) in Brazil in July 1993, and to send 10 WARC-sponsored participants to the gathering.

Eggys

The Alliance was one of ten organizations sponsoring the Ecumenical Global Gathering of Youth and Students which was held in Mendes, RJ, Brazil, from July 10 to 26 1993. The gathering was attended by 524 young people from 81 countries. The Alliance sponsored ten young participants from member churches; four from Europe, two each from Africa and South America, and one each from North America and the Pacific region.

"A letter to young people, our churches, our movements and organizations" was written at the gathering. It testified to a commitment to wrestle together in unity in spite of the discovery made at the gathering that there are many things that divide the younger generation. It challenged the churches and partner organizations to take young people seriously now, as they are already perishing. An official report was written, called "Seeds of Hope".

The ten WARC-sponsored participants wrote a letter to the general secretary of the Alliance regarding the need to have a Reformed youth focus within WARC. The letter included a proposal for a youth staff position.

Stockholm 1993

The Seoul youth rally had inspired the many actions of the executive committee in relation to youth so far. The committee on youth concerns had been created to implement the recommendations of the rally. The youth rally had also recommended that the Alliance create a position of a youth secretary, but up to this point, the executive committee had found other ways to emphasize youth issues. At its 1993 meeting, which was hosted by the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (SMF), new possibilities for a full-time staff position were discussed and explored.

The Mission Covenant Youth of Sweden (SMU), the youth organization of the hosting church, offered to second a SMU volunteer to work as a youth staff person in the WARC office for three years, 1995-1997. SMF and SMU would be jointly responsible for salary, related social costs, pension, travel, rent of office space, office equipment and costs related to programme.

The primary responsibilities of the youth staff person were to prepare, plan and to be responsible for a Reformed youth forum immediately prior to the 23rd general council and to develop a Reformed youth network. By contrast with other ecumenical bodies, the work would include both children and youth, and not only youth or youth and students.

The financial implications of this offer, the imbalance it reflected in staff opportunities between member churches north and south, and the commitment not to duplicate work done by other ecumenical bodies, were carefully discussed before the executive committee agreed to accept the offer. This decision was a big step forward and was to make an exciting change in the life and work of the Alliance.

Pittsburgh 1994

The executive committee agreed to appoint Rev Anna Ljung (30) of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden to the three-year post of coordinator for youth concerns, wholly funded by the Mission Covenant Church and its youth organization. She was welcomed to the meeting, and took part in the work of the committee on youth concerns, which started to prepare the pre-general council youth event, the Reformed youth forum. Work objectives for the coordinator's first year were agreed.

Ms Lonna Chang-Ren Lee from the Presbyterian Church (USA), one of the WARC-sponsored participants at EGGYS, reported on the gathering. Just as in Stockholm, youth advisory delegates attended the executive committee meeting and played an active role.

The coordinator starts work

On February 1 1995, Anna Ljung started work as WARC's first coordinator for youth concerns. She spent her first months learning about previous work done related to children and youth in the Alliance and the ongoing youth work of other ecumenical bodies, with whom some work in cooperation was initiated. She visited almost twenty member churches and organizations in thirteen countries during her first year, and was well received on her travels. A letter was sent out to all member churches asking them to appoint a youth contact as part of the Reformed Youth Network; to date, 161 member churches have named a contact. Intensive preparations for the Reformed youth forum and the general council stewards' programme began. The need to give a greater priority to the younger generation in the many cultural, political and spiritual aspects of the life of the Alliance and its member churches was being recognized in the preparation of the 23rd general council.

Yaoundé 1995

For the first time in the history of the Alliance a report from a coordinator for youth concerns was presented to the executive committee! In her report Anna Ljung reviewed her activities in the six months since she started work and set out her plans for the twelve months ahead. Work objectives for this second year were agreed by the committee on youth concerns. Besides continuing work on the Reformed youth forum, the stewards' programme and the Reformed youth network, added tasks included: to provide materials concerning youth in the future of the Alliance, to monitor youth participation in the production of preparatory materials for the 23rd general council, to send out a youth leaders' questionnaire to contacts in the member churches, to help in recruiting and orientating the youth advisory delegates in 1996, to pursue theological study on youth and the church and to attend the international consultation on gospel and cultures, Indonesia.

In its report, the committee on youth concerns defined "youth" as all those up to and including the age of 30, ie including children, which differs from some other major ecumenical bodies with a youth desk. The committee attempted to define its own role in the new situation created by the appointment of a full-time staff person, and made a proposal to the constitution and by-laws committee which was incorporated into the proposed revisions to the by-laws. This description of the tasks of the committee on youth concerns is all that has been decided for certain about the future of youth work within the Alliance beyond 1997.

Publications

Articles on children and youth by the coordinator and others have been regularly published in Update. In June 1996, Reformed World was given over to articles by eight young people, from different parts of the world, writing on the theme of the 23rd general council.

Detmold 1996

After a year of networking with the youth contacts in member churches, attending many different international events and preparing for the general council, the coordinator gave her second report to the executive committee and presented her plans and goals for the coming year. The work during the twelve months ahead would primarily relate to the preparation of the Reformed youth forum and the stewards' programme. A long-planned visit by the coordinator to members churches in Latin America and their youth work was agreed.

Ms Andrea Stuker, the moderator of the committee on youth concerns, made a contribution to the discussion of priorities for WARC beyond 1997 during the executive committee's study day. She emphasized that young people need to be fully included in the work of the Alliance in order to have the whole family represented. The executive committee agreed to ask the 23rd general council to name youth concerns as a high priority in the years following 1997, and to remind the Nominating committee in Debrecen of the need for strong representation of youth in the next executive committee.

A significant step was taken by the decision to seek funding to continue the position of the coordinator for youth concerns beyond 1997. As the present coordinator is from the northern hemisphere, it was agreed that she should be succeeded by a person from the South.

Note of thanks

Young people are often the ones coming up with new ideas, new visions and new hopes. If the participants at the youth rally in Seoul had not spoken out with their vision of a fuller participation of both women and youth in the Alliance and their dream to have a youth secretary, the Alliance might not have committed itself so enthusiastically to youth, nor to women. Without the generous offer of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden and its youth organization to second a full-time youth staff person, the appointment of a coordinator would not have been possible. Therefore the youth participating in Seoul and the donors in Sweden deserve a special note of thanks and appreciation!