Resource

If you have never seen The Beloit College Mindset List, check it out. It was created to help professors understand where their students are coming from. http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/

new resource

There is an excellent article in the July-August 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review with a different slant about generational differences that I found engaging. It is based on longitudinal data gathered on influences on the market and on the workplace that identifies ways in which there seem to be patterns of the ways in which generational behaviors and values can be tracked over the long haul. Check it out at:

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0707B

Ruth

more points on young adults and CS

I've been thinking about this meeting, it was hard for me to participate because I could not see your faces. But I have a few thoughts to share:

Hiring young adults
In the last year we have seen growth of young adults on staff. This really is a new thing. Most of them are even empowered in some way as leaders. It used to be just me and Aaron, and two others who were working as Admin Assistants. By hiring more than one young adult you eventually bring more. Kim came from a connection from another young employee in WA ELCA. The two new staff in DC, Jon and Dan, basically came from me. But you have to hire more than one to get that snowball effect, and they can't be only in the lowest paygrade or interns, and should have opportunities for growth and leadership in their positions.

"Conservatives mentor new leaders, while progressives have interns"
This phrase keeps me up at night, and is from a chapter of a book called Born Again, the Christian Right Globalized. I am going to fax this chapter to Mike and hope that he passes it around the unit.

Start the network and database now
We all have young adults we work with, and their email addresses, what if we began to compile a database as it relates to CS/advocacy. Databases often grow faster than we think they will, and this will serve as a way to review our collective "assets". For example, I have the contact info of the 14 young adults we took to the Intl. AIDS Conference, and of a string of interns the office has had. This could be a starting point.

Have young adult only discussion on this topic
I think having this discussion again among the young adults of CS would generate different results, and that we should try it.

Support Kristen Glasses work
Because her capacity is so limited, if we focused on how we could help her efforts as they relate to social justice, this would make the best of our resources. Particularly, we should look at her ELCA young adult network on Facebook, and help her make it more active. Young people use facebook like crazy, and it has some unique capabilities.

New media opportunities

Thanks for a good meeting and a good starting blog post, Mike!

We have so many directions we can take right now. It's both frustrating and exciting.

One of the sources of info I rely on for new technologies and new ways people are connecting is a blog called Micro Persuasion. That's where I found the link to the article on the CDC and Second Life. I also often read Church Marketing Sucks, a blog aimed at provoking new ideas and clearer, more strategic communication from churches.

I think there's enormous and largely untapped potential in the new ways people are communicating, and it frustrates me greatly the glacial pace at which the church tends to move in those directions. When you look at the YouTube debate on CNN this past week, it's clear the power structure in communication is flipping from a hierarchy to a community model. We need to grab on to this - people want to talk to each other, not be talked at.

How can we move in this direction in the church?

WHY??

Let's continue the conversation... Some of you were much more disciplined in your note taking, but here is what I came away with from today's meeting:

- How do we bring young adults back to the church or keep them involved when many congregations take an adverse stance on involvement with social justice issues?

- How do we reach out to young people, both Lutheran and otherwise, who are not connected in some way to a faith community? (ie, through school, work, congregational membership, etc.)

Ideas for the group's direction:
- examine authority within the churchwide structure
- develop a list of small steps that can be taken to eliminiate organizational age-ism
- examine ELCA human resources policies
- sociograms
- training on relationships and relationship building
- examine the nine tactics in the strategic plan and find ways to unpack and give breath
- advocacy training events for young adults
- get young people involved, not observing, with CS events
- new ways of thinking about events: events are not the end-all-be-all
- sub-groups

What is the goal of this group? Where do we go from here? What are the next steps? Should we start trying some things and then figuring out if they worked? Or do we need to be a bit more strategic about planning things that are effective and easily examined?

Sub groups??
- Educational / training opportunities for young adults
- Young adults and the churchwide expression
- Social networking and other communication tactics with young adults
Which one do you like best? Which one inspires you?

AUTHENTIC -- GENUINE -- HONEST

Working with, through and for young adults must be done as something of mutual benefit. How can the work we do with young adults serve their needs and wants first and ours second? Or both equally?

Perhaps the most helpful thoughts that I took from the meeting are that: 1) there is incredible potential for this group and our other colleagues to be vehicles of change; 2) there is no single prescribed way to go about this work; 3) we are challenging ourselves and in turn challenging our colleagues to be accountable to the needs and desires of young people to be necessary participants in this work.

Well, everyone, this is Mike signing off. Sorry for the random ramblings. Let's get to work...