A survey of Young People

Transcript

so good evening everybody sorry about the technical difficulties um okay so the way this is going to work I'm just going to give like a short five or 10 minute-ish introduction and then we'll get into the

results so yeah I guess just you guys can interrupt me at any point with questions or comments and yeah then we then after after the uh introduction then we'll get into the results and then it'll be kind of more of an open discussion

okay so earlier this year I put together a survey of questions for Christan teens and young people and I got a little under a 100 responses which was pretty cool so you might be thinking well what's the point of this so I got the idea to do this

um uh last fall when I started take when I took an intro to statistics class in college

also just so you know just because I had the idea to do this last fall does not mean it's been that many months of work I only started this on

Monday but anyway um so I got this idea when taking a statistics class I won't bore you with all the math details which I don't really remember anyway but I'm just going to talk about statistics in general for a minute so you can kind of see my reasoning for doing this so the main gist of that class came down down to the idea that statistics are a powerful tool for understanding our world more

objectively um with Statistics you can understand things more objectively than you would if you just relied on your own personal experience I think a few months ago or something Josh gave a really good class talking about biases versus perspectives and that kind of gets at the same idea so we all have have our own personal thoughts and experiences that shape our perspectives on things how we view the world and people around us and just let me be clear those experiences and perspectives are all valid and important it's not evil emotions versus all righteous logic when we're talking about statistics God gave us our emotions and experiences for a

reason and it's often weird personal experiences that seem to go against common knowledge that have to really interesting studies and discoveries with Statistics the problem is we can easily let our own personal ideas get in the way of seeing the truth so that's where I would say a perspective changes to a bias and it becomes a negative

thing um so the idea with Statistics is to try and look at an overall view of things and make more objective conclusions than you would if you were just relying on your own personal experience

but it's far from a perfect science so only god with his perfect Eternal perspective can really understand every single detail of every Factor affecting something the best a statistical study can do is make educated guesses about things usually only considering a few factors with probabilities basically big May attached to any conclusions that you

draw on top of that we're only usually able to answer answer one or two spe very very specific questions at a time and Broad conclusions about anything take a long time to form that being said I think statistics is still a valuable tool that can help us understand the truth better if we apply them properly okay so that was the quick little summary of Statistics where I got the idea so that class really got me thinking that it would be cool to get some statistics on christadelphians because we have all kinds of biases about what we think is going on but might not necessarily

know what's actually going on because we haven't like talked to every single

person so I started thinking about what would be a good statistical question to try and answer and so I thought about this I hear a lot of people talk um certain ways about how we're losing the young people I hear people say talked about people about why people left or why this person left why that person left or why kids are leaving and what we can do about it and these discussions are good and important to have and I've Heard lots of negative talk about the future of christadelphians or if there will even be any and but the most annoying thing is why I don't ever see happening is actually talking to kids and people who have left about what's actually going on with them I think a lot of parents probably have a good grasp on what's going on in their kids lives but to extrapolate on what's happening in your kid's life to everyone based on one or two experiences is a very biased perspective so that gave me the idea in order to try and get a better better idea of what's going

on um rather than just from my bias perspective I decided I'm going to put out a survey so I did I put together this survey we'll talk about the questions and stuff that I asked in a minute and I got a little under a 100 respons

so we won't be able to discuss discuss everything that was said in the survey but I think some of the responses will provide really good discussion starters for

us okay so before we get into it it's important to note that this survey is definitely not totally unbiased I sent it out to basically everyone I know and had them pass it along to their cic's and try and get as many responses as possible but if you know anything about stats then you already can see the many ways that that will bias the results for example I only know people that are showing up to Bible schools youth weekend cyc

Etc

and I already as soon as this email went out about the topic of my class I had two people reach out to me um saying they would have liked to fill in the results but didn't get to so this is not like a fully random fully representative sample of all Christadelphian youth so does that matter well let's suppose I ask this question how connected do you feel to Christadelphian Community if I'm only asking kids I know those are kids that get out to Bible schools and are outgoing enough to talk to a socially awkward person like me so I'm missing all those kids that are maybe I don't know because either they're shy and quiet or they've only been at their eclesia their whole their whole life so this would potentially bias any data on that question towards thinking kids are more connected than they actually are so see how quickly drawing conclusions with stats becomes complicated it's very hard all that being said I think the personal experiences that people have talked about in the survey are still very valid and even if the stats aren't perfect and I think the responses will provide us with some okay data but mainly it will provide us with a glimpse into the personal thoughts and perspectives of a lot of the people around us

okay um any questions or comments before we get into the actual

data Gabe just curious if these are unbaptized Brethren or uh these these young people uh is it a mixture of some baptized unbaptized yeah it's a mixture of baptized and unbaptized and there it'll there'll be a divider in the um survey responses for so you can see what percent of the people that were ask that were responding are baptized un baptized we'll get into that and Gabe what about any of the youth that have left were you able to survey any of them yeah I think like 10% of the responses I actually asked a separate set of questions I don't know if we'll have time to get into those people's responses but I did get like 10% of the responses which is like seven or eight people that left responded I had a separate set of questions for them in addition to the other questions or just only those questions yeah just only so like you when you answer I just set it up on Google Docs so that if you you say I am still a Christadelphian or I'm no longer a Christadelphian if you click no longer then it'll send you to a separate set of questions but yeah we'll get into that all right can you help me share my screen here we're going to

do where is it and then hold on um um well it looks like we're not mirroring right now so is it all right if you want oh you want your notes I have my notes here so you don't need see anything okay so we'll just do share and

then

PowerPoint

Boom full screen it

yeah full screen as soon as we get

this any other any other questions while we wait for the screen to get pulled up any other questions or comments what was the age

group um well I guess we can get right into that let me show you just verifi every can everybody see the the survey results screen right

now yep not not the notes or anything just a big white screen say says survey results all right all right go for it all right so this is the age so basically I said I I sent it out to everybody and said if you're under 30 please fill this out so this is like the percentage of people most of the people that were answering the questions were like between the ages of like 15 and 21 and then we got a few of younger kids and like a few older kids but mainly it was it was like my age group like 15 to

21 that were answering this so that's another way the data is kind of biased because it's mainly my age group my friends that I know that are kind of answering these questions so that

yeah all right and then also just ask gender to see you can kind of divide based on how these people responded to these about 30% of the people that at that were responding were not baptized and 60% of the people that responding were

baptized yeah so 99.5% of the people who answered were not in the chelian community I don't know if we'll have time to get to

their to get to their responses but if we do that will be

great all right so any other questions before we get into the

responses all right and without further Ado let's get to it all right so the questions I asked

were um how connected do you feel to your Ecclesia and then I asked how connected do you feel to The Wider Christadelphian Community then um I said what do you think your Ecclesia does right what do you think your Ecclesia can do better what do you think christadelphians in general do right what do you think christadelphians in general can do better

and then I asked um do you think your faith is your own faith or your parents Faith

um I asked do you think that all the ecclesial stuff we do you know like Wednesday night class cyc church on Sundays is enough to keep you invested and connected and growing in your faith or do you think we can do more then I also asked do you feel comfortable expressing doubts or questions in your Ecclesia

do you feel that your Ecclesia is a safe place to talk about major struggles and

issues and then asked what is your greatest struggle in your life of

faith and then the final two questions were what do you wish your Ecclesia would talk about more and the final question was do you see yourself staying in the Christadelphian Community into your adult

life okay so let's get into the responses

so when I asked how connected do you feel to your Ecclesia 30% of people said something along the lines of yes I'm very connected to my eclesia 18% were somewhere in the middle and 52% said no or not at all so I don't know about you but that seems like a very concerning number that 52% of our young people keep in mind this data is a little biased but in general you can probably say 52% of our young people say they are not connected to their they don't feel connected to their

Ecclesia so what I'm going to do is I'm gonna go through there's like two or three pages of responses to this question I'll probably just spend a little bit of time so give everybody a little bit of time to read through the responses maybe you can just scan some of them read anything that catches your eye and then we can have a discussion like what pops out to you about these responses

so I'll spend like we can spend like a few minutes reading through

these just keep in mind this isn't all the responses I couldn't fit them all in the in the into this thing we got like almost 100 but this is a pretty big chunk of them that I think are repres representative of what everyone was

saying uh go back

okay yeah you can kind of just I would just scan through I don't think we can read everything because that'll take too

long all

right

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all right um hopefully we had time to read some of them maybe not all of them but did anybody see any kind of thing that stuck out to them that maybe we want to

discuss

Gabe yeah first thing I saw is

I feel connected when I have a role to play and if I don't have a role to play I don't feel connected that's yeah that was a go

ahead oh yeah I I saw the same thing Chris that was what stood out to me and I I think that the you know the pattern particularly with young men is

exhorting uh you know leading classes and so forth but not everybody has that gift and if you don't uh there still has to be a role for you somewhere you know otherwise you just don't feel like you have anything to offer yeah

y yeah that was the biggest theme I saw stuck out is people who said they were connected mentioned things they were able to do for their Ecclesia and feeling like you're needed feeling like there's stuff for you to do

um something I noticed this is more of an anecdote but when we were at cyc a couple months ago we had this one discussion after a class or whatever and somebody asked like people were participating on and off you know kids are shy it's kind of hard to always talk and whatnot but somebody asked the question what can we do to help our

eclesia uh what can you do to be a part of your eclesia and participate when you're not baptized

there was this very very long long silence nobody could think of any ideas I think it was one of the adults that was leading the cyc came up with some ideas for people but so I think that is a big thing to think about is maybe how can we expand the roles for our young people to play to make them feel connected to help them

because that's that's a big problem if 50% of young people don't feel connected to their clesia don't feel like they have a role to play until they get baptized and are able to speak or

whatever and and even those that speak were limiting the population to you know half yeah yeah

exactly ask question the other thing I know on that list uh Gabe was that there's a lot of uh young people who are the in isolation or have the option really of only one Ecclesia that they don't feel comfortable in yeah seem to be a few of those as

well so I have a question since you isolated one important thing that

people feel like they don't have a role to play um especially when they're young or uh not baptized yet I'm just curious is there because since we have a number of eesal clesia represented in the audience tonight are there any is there anybody that sees things done in their meeting that have been particularly helpful of uh giving a role um for for the young people or helping to draw them

in you know I remember growing up as a you know in the Sunday school and one of the things that was I think unique in our Ecclesia was the 10-minute exhortation you know the devotional exhortation after the breaking of bread

um and I I think that for me that was a real um pivotal thing in my development personally

uh and I'm glad that we continue to do that um I'd like to see more ecclesias maybe adopt it how do you feel about it Gabe as a as a a guy that's gone through the 10-minute uh

appointment um um I like giving 10-minute exerts because they weren't as

long that that was my thought I think yeah I think that's a great idea to help give people in rcyc after the class and everything and we play a game and then before we end off we have each person each new month we have some give a little five minute devotional 10minute devotional and then everybody so that I think is a good idea to help get people

involved hi John yeah thanks see um that's a great idea for people who are intellectually inclined right and and I'm GNA say this because I you know unfortunately I am too intellectually inclined and um but we we were in a working class area where a lot of the kids grew up and people who worked on the line at Ford and so on and they didn't grow up and and and and many had not even had a college education and so we've had unfortunately some just plain left after they graduated high school and worked a job and hung around a few years in the Ecclesia and just didn't feel well welcome and I think sometimes we Elevate um

speaking way above anything I can find in the New Testament and um we need to find you know a good Ecclesia has someone who who knows how to do other things you know maybe teach the kids how to play teach the kids how to knit or do do else the things and we've kind of struggled here in the Detroit area to do that and unfortunately some young people have just slipped away yeah who who were not intellectually inclined who didn't felt uncomfortable speaking were terrified if they had asked to do it and started finding other ways for them to do do things to feel connected and and I think that's that's a problem I I actually think the survey you takeing I wouldn't worry about bias there's no such thing as an unbiased survey uh I think the the important thing that that you've done is you've you've gotten information um that's pretty hard to get so whatever you can get from that and the second thing I want to tell you is um I'm not surprised at your results because just because of who I am and the things I've written I hear from young people all over the world about some of the books I've written and and many of them told me I can't read your book Bible science in my Ecclesia because I'll be in trouble so on so I'm just I I think this is a really serious problem and uh and what's happened is is if you really look at uh we had a brother in our Ecclesia Brian Wood who did a really great uh adult Bible class A couple of months ago and he showed how Ecclesia in North America are aging out and there are many places in our country which have never had a clear and we've never made any attempt to find those areas and the truth is growing in other third world countries for quite the opposite reason if you know when Matthew my son Matt was in in South Africa for four years preaching 90% of people that were baptized didn't look forward to being speakers they had no intention of being speakers but they look forward to being part of a family they socialize together not just for one hour on Sunday so John let me jump in if I can because I remember when we're talking about different types of roles I remember being at your Ecclesia in Ann Arbor once and I was talking to Linda Hampton I don't know if Lindy's on tonight but um when I was at your Ecclesia there was a brother there who was like a

barista and after the Sunday School he had a coffee cart and he prepared

espressos and uh and different coffees for anybody that wanted one and I thought that was really an interesting role that he sort of brought on I know that L was talking about a role where she was thinking that it would be really nice to prepare like a meal preparation uh where you know you could bring the you know bring people in and and teach people how to prepare meals or how to or just to prepare meals to distribute to those in need and things like that Lindy are you on she might Steve just to finish up after your Interruption I'm gonna interrupt

you what you just said is real important because that person found something else to do right and we we had a couple of Brothers who electricians and when there's something to fix in the hall they bring along some of the kids to help them out and uh that's

we just had um a case where in helping with the cleaning of the hall uh several of the kids can come along with who's ever assigned it and given little task to do and Detroit our eclesia is famous for potlucks I mean we eat eat eat eat and I'm not the coffee guy I'm the pasta guy so I think you really hit on important things Steve and this is the challenge how do we integrate people Beyond just being a speaker 10-minute idea that's great and if you if you have that kind of built go with it but if you're not right right then kids feel left out completely I can't really get up there and speak there's they feel there's nothing for them to do so Gabe did uh did any of the respondents uh suggest anything uh in terms of roles that they'd like to see yeah I think later on in the next couple of questions I had when I was like what do you think chrisop can do better and those kind of things people had things great okay oh yeah one thing that um they did in our clesia when we were younger is there would be an one um of the older brothers or sisters would go with the young people to visit the elderly and they'd also go to different elderly's houses to help stack wood or break leaves or whatever so it kind of got the kids enjoyed it because they were getting together with each other but it was also that generational

connection you know this is Mary Bello there were two things that caught me one that they don't feel comfortable because they can't their friends who are not of Christadelphian families uh don't feel comfortable and we s we saw that with our

grandchildren they' take a friend and they oh they they were just left out and that is very bad we've got to learn to integrate and get the kids to know you still treat them like you would a child a classmate at

school um I know uh for me I used to talk to all the little kids and one one Sunday one of the sisters said to me we were questioning the children did they know Auntie so and so or Uncle so and so the only one they knew was Auntie

Mary because I've made a point to the kids as I grow up just recently three or four girls came up and gave me hugs because they hadn't seen me for a while and that's how we make the children as adults feel

comfortable yeah I want to add one other thing I think you ought to know that what you're doing is really important and you've done a I I I know a little bit about statistics okay that just comes along with being a scientist so I I I would really like to look at the details of it if you could send some of that to me many send results like the spreadsheet yeah yeah spreadsheet Etc because I think if this is polished up I'd like I'd like to see it published in Tidings and asking for wider support yeah because what you you've attempted to do is incredibly important because if we don't know why we're losing people and we don't know what our youth is doing then an organization hasn't got a future and so you you started on something that's really important and I think we uh Steve is also a member of the tidings publishing committee we ought to see some way to help him get even more data and I and I think um that would be really important for us to know because you can't fix a problem so let's uh and in the interest time John I I hear you and I agree okay but I think Gabe's got a lot of stuff he wants to present so uh Gabe go on all right so the next question I asked was rather than how connected do you feel to your Ecclesia how connected do you feel to The Wider calan

community and about 35% of people said very connected 16% said somewhat connected somewhat disconnected and 49% said disconnected so that's a little bit better than than how connected people felt to their ecclesias actually which is good I guess still pretty big gap pretty concerning but so we can go through these results I'll probably skip through them a little bit faster because it's a lot of the same kind of stuff just talking about the wider Community rather than um rather than specific your their specific Ecclesia

but we can go through this just a little bit faster

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so overall for that question I'd say it was fairly similar results um fairly similar responses just a little bit less detailed and yeah I think a lot of people especially I mean we don't have the specific numbers up here but I think a lot of the people who felt less connected were a little bit on the younger crowd and then a few of the older crowd as well but and I think a big theme Here is like the people who are getting out to Bible schools and whatnot are the ones that feel more connected so maybe I don't know if anybody else sees any kind of other themes here then obviously said there was clicks

yeah clicks and fellowship

issues Gabe I just had a quick question if I might okay so these are uh brothers and sisters or young people that you are in contact with that you would say are we would consider to be actively attending various Christadelphian functions is is that true for the most part so this does not count so when you say 50% of those one survey was 49% the other was 52% felt disconnected these are from actively participating young people and does not even include those who are not ATT ending uh who have basically falling off the radar so you know that that is an alarmingly high number percentage of people that are actively involved and still not feeling connected the number would be much higher if it it was the whole

body yeah that's a good point yeah Gabe do you have any feedback on um how to get more young people attending cyc weekend or Bible

schools that's a good question I think um with getting people to come to Bible schools and camps and cyc's and stuff like that I think usually a lot of people really really enjoy it the people that I see coming to them I guess um usually the conflicts I see where people don't come is either they're working or they have sports or something like that usually those are usually the two things that I hear people say when they say they can't come to this or can't come to that are are there Financial um issues you know Financial um challenges for

attending my guess would probably be yes for like Bible schools and stuff like that that are but usually for youth weekends it's usually pretty well covered it's like $30 but that can be a lot for some

people I haven't seen people say they can't afford to go usually unless they say they have to work or

whatever yeah yeah some weekends are more expensive than others so that that could definitely be a thing Dave affecting Dave Hill has a comment you're on mute

Dave Dave you're on

mute uh Dave I have a question for you do you plan on doing any followup because one thing that I I agree with is quite disturbing to see the the number of people that are disconnected but I don't see any reasons why they're disconnected and you and unless you know why you don't really have an opportunity to to uh present a remedy for that yeah so some I think there are some reasons why in here some people are just saying yes and no

um I the things I saw for why for The Wider Community are in at least when scrolling through these the big things I see is fellowship issues and then like clickiness that kind of thing or maybe just not getting out to go to those things those are the reasons I see why here but there could be more reasons why other people don't because some of these answers are not very

detailed uh the other thing I'd like to ask is have you been uh involved in the mentorship program with uh

Williamsburg with faith lunch I have not I went to the faith launch conference but I never got did the uh mentorship thingy because I was I was going to suggest maybe you might want to reach out to them to see if they have a program that that you could build

on because they' be they're they're quite Cen quite Keen to help people in your AG group

yeah yeah that would be a good

idea if you need if you need a name your dad has my email address all

right Jim Boo and Katie boo were very involved in the mentorship program uh on faith launch one year

thanks so go on go on Gabe all right does anybody have any other questions or comments on that should we move on

to all right yeah we're running out of time so we better get moving with this so the next thing is question I asked is what do you think your eclesia does right and then after that what do you think your eclesia can do better so let's get through this pretty quickly

maybe read

these oh that might be a little too small all right so

how do can't

highlight um for what do you think your eclesia does right I think this is the main theme when I read through most of these is something I love is just how warm and welcoming everybody is so that was a big theme I saw a lot of people said warm and welcoming um very welcoming to visitors and helping those in need

yeah I think the big things I saw when I'm looking through this earlier I'm not looking through it that well right now but was people they said people are very warm and welcoming I can definitely say that of our Ecclesia and then also like they usually agree with all of our doctrines

let's see what we can improve Gabe all right what do you think your eclesia can do better these people were uh brutally honest with

these there's a lot of stuff on music and worship stuff um I think a lot of kids tend to be pretty like bored with the HS we do and I think I think Josh did a couple really good classes talking about like the hn we do and what hn people like and whatnot so I think our eclesia I think is pretty good about that and we kind of have a couple different songs from different him books whatnot that we do but you know we can maybe do better maybe ask the young people what kind of music they like to do maybe you know I remember when Peter Davis was here they did music weekends where we all

sing I don't know there's all kinds of ideas for

that lots of I'm not surprised to see that the notation about uh the limit limits on what women can do within the Ecclesia I'm surprised that doesn't come up come up more often and

um so that that's interesting to me yeah I think actually I didn't like do the math to make sure this is statistically significant or whatnot but when looking through the responses like which responses were by females and which responses were by male when we go back to the how connected do you feel I think wh I can't remember it was like women were more likely basically to say that they're not connected than the men were in the responses I think

that add to that

idea lots of stuff about Fellowship issues and whatnot I think I think our Ecclesia tends to be very good about that which is good but you know there's a lot of problems and that's a huge issue you could have a whole series of classes on that it's kind of hard to get

into dating outside the eclesia wow prideful focus on

themselves I hope I'm on on mute yeah we hear you loud and clear

oh sorry

okay very sorry no problem is that my outside

voice so one of the things Gabe that I'm noticing on here is yeah um the struggles young people have with um issues within the Ecclesia uh dividing people yeah I've seen that on a few of them that you know sort of airing Dirty Laundry either in an exhortation or you know somewhere else where um probably we're not we're not we're doing them a disservice when they see I saw one of them said there are certain people that don't get along two people that don't get along and is OB affecting the eclesion I think that has um a stronger effect on young people you know young people are looking for a Haven um and you take that away when you uh you create disputes within the Ecclesia that that are loud enough for them to have to hear there's always issues in nesia but it they don't all have to be so public that everybody knows about it well that's an interesting uh I saw a few comments like that

yeah oh shouting

matches

yeah visit is given a c surprised see comments about the him book um going back to when we still had the black book umh I was at Scar the road there seem to be the same dozen hymns uh from week to week um did some slight variation if you didn't hear it this week you're going to hear it next week yeah there's a lot more variety now with the hbook we have the green one and some are using the L the the other book which the Lord yeah yeah I don't know those ones but yeah but but Luke your comment is interesting because you know when you talk about young people most of them don't know the black H book at all so all they know is the green book what black book yeah what what black hbook there was a black

book so to them you know you're right there is more variety in the green hm book but that's the only him book they know and they're looking for more variety so that's interesting

too all

right we do yeah but one of the things I saw was a u

uh a number of people indicating they'd like to do things together outside of the normal Sunday

Wednesday ecclesial stuff is it more social they're talking about do you think yeah probably I think something um when we at cyc when I had to give the a devotion I gave a devotion on like vulnerability I think it was the same thing as the exert I did yeah but um so when we were having discussions about that that about how to create an environment that's will allow people to be more open and more vulnerable something a lot of people said was getting to know each other outside of just like going to cyc or whatever and actually like being friends and going out and doing stuff together so I think that could be kind of the same idea just like more casually getting to know people I'll invite them out for lunch or that kind of thing do stuff

together outside of just the ecclesial activities cuz that way you feel more like a family you can actually make you can make more lasting connections rather than just Sunday morning connections so like going to a ball game or going to a concert or just having coffee going to a restaurant yeah that kind of

thing okay

gab this this is Dana Pratt and I was thinking of some of the eclesia I've been in in some of the cool things that we did do as an eclesia one was called lunch fellowship or laugh day and it was a neat thing one particular sister thought up I'll put the video on but I've been in the garden all day guys um but it half the people were hosts and half were guests and they would mix older and younger together and you know they would do it maybe every quarter or something but it was a you would have a different mix than your normal people all together for lunch and it was really wonderful but also uh like as an ecclesial doing Outreach service like we did meals for millions or something it was something at a local high school where you just went and helped pack food together and you know making those kind of memories but also serving is a really good thing like Chris said raking leaves or going and redoing a garden for a boys and girls club or things like that are the kinds of things that it takes creative people to offer to organize and then to follow through undoing and then people have to participate but there's I think sometimes it's we don't put enough creative energy into either offering our roles of things we would like to do to serve the Ecclesia like being the Barista or you know realizing that there are so many novel things that we could do

together

yeah I want to ask one more question is it all right Steve sure

yeah no I'm I'm I'm serious because I know the time is getting short I'm I'm due to speak in a couple of weeks in Boston if you want more time I'd be glad to give you my time because I think this is probably more important than what I was going to say um did you ask the question of these how connected were their

parents connected were their parents connected are their parents yeah how connected are yeah yeah I have a reason for asking that but did you no I did not okay uh we have taken some I I've taken some surveys around here some few years past and it was almost a onetoone correlation between If the parents were well connected to the Ecclesia and active so with the kids if the parents weren't and they they depended on the cyc and that that to do then it was iffy and one of the there is you probably you may know this there's a site of EX christadelphians who've left the community are you aware of that website uh I think I've heard of that I've not seen it or anything well I I would search it and see if you could put something on there to solicit input from them and ask them why did you

leave because that's that's the real problem um and that will balance your statistics uh because what's actually your caring maybe with this data because you're taking the data from people still in the community and they're real unhappy imagine how unhappy people who really left it and this is a this trend you you documented I I'm 85 years old I'm pretty concerned that after I go pass away which ain't not too far future that from my children and grandchildren our community is fading

um yeah we can keep going through this how much time do I have so it's uh 8:30 now Gabe um all right minutes you want to just conclude and then uh as brother John had said you know we can make more time for you I think that this is an important subject I think what you brought is

outstanding so Steve why don't talk to him

follow yeah he can definitely have my time because I think yeah this is more important than another

Exposition all right gab I guess I'll just show the uh last couple slides um I said do you feel like that your faith is your own faith or your parents faith and this this and the last couple statistics were the last couple that felt more encouraging so that 6% of people said it's definitely their own and they feel like they figured it out and feel committed and they all have their problems with the ecclesias and whatnot but that was a that was an encouraging thing to see 10% said it was still their parents faith and that was more of the younger crowd that was speaking so that that kind of makes sense and then 34% said they're still trying to figure that

out so I think that is a little bit more of an encouraging statistic to end with um these are some of their

responses all right

and 63% of people said that the activities we do are all great and enough to keep them connected 37% said we need to do better and you know I think all the other previous responses help deal with that um I don't really have time to get into all the respon for these but there was do you feel comfortable expressing doubts and questions your eclesia don't really have time to get into other responses but yeah um do you feel your eclesia is a safe place to talk about struggles pretty half and half whether people said they were comfortable with that

um we can go over this if we I don't think we have time to go over these

responses yeah would you be willing to uh do this another week yeah I suppose so I didn't think it would take this long so there's plenty of I think the reason it took I think the reason it took time is because there's a great deal of Interest yeah yeah I just GNA say that absolutely correct yeah go ahead Jim no I was just gonna say just what you said the reason why it took so long is because there's a lot of interest in it this is a marvelous um survey that you put together uh it's a great piece of work that you've done I think you said since Monday so that's pretty that's pretty impressive if you've done well I I did the survey a few months ago but I just the wrote wrote The Thing wrote all my notes and made the slides and whatnot since Monday very nicely done but the reason why everybody's stopping is because it's really grabbing a lot of us to look at these statistics so so thank you for doing it and I think we'd love to have you back for another week to give us give us more on it if we can if we can figure out the schedule for sure

yeah so I guess we can just end with uh this last statistic here um do you see yourself staying in the Christadelphian Community into your adult life about 60% of people said yes for sure um 32% of people are still trying to figure it out and oh it doesn't say the percentage here 7.3% of people said no I'm probably going to leave that is very concerning so we need to

you know keep this discussion open keep talking about what we can do better keep trying to get people invested and connected all these ideas we have to take outside of class and actually apply if we want to help that 39% of people that are

still that are still wondering or already decided that they're going to

leave so yeah I guess

Transcript

so I guess basically we can pick up right where we left off I'll spend a little bit of time finishing up the responses that the Christadelphian kids gave and then a little bit of time talking about the

ex Christadelphians responses because they gave some interesting points all right I think we can run through these all pretty well

all right I guess this is the first slide we can kind of we kind of skimmed over these couple slides yeah do you feel yeah do you feel comfortable expressing doubts or questions in your ecclesia so when we put this out 48% of people said no they're not comfortable expressing doubts or questions in their ecclesia and 51% of people said yes they are so I'd say that was a little bit surprising but definitely encouraging surprising because from what I've talked to people I would assume people are way less comfortable talking but that seems good and we won't go through everybody's words responses talking about that because they're long but basically a lot of people said like they feel more comfortable not like in the ecclesia setting but more like talking to people in their ecclesia so I think that's fair it's kind of it can be weird to say that on a Sunday morning in front of everybody kind of thing I don't think that's what anybody expects of anyone does anybody have thoughts about this

hey Gabe it's Steve yeah so how do you think we can make our ecclesias even more open to people expressing questions or doubts mm -hmm like what are things that from a young person's perspective are effective and giving them the comfort to say hey help me out with this mm-hmm I think the big thing this is for me personally is just having more conversations with

like older people in the ecclesias and whatnot because often everybody's kind of in their own little bubble so that kind of separation makes it like a little bit intimidating to maybe talk to someone that you don't really know that well so just being comfortable knowing people helps with that in my opinion yeah

I would say that I would also say that we need to be very careful that we don't you know and I'm speaking maybe to the elders but that we don't pretend to have all the answers you know I remember feeling like oh I need to know all of these answers and I think it's okay to say you know I really don't know what do you think about that yeah I think that's a really good point that's really important just to be honest and not try and you know be the smart person who's an expert on everything because nobody's an expert on every everything the most the smartest people are the people who are willing to say I don't know at least in my opinion I think I remember being in college and asking a professor once a question and

he's he snapped at me in front of everyone like how could you ask such a stupid question and it dawned on me afterwards that he probably didn't know the answer right and and he he tried to make me feel stupid so that he didn't look stupid and I and to me it was such you know I just I

had a number of I remember coming up to me talking about that and and nobody ever asked a question again so we've got to be careful that we that we create an environment I guess where you know people can can ask and if you don't know it's okay yeah yeah I think when we get into the ex Christophine responses a lot of them had thoughts about that that we can we'll get into basically um oh yes do you think it helps too if people are honest if older people are honest about things they've struggled with understanding or struggled with having

and I'm just kind of sharing some of their areas they've grown that kind of thing mm-hmm yeah I think that's definitely hugely important like one of the big themes in this these results is a lot of the people were saying that when you go to church it feels like everybody's performing and trying to you know trying to like look good and look spiritual and not actually being open and honest about things they struggle with I think yeah I don't know if you know anybody remembers I gave this talk about the importance of like vulnerability in the church so I won't repeat all that but I think that definitely applies and is because if you if you feel like everybody else is performing to be perfect you might think oh what's wrong with me why am I with this or you might think oh all these people are just silly and they're not willing to understand other sides and that is often what leads people to leave all right so next question I asked is pretty similar talking about major struggles which I think you know different a little bit different than doubts like sins and whatnot and it was pretty similar results I think these are very similar questions expressing doubts versus expressing struggles 48% said no they're not comfortable 51% said yes they are comfortable yeah I think that is basically restating a lot of what we just said so

the next question I asked I thought this one could be interesting anybody who's giving classes for young and whatnot could maybe benefit from some of these responses I asked what do you wish your ecclesia would talk about more so we can take a little bit of time I took out just some of the highlights rather than putting so many responses like I did last time so you can just read through a bunch of these ideas these are kind of ones that I kept see I saw popping up a lot so maybe read through some of these and these are some ideas of maybe what we should be talking about more if we want young people to feel more engaged when they're at church and see why see and whatnot you and gave if we want to review these after the class it's in the link that you forwarded out to everyone yeah in that document it's a little bit of a funky format that it put all the results in to read through but so you can like copy and paste them into a document if you want to be able to read them easier but

yeah that sheet has all the answers and all the age groups and whatnot that answered certain ways and stuff so great thanks for doing that

you all right so does anybody have any thoughts about things and ideas that maybe pop out in these questions about what people wish we would talk about more a game I saw that one point about everyone kind of makes like they're invincible and that you know everybody's life is just easy and you know no problems with sin and I remember thinking a similar thing growing up in the Sunday school that you know the brothers and sisters were they were all just right and I was the one with the problem I was the one who had these struggles and and as I got older I realized and got to know people kind of to your point about talking with the older members that under that veneer are are very vulnerable people that have real struggles the same struggles that have and yeah there it's been mentioned before that as you get older you become even more aware of them because you are growing in the truth hopefully and you realize just how flawed you know we see just how flawed we are as human beings and how much we need Jesus yeah so that one kind of stuck out to me mm-hmm yeah for sure I think a big thing like um trying to figure out how to formulate this but like yeah it's really good to try and build relationships with people by talking to them and stuff outside of church doing stuff that's kind of what we talked about a little last week and a lot of these people are saying they like every um at church it feels more like a performance and whatnot and it's kind of harder to realize that people are real people normal people that have problems so

it's definitely a lot easier to um I'm just kind of thinking out loud at this point yeah it's definitely a lot easier to um to like be vulnerable and whatnot in an individual setting talking one-on-one that kind of thing but I think when people are up speaking and whatnot and in those settings I think it's definitely really important to try and maybe take more steps to be more open because that can that can give people what because people might not necessarily know anybody in the ecclesia that well so that can give people a uh a realization that oh these people are normal maybe that can initiate some conversations and whatnot stuff like that does anybody have any thoughts about that like vulnerability and talking about struggles and whatnot in like the public setting versus in private yeah definitely makes it more memorable yeah I think um Gabe even you know the challenges for young people with their struggles uh

the the older members are in a similar position I think it's it is difficult to even go to uh anyone with a struggle because sometimes there's embarrassment there or there's just you don't want to have that veneer gone about the way your people think your life is so it's probably something we could all work on to you know we're we're told to confess our faults one to another and there is healing in that because um

you know I see Jim Sullivan nodding his head because I know if I went to Jim the last thing he would do to me is you know snicker about it or oh boy can you believe the problem Jason has no I I really do believe that Jim would wholeheartedly help me and so I guess that's the kind of camaraderie or interworking that we need to make sure we foster between all of our members young and old and it comes down to your point about vulnerability you have to be vulnerable um when you have a problem if you want to get help or if you want to talk it through with someone yeah a really good quote I heard kind of about that this is a little bit of a side but it was um joy shared is double the joy and sorrow shared is half the sorrow when you share it with somebody I think that's a nice little quote that kind of summarizes why it's important to like ask for help when you need it and that sort of idea does anybody else have any ideas of things that stuck out to people about creating a safe space um so people can talk about I think that requires more informal settings maybe going on like together campfire and saying yeah people can chat around the camp yeah if there's no safe space yeah go ahead Richard yeah um I think the more that we get to know the brothers and the sisters we're able to uh we're more apt to go to them if we have any problem or we want to confine uh I don't uh maybe I'm trying to write uh brother Jason you just said if you you knew you want to brother Jim that he would help you and so I'm saying to myself that's because yeah you're more familiar with him than I think with someone else and I know that's the case with me um where we should be able to go to everybody but let's like you said let's play just face it uh for me it is uh getting familiar with all of our brothers and sisters and uh that that's it for me thanks Richard can I make a comment brother Jason and yes please do Linda good to see you in this conversation uh just one thing that I'd like to emphasize I think uh it's been said and I it's easier to speak one-on-one than in an ecclesial setting you know so it's good to have people over or you know to their home or something the other thing if people are feeling vulnerable um confidentiality is huge if people talk to you about a problem that they've got even if it seems like a non-issue to you keep it to yourself don't go and discuss oh I was talking to so-and-so and they've got this problem I think confidentiality really if if you break that you break the relationship so I think it's really important to keep what you even if you're for help from somebody else don't refer to the situation that would identify anything you know I just think confidentiality is a really important thing thank you yeah that's a great point Linda Linda once once trust is broken um that's very very hard to repair yeah definitely a good point when putting together this survey I had to make sure that everything was anonymous and a couple people asked that I didn't share their responses with everybody so I kind of deleted them from the thing but a lot of it was along the same lines as what we see here and I had to make sure to like remove any kind of identifying information that people so that people could kind of figure out who was saying what not that I don't know think anybody here would try and do that but that's kind of an important thing to do just because that way you get more open responses like this versus a little bit more guarded responses if they knew everybody would know who said it yeah all right so the next unless anybody else has any more comments we could kind of go all night on just one section so along those lines Gabe I occasionally get um from work what they call anonymous surveys and I'm very hesitant to fill them out because I kind of doubt they're anonymous they usually about your manager or you know something going on in the company and this there's been some funny things that go around work you know you just filled out the anonymous survey and then you go into work and then you manage is kind of looking at you with the stink eye yeah yeah you definitely have to none of those surveys are ever anonymous never as someone has put out surveys and someone who was married to an hr guru they are never anonymous all right good to know I once I once had a guy that almost got fired for an anonymous survey I filled out they thought he had okay so moving on um so the next question I asked people is kind of along the same lines of what you wish people would talk about more because a lot of people said talk about your struggles and so the next question I asked was what is your biggest struggle so kind of keep this in mind when you're talking to young people this is the kind of issues that they're dealing with so we can spend a little bit of time going through these you

um

you

you

you all right so hopefully you all had a little bit of time to read through maybe not all of them but some of them so did anybody see any big themes popping up

throughout these I think there's a lot of different kind of more individual things that everybody's going through but a big one that I noticed popping up over and over and over again was people who are not baptized just like either not knowing if they're ready to get baptized or feeling pressure to get baptized I don't know if you guys noticed that that's what I saw popping up most anybody else have any other things that they saw maybe popping up online

first with that one Gabe I can tell you a quick story at sister Lizzie Hampton's baptism she made what I thought was a really exceptional point because she was struggling to make the decision to be baptized and the way she put it was she said she kept waiting for that aha moment to take place and she said it and it wasn't until she realized that it wasn't going to take place that she decided to be baptized and I think sometimes we get the idea that some sort of like you know Apple's gonna land on my head or something and all of a sudden it's all gonna be clear now and for some people there is that moment but for a lot of us that's not really the way it is it's a developing process and I think we could probably do a better job helping young people understand that

it doesn't necessarily work that way but it's still the greatest decision you can make in your life

Mm-hmm

anybody else see anything that popped out to them yeah go

ahead sorry no no I

kind of an interesting response and I can think when I was younger that that was that was a bit of an issue and I guess it wasn't it was because what's it really thinking about you know immortality but thinking about this life extending forever and ever and it really wasn't much of a something to look forward to and I just wonder whether that's what this person was feeling yeah

yeah it's kind of hard to tell without a really detailed response but that's

definitely something I've heard a couple different people say is like the idea of living forever and whatnot seems really either really boring or really scary and not knowing what to think about that and I think that's fair like we're we have earthly minds right now we can't really comprehend eternity that well but yeah I'm not really sure what to say to people like that that are dealing with that but yeah

yeah yeah question about what to do if it comes up quite often stay tuned when I give my talk engine because well it was in response to a bunch of young people asking me exactly that question and for transparency you have to say I've given this talk before to a bunch of Clesias in Southern California so it's not brand new but that is a very serious question and one person said one couple of young people said to me I think I'd rather be dead for eternity than bored for eternity that's a it's really something to it is a serious question so anyway and I don't pretend to have all the answers but it

will be a good shot at it I think the other thing you know we had a good talk during the week and I'm really I think it's pretty impressive what you found because without being without this kind of information and being serious taking it seriously it's hard to plan what to do about it and we certainly you know certainly it's a real worry because what you're showing us here is I don't know how many of these young people you surveyed are gonna be in the truth five years from now mm-hmm and that really really worries me yeah

yeah go ahead Richard I am we call talking to a few people in regards to

the things that are seen and the things that are unseen not seen I remember talking to some individuals and it came up that this person came into a lot of money and I was at a pet store and I knew the people pretty well and the owner said how would you like to be this person they

came into 13 million dollars and I said oh I said that's a good thing I say but if that's all that they have to look at and I said two things are going to happen with that person they're either going to spend all that money or either they're going to die and leave it to somebody else and myself coming from out there in the world being a musician my goal was to be a superstar I could have been one of Vincent's sad men because I taught him harmony and theory and I realized that

when I came to the there was four twenty lessons by the time I got to the 13 lessons of the format on the gospel I knew I had something I made up my mind I could either be glorified now out there in Hollywood and dying that's it or I can give that up and get eternal life and I had no problem with that I sold my eight thousand dollar organ that I waited all my life for and I had no problem with that in fact Lorna and her mother took me to the people that bought the organ off but my point is is that I think that once one realizes what life is all about which comes through the gospel the good news of the kingdom of God and so forth on the earth and so forth and that day is coming and we believe the word of God yeah I have no problem with that at all thanks Richard Ellen I noticed you were had your hand up before I actually was it was the one about living forever that also I noticed a couple people said it that it sounded scary what would you even do for eternity why would I spend that time and that's a problem that our son talks about that he struggles with like I because I don't think he can see beyond the world the way it is now as to what it will be like and and that's a hard thing for a lot of people to to envision if you don't if you don't have that you know you don't have that vision of the future and and it's very ambiguous in the Bible is as to what it is going to be and to then say you know what why would I why would I want that you know I'm struggling with this world with this life why would why would I want to keep doing it yeah so I think that's a very very real thing you know if I can thank you and if I can point out one other thing on your survey Gabe that I noticed it's this idea with young people and I I've heard it before too that is this sense of not feeling like they're growing you

know they're young the truth they've just been baptized they've gone through that remarkable experience of you know going down on the water and coming up and then in a short period of time they start to realize that you know in many respects they're the same character and so they see the the struggles and think oh well I'm failing I think it's important for us to when you talk about older brethren being I think it's important for them to know two things really that one that faith is a struggle that's what it is and that to what you're working towards is the hope that overcomes the struggle it never never fully overcomes it but as you get older you start to lean more and more as you grow in your faith on trusting that God is a gracious God more than I have to be better we all have to be better but it becomes God's grace and mercy and God's love for you that that takes over and I think we needed to do a better job of getting that point across to our young people who look at what they're trying to do and just feel like oh I just I just can't do it yeah

on the note of what will we do for eternity there was somebody I was talking to who was struggling that we're gonna be like the angels and there won't be any more marriage and for them relationship was everything so they're like if there's no more marriage do I even want to be in this kingdom so my thought for them was just that God who created the joy of marriage and any other joy you can think of he's able to do more than we can think or imagine and the kingdom is going to be greater than that and just trying to give them that thought on it that we have a great God and awesome God and the kingdom is going to be beyond what we can think of what a wonderful point yes

I would like to say a few words about growth that Jim was talking about and that all boils down to our founding fathers the two demigods are JT and Bob and they have set up a system that is based on Greek meaning I talk you and things work and we need to break free of that and

we need to be fixed a lot more flexible than we currently are and that will help so much more I want to give an example of Henry Sully now a lot of people will know that he wrote the book Ezekiel's temple and he put together some

some wonderful pictures that we all use around North America Australia New Zealand etc well he was the an expert architecture for a living all these sorts of things and we all that he knew what he was talking about but it was all all fiction there are at least 12 significant points in his writings that indicate that this temple that he drew is not going to happen at all not even close and but the point is if we look up to him as being an expert that what he says was right and we do that to JT and Bob as well and I won't say who JT and Bob are because if you know me you'll know who they are those that we we consider experts or

a point of authority in each of our pleasures when they're not and they are struggling just like the rest of us that's that's what I want to say thanks for that Phil

I guess we can move on to the next question we kind of went over a little bit last last Wednesday when we were kind of rushing to a conclusion but we asked I asked do you see yourself staying in the crystal community into your adult life about 60% of people said yes and about 32% of people said they don't know or something along those lines and then 8% of people said no they're probably going to leave I think that's a very kind of sad very sobering

thought but also kind of hopeful like 60% of these people that have all these doubts and frustrations that they're expressing here are still committed they still like earlier we talked about is your faith your own or your parents they still think it's their own faith and they're committed we just have to work on doing more of that and so that these this other 40 % of people will be able to

feel like they can

feel like they're going to stay and they have something to contribute and all that so for the people who answer that they other they don't know this is the responses that they gave of why they're not sure if they're gonna stay in the crystal community can maybe give a couple minutes to

read these and then move on you

all right does anybody have any thoughts on these couple responses from the 40% people that don't know if they're gonna stay crystal if you know not I don't know I can tell you gave from experience that from what I found the vast majority of people that don't stay don't leave over doctrine they leave over how they feel they were treated it's almost it's almost always the fence it's very very I just don't believe it has happened but it's extremely rare because I'm gonna say I just don't believe the doctrines anymore it's all about relationships and feeling isolated and one person said their father died by the way that they were they were treated I'm not sure what that situation is but it's almost always relationships and mistreatment coldness yeah yeah I feel like yeah that's reflected in these responses is a lot of people say that they agree with the doctrines there is only one person that said they didn't actually believe anymore but everybody else pretty much agrees with the doctrines they just have problems with the community part of it and I think that's really sad cuz like people go through so much just out in the world it's a hard enough life on its own church is supposed to be like a family a place where we can come to

rejuvenate and be ready to go out and face the world not a place that you have to recover from every time you go I feel like that's reflected in a lot of these responses and that's really sad you're absolutely right hopefully our Ecclesiast isn't like that I think it's a lot better than some but we can there's always room to improve anybody else have any thoughts on this before we move on I hi Dave this is Andy I was thinking you know listening to all of this and all of the needs of young people as well as you know everyone has their different struggles but it really seems that what we have to focus on other fruits of the spirit and

it just seems like it's all connected you know being kind yeah helpful and loving and gentle and caring and to get people through struggles and to get people through challenges or doubts or hopelessness or trauma and I think I

think if we start there yeah you know it will be easy to move forward

people will always let you down I think we have to make God big in our lives the problem the children of Israel had when they saw their enemies was we were like grasshoppers in their sight they saw themselves as being very small we are other people are small they can't help you to the extent that we would like them to but we have to make God big in our life it's God that's the emphasis and the center of our belief not the people around us now I'm not sure how you get that across to young people but I think it's an important thing to get across somehow that people will always let you down we don't have all the answers yeah we can't do it our reliance is on God for everything yeah I think that definitely um I think a lot of people would definitely agree with that because like this thing says sixty percent of people say they do want to stay and and so I assume those people because they all listed mostly complaints in this survey there's very few positive things in here but those people still said they want to stay so I think that sixty percent is probably a group that does think that and does understand that like don't judge God by the people who claim to follow him but it's this group right here this thirty percent or forty percent that still doesn't know that's still trying to figure that out that we need to reach I think the best way we can do that is by trying being better at which is really hard like you know it's easy to say oh yeah we just need to be better at following the freaks of the spirit and being loving and representing God better but that's what we need to do mainstream

Christianity churches like small groups to help people with certain issues and I think in Christodelfia land we're kind of lacking in that kind of area maybe it's because we're smaller I don't know don't have enough resources yeah

I'd like to introduce something here okay I think once one

knows the complete plan purpose of God the gospel for me it's will you also leave and good old Peter said where should we go Lord we'll show you out the crash and have the word of eternal life and well I think for me that's one of the that's the main key coming from the life that I came from knowing that I was going down to road to death now I'm on the road to life well I'm not going to go back to where I came from so for me that's that's that's the key for me

I think we need Richard we need to get people to where you are that's the problem that's not where these people are they're not they're not talking to people in Walmart about their beliefs that's what we're that's what our goal is to get people feeling that they have something that they need to share and these kids are struggling I remember when my my kids that are in their 30s there was something called the youth summit Katie went to it I think it was a Garfield and they actually had wasn't just classes but it was like participation things and they were talking about the hard stuff the things that people dealt with the porn the sex the drugs the things that nobody wants to talk about that's what the whole summit and I think there was a series of them I think I think there was three summits and at the time I thought it was amazing that that was done and put together and maybe that that's something that needs to come back yeah can I jump in just because David has something to yeah go ahead sorry that's fine Jim Jason could I make a comment yeah absolutely David go ahead I think one thing we should remember is that young people are still formulating what their life is gonna be like and they're making comparisons all the time between what their friends do and how their friends live or what opportunities you're in the world and what seem attractive and what doesn't seem attractive so they haven't really fully formed an opinion on what their life should be like but I think we can help them with that by promoting being a Christian being a Christadelphian if you want to use that term there's a lifestyle that's positive it's a direction that's the lifestyle that gives you strength to make proper decisions and and I don't think we promote that enough that you know be it's a lifestyle that is very uplifting and and I think that we and you can we can use our own personal examples to promote that kind of an idea I know like well that's one of the things that drew me to the Christadelphians as many many years ago was that I I saw it as a way to make myself a better person and and through them and through an understanding of the scriptures and that doesn't come overnight you have to work at it but you can build yourself up by by following what the Bible teaches and using Jesus as your example thank you thanks for that David great points all right so let's move on to so we I asked them just their final thoughts to see if they had anything else left to say and yeah these are kind of I just put a couple of them up here to kind of represent it what people are saying you

yeah so those are just a couple different responses I saw for people's final thoughts does anybody have any thoughts on these before we move on to the last section I don't know if we're gonna have time to finish but I'm sorry to keep commenting but there's one thing that I know this points out regularly and it warms my heart is how much young people like gatherings whether it's the weekends or the Bible schools or you know the softball weekend that just had and all that kind of stuff I think it really helped them to be connected and yeah it's something that has developed and grown over the years in our community way more than even when I started going back in the 90s so I think when you talk about positives it's a definite positive yeah and as an ecclesia we should we should you know encourage as strong as we can our young people baptized or unbaptized to get out to these weekends because you know your family knows my kids know it's it's a it's a strengthening experience for sure yeah I know that was a big help in my life Bible schools that was it 1980 to about what till I got well anyway many years and like you said it's uplifting and I just couldn't wait to the next one came yeah

for sure that's definitely one of the highlights of the year for me it's going to Bible schools going to youth weekends and gatherings and stuff like that

yes yes yeah all right so yeah we got about four minutes left I don't know if I'll have time to get into the ex Christadelphian responses but

um let's

see yeah I guess we can quickly go through these there's there was only about six people that I sent it to that filled it out for that and so then so we don't have as many responses to go through but they're a lot longer and more detailed so suppose we can spend a little bit of time on this going through this question so the questions I asked were what were your reasons for leaving I asked do you think the Christo delfin community provided a healthy space for you to work through your issues with it I asked what do you think Christo delfin can do better and then I asked um what do you miss the most after leaving what do you absolutely not miss would you consider ever coming back and what were your final thoughts so those were the questions I asked we can probably won't have time to get through all the all those questions but you can read some of these responses I have a question I think that for me if I'm in a place where I don't think that I like I'm gonna leave it yeah and uh try to find something better but it's like um what uh brother Peter said to Christ where should I go I mean I I came from out there so I know what the world is all about and I'm not my problems uh as far as the world is concerned I don't have any problems while the world is because there's nothing out there for me that's where I came from and it's here with the brothers in Christ and uh so many other things running through my mind but I'll just leave it there where else can we go

we don't have the vision uh the people perish yeah hey Gabe this is Sandy again um I'm thinking just to you know we we can't imagine what the kingdom is like because we're not told exactly what it's going to be like we can't imagine what perfect love is because we're not we haven't yet and we're not told what it's like but um I think that if if we can have a vision if we can know that yeah living a life in Christ is beautiful and helpful and healing and you know it can be a good life it can be a happy life it can be exciting and having things to look forward to and you know make it like yeah it is good it is a good life to have God in your life and know that he has mercy on you and forgiveness and um it's hard because I you know I've never had an inkling of doubt in my mind growing up in the meeting and it's hard for me to even think of wanting to be someplace else or wanting to look for something else and yeah but there are people that are thinking that and maybe we need to just you know explain that yeah it can be a positive you can have a positive life living in a Christ-like life it doesn't have to be um

yeah I'm not sure yeah for sure Thanks for that Cindy. Gabe we're at uh 8 30 you want to take another five minutes and then we'll wrap up can do you think you can get through um does that give you enough time? Sure I don't think we have enough time to go through everybody's responses but yeah I guess just to end it off but if you want to take another five minutes or so I think uh we've got the time for that all right just you don't have to shut it down right now yeah yeah I can take five minutes I have some final questions I was going to go through that I put out other than their responses oh you're not sure okay all right so now that we've kind of had some time to think about this read through all these responses here what what's going through everyone's minds what's going through some young people's minds people that are still here people that have left we haven't really gotten good to the people who have left but um what do you does anybody have we kind of had two weeks to look at this does anybody have any like practical ideas that can help like everything we talked about either like promoting vulnerability keeping youth connected helping expand the roles of young people baptized and unbaptized male and female like what can we do to help all of that to help keep people connected invested just kind of any brainstorming ideas we can throw in here the word of god the scriptures which is able to make what was in the salvation as the president general always says I can do all things in grad it's I think for me it's called study studying the word what else is it that outside of the scripture I mean I know we all know that but I can our faith grow and be strong outside of the word of god I think a good first step for me gabe is to maybe take a little bit more time on sunday to talk to you and to talk to the other young people and learn a little bit more about your interests and you learn a little bit more about me and and um you know when when my kids were and we went to uh CYC we always had to train the kids that would come up to the different study days and it was a natural connection because my my kids were friends with all the CYC kids so it made it so easy to to talk to these kids and so I think for me that's a an effort that I need to put in is is just to take the time to build those relationships um with the young people yeah there's been a couple of comments um in the course of this too I think Ellen talked about um some kind of a summit uh that they had done in the past another thing I think that is really big that a couple people commented on that we as speakers and teachers and older people can really emphasize is the the point that Cindy made about making God larger um and and letting the young people get to work with them to try to get out of this sphere of me me uh has to get better and make God bigger in their lives it's really what a life of faith in many respects is all about is making God bigger in your life I must I must increase and I must decrease as John the Baptist put it and I think that's something that we as an Ecclesia and I think every Ecclesia uh should emphasize more uh to the young people yeah summer camping trip yeah we're at we're at 8 35 and uh I'm sure people will want to stay on and continue this discussion and and brainstorm Gabe I really want to thank you for having the really to put this survey together taking the time and really having the perception and the understanding that um this is a value when we I feel we needed this to uh just help us and uh so thank you for taking the time to do this and presenting two classes I know it's a tremendous amount of work