Kelly Sasser, Watts Street Baptist Church, "Mending (and Re-mending) Our Safety Nets"
Mending (and Re-mending) Our Safety Nets
--Kelly Sasser
Those of us committed to ministry with children and youth know that this work is both an awesome, sacred privilege and a terrifying responsibility. We are called not only to help our young people with faith formation but also to provide care for their physical, mental, and social well-being as they move through vulnerable, sometimes turbulent years in their development. At every point, we seek to provide ministries of care, nurture, protection, and support…embodying the words of Frederick Buechner, "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid."
Alongside of families, neighbors, schools, teams, and other community organizations, we do our best to weave together safety nets for the youth among us, with each strand hopefully representing another asset for healthy development. Some of the ways our congregation seeks to weave a safety net for the youth in our care include:
· Providing opportunities for music and art and creative expression
· Providing opportunities for youth leadership…where it’s safe to try something new and where you might discover your unique gifts, interests, talents, etc.
· Providing opportunities for service/learning…cultivating an outward focus and connecting with inspiring adults in the community who are making a positive impact
· Providing beloved traditions, consistent schedule, intentional structure, and leadership continuity…where youth know what to expect, can be themselves, and can develop trust, confidence, and ownership in the group
· Providing opportunities for fun, silliness, and relaxed time together…and a lot of that is around food, of course!
· Celebrating diversity (including neurodiversity) as a strength
· Creating and maintaining a welcoming and affirming space for LGBTQ+ youth
· Creating space to talk about the challenges in life (including mental health) and where questions are encouraged
· Encouraging the development of spiritual practices
· Providing a village of caring adults (Sunday School teachers, Small Group Leaders, Choir Directors, Retreat Chaperones, etc.)
· Providing opportunities for intergenerational fellowship (youth helping with children’s ministry, Youth and Parent Potlucks, Youth and Senior Adult Sweetheart Banquets, All Ages Beach Retreats, Wednesday night suppers/community time, etc.)
· Providing connections with resources in and outside of our congregation
· Providing circles of support and pastoral care for those in crisis
· Providing continuous expressions of affirmation, inclusion, community-building
· Surrounding all of our work with loving kindness, humor, patience, and grace
Doesn’t this list sound wonderful? Doesn’t this sound like the kind of safety net we would want to provide for all young people? And yet, even with all these assets, some of our youth may still struggle…
· Not all youth who participate feel included (even when we try to focus on inclusion)
· Our youth are dealing with competing voices (family, friends, social media, culture, etc.) who do not always offer healthy support
· Our youth are dealing with maxed-out schedules (school, sports, music, jobs, family responsibilities, social lives, etc.)
· Our youth are dealing with traumatic effects of the pandemic
· Our youth are dealing with the yet-to-be-fully understood effects of growing up with near constant use of screens/devices
· Our youth are dealing with the anxiety-producing effects of the 24-hour news cycle
· Our youth are dealing with the overwhelming realities of the climate crisis, racism and discrimination, hatefulness, a divisive and broken political system, gun violence and school shootings, devastating wars, etc.
· The number of youth experiencing anxiety, depression, and other mental health diagnoses has risen dramatically in the last 12 years.
As we mend and re-mend our safety nets, we remember that, by definition, a net will always have holes. So, we exercise grace with ourselves and keep doing our best. We keep mending our nets and adding new strands – because what we are doing does help. We do what we can and look to God for wisdom and guidance for what is beyond us. And then we stay ready to respond when one of our beloved youth slips through the safety net and into crisis. We make ourselves available and put on our listening ears. If given the permission to do so, we surround that young person and their family with love and prayers and resources and connections and circles of support. It is an awesome, sacred privilege and a terrifying responsibility to be invited into these spaces. And this is the work to which we are called!
Kelly Sasser (he/him/his)
Minister with Youth and Community Life
Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham
Kelly has been a staff minister at Watts Street Baptist Church since 2003. He is married to Elizabeth and they are the proud parents of their teenage daughter, Wren. Kelly has worked in youth ministry for 32 years, continues to find great fulfillment in this ministry, still looks forward to Sunday Night Youth Group, weekend retreats, and service/learning experiences, and is still learning new things along the way!
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