Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion

I came with greetings from another ‘branch’ of the worldwide Anglican family: those of us called to serve as provincial youth officers or advisers.

In meeting with you all I came to understand even more what being a part of this Anglican family can mean: our interconnectedness is quite amazing; I sat down for dinner with one of your delegates – Rt Revd Eliphaz Maari – only to discover that he is a good friend of my own parish priest. Being part of the worldwide Anglican family certainly is something to cherish and you constantly rediscover the significance and importance of that.

2. As Provincial Youth Adviser and I engage with colleagues across the Anglican Communion who hold similar roles and who share a passionate concern for young people and young adults - a concern that shared by all of you at within CUAC. Our concern is for the nurture and development of young people, for giving them opportunities to learn and grow as citizens in the communities where they live, work, play or study, opportunities to learn and grow, also, in their faith.

3. However, the contexts in which we work are different. For us as Youth Officers/Advisers the context is very much parochial, diocesan, and provincial. Those we support and guide are youth ministers or youth workers. The work that we do is often described as faith development and informal social education. Our context is very much Church and Community. I suspect that as fellow professionals serving young people our methodologies are similar and we draw on our skills in counselling, group work, teaching and facilitating learning.

In a professional sense, then, we might claim also to be part of the same family or at least close cousins!!

4. As provincial Youth Officers/Advisers across the Anglican Communion we have in place a support and resource network that brings us together and upholds us in our ministry:

The International Anglican Youth Network (IAYN)

This is a formal network of the Anglican Communion which is made to work by the commitment of one or two key people. For us in IAYN one of those key people is a colleague of Don Thompson’s at ECUSA - without their support our network would not be able to function.

5. IAYN brings together provincial Officers/Advisers and across and works in smaller regional support groups. We have taken the opportunity to respond to invitations to meet in different provinces: earlier this year we were invited to meet in Jerusalem and our next meeting is due to take place in Porto Allegre at the time of the WCC assembly. We endeavour to be active in supporting those involved in ministry with and for young people and state our aims as being to :

Raise the profile of youth work and youth ministry

Share resources amongst and provide support to youth workers

Develop and support young people in their ministry

Be advocates for young people and enable them to have a voice at all levels in the decision making in the church and community

6. This brings me to a point of invitation to you as members of CUAC and a request from my colleagues in IAYN.

At the IAYN steering group meeting in February we were mindful of your conference and also could see that in our respective ministries we are seeking to serve, and indeed do serve, the same cohort of young people: although in slightly different contexts and at different stages of their growth and development.

One of our concerns has been to take steps to encourage those planning the next Lambeth conference to think more seriously about how young adults might make a contribution. In 1998 the bishops made a pledge to meet with and listen to young adults and our feeling is that space at the next Lambeth conference needs to be given to allow Bishops and young people to say just how they have achieved that. I think there will be some good and interesting stories to hear.

7. I remain grateful for the opportunity to have joined you for part of your conference and hope that as a result :

you are more aware of the IAYN and the context in which we are working

invite you to link with us so that students from your institutions can play their part in IAYN

request that we look at ways of building and developing relationship between CUAC and IAYN for the mutual benefit of our respective ministries with and for young people.

Thank you for your time, thank you for listening, thank you for reading this.

I pray that your conference and time together was fruitful and of benefit to you all in.

Peter Ball
National Youth Adviser
Education Division
Church House
Gt Smith Street
London SW1P 3NZ

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