Talk among ourselves

This summer I worked as an intern for Disciples Peace Fellowship. Every week I traveled to a different church camp somewhere in the United States. In addition to being a regular counselor, I also led workshops and discussions on relevant peace and social justice issues. I have wanted to be a peace intern since I first met one at my own camp my freshman year of high school, so I was thrilled that I was finally old enough to apply and was then selected as an intern. I knew the summer was going to be challenging, exciting, and probably life-changing. Little did I know that it was going to shape how I crafted my HELM leadership covenant for this year.

Freshman year I attended a couple of different campus ministries, trying to find the right fit for me. I finally settled upon the United Methodist/Protestant community because it was the only group on campus I felt most identified with my commitment to integrating faith and social justice work. I was also drawn to how inclusive the community was to all people. For the last two years I have been coordinating its social justice ministry. Coordinating everything has been increasingly difficult and frustrating, and I was not sure at the beginning of the summer that I wanted to continue with the same project for this year.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect has been that many members who have joined over the last couple of years have been more conservative than our community has traditionally been. This has led to some pushback on justice issues, arguments over which topics to select, and lots of hurt feelings about how decisions are made. In the past, I've thought of the justice ministry as more of an outreach program to the wider campus community, but my experience from this summer has shown me how there still may be a lot of intentional discussion to be had within our own group.

This summer, every camp was completely different. The youth all had different experiences and opinions coming from parents, school, counselors, peers, and church, meaning I was constantly dealing with very different political and religious views. I had to take all of this into account and was thus constantly changing how I led my workshops and discussions. My goals began to shift from being able to deliver a very specific message about peace to being able to have an open dialogue that got people thinking, knowing the conversation may not end up anywhere close to where I intended originally. I had to start where other people were and go from there; I couldn't necessarily explain everything or drastically change anybody's mind.

Going into this academic year, I have decided to try to apply this to my justice coordinator position. Instead of trying to program events to focus on a specific message, I want there to be lots of room for discussion and difference. I realized that if we are going to actually be more inclusive than the other groups we claim to be so different from, then we need to find ways to balance difference while still being prophetic. Sometimes, it is necessary to be the most prophetic voice out there. Sometimes, it is more important to make sure all voices can be heard. Who knows? Maybe leading open conversations within our own community will make us the most prophetic after all.