Grace-Red River Parish is among 10 parishes chosen to in pilot youth ministry program “Formation Co-op”

HEADLINE: Grace-Red River Parish is among first of 10 parishes chosen to participate in churchwide pilot youth ministry program “Formation Co-op”

By Pastor Devlyn Brooks

HALLOCK and KENNEDY, Minn. -- Like many church congregations across the country during the COVID pandemic, the youth ministries at Grace Lutheran Church in Hallock and Red River Lutheran Church near Kennedy maybe didn’t quite go off the rails, but let’s just say the conductor was concerned.

“Not much youth ministry was happening” in the post-COVID years, says Pastor Megan Graves, who has led the joint Grace-Red River Lutheran Parish for the past three years in her second call.

Graves came from a first call in Iowa, along with her husband, Andy, who coincidentally was called as a pastor in neighboring Sion Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Minn.

Complicating matters on top of the pandemic, of course, was Grace-Red River Lutheran Parish’s pastoral transition, which ultimately brought them Pastor Graves, but also contributed to a short-term ministerial inconsistency before her arrival.

So the circumstances were extenuating.

“As what has happened in youth ministry, a lot of places took a hit during COVID, and (we also were affected) because of a pastoral transition,” said Pastor Graves. “Confirmation still happened, but youth group completely stopped. (The youths’) knowledge and engagement with church was impacted by a lack of programming and outreach to them.”

So in summer 2023, when Pastor Graves learned of a new churchwide youth ministry-focused pilot program being hosted by the ELCA Children, Youth and Family Ministry Network in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and funded by the Lilly Endowment, she jumped at the opportunity to apply for her parish to be part of the program’s first cohort, which formed last year.

The program, known as the “Formation Co-Op” aims to “explore new frameworks for youth ministry in order to root young people in a lifelong and transformative faith in Jesus,” according to the program’s website. “We believe this work is best done in a collaborative community of co-learners and co-creators, sharing with and learning from each other.”

Congregations that are interested, however, aren’t just granted access to the pilot program. They must first go through a rigorous application process before ever being accepted into a cohort with other churches that come from all over the country.

“I heard about it through the ELCA Youth Ministry network Facebook group,” Pastor Graves said. “I thought no way is my little parish, up here in the northwest corner of Minnesota, going to get picked.”

To prepare for the application process, the parish formed a youth ministry team that would ultimately lead them through this process.

“This had to be a truly congregational experience,” Pastor Graves said. “So our team at the parish is made up of myself, one member from Grace, one person from Red River, and one youth.”

She said that 55 congregations applied for the program’s first cohort last year, and to her surprise, Grace-Red River Parish was approved to move onto the first step in the process, a live interview.

At that stage, doubt crept in again, she said, as she remembers thinking: “Oh we won’t make it to the second step. And then we did get interviewed. And then I thought, "Oh, we won’t go onto the next step, and we did!”

And then reality really hit when Grace-Red River Parish was chosen among only 10 ELCA churches nationwide in the first cohort of the pilot program.

Once accepted, the parish’s youth ministry got down to work and started meeting in earnest.

As part of the process, they were assigned a youth ministry mentor, who happens to be a youth faith formation director at an ELCA church in Mora, Minn., to work with them throughout the two-year pilot program.

Additionally, Grace-Red River Parish was assigned a sister parish in Yankton, S.D., to work through the program together with them, also assigned to Coach “Kelly” from Mora.

The churches and their coach all meet monthly on video calls to talk about faithful youth ministry practices, youth ministry research and to trade ideas about what each of the churches is doing to improve the youth ministry experience.

“Coach Kelly also visited the parish here in Hallock and Kennedy in November 2023 to work with them in person.

The two most tangible efforts the parish’s youth ministry team has undertaken since being chosen in the pilot project were, one, to begin listening sessions with various segments of key stakeholders in their parish, and in their communities.

“At the heart of our work is deep listening: to each other, to youth, to our congregation, to our community,” states the “Formation Co-op” website.

And two, Pastor Graves and one of her adult leaders were fortunate to attend an in-person training at a national get-together in January 2024 just prior to the ELCA's Children, Youth, and Family annual youth ministry Extravaganza.

“We’ve been sitting down with the community, and people in our congregations to discuss their experiences with youth ministry,” Pastor Graves said. “We've been asking questions such as: ‘Why does church even matter to you? What are our obstacles and assets in youth ministry? Who can we partner with others in our community to do youth ministry?’”

Pastor Graves said they also emphasized meeting with their youth to ask for their input, including a special listening session for fifth- and sixth-graders, one for seventh- through ninth-graders and even a group for 10th- through 12th-graders as well. 

They’ve also met with the churches’ Bible study groups, the youths’ parents in the churches, and various community groups, including area sports coaches.

“Then as we were progressing with our listening sessions, in January, one member of the team and myself went to a training in New Orleans before the Extravaganza,” Pastor Graves said. “Unfortunately, our first flight out of Fargo got canceled, and we couldn’t get a new flight for two days. So for the first couple of days, we had to listen to the conference through Zoom. But we still got to go and be in person, and work through the training on the last couple of days.”

In total, in about a year’s worth of participation in the program, the Grace-Red River Parish ministry team has written a vision statement for its youth ministry; has, in conjunction with its community partners, identified what they think is the most pressing youth ministry problem; and they’ve developed a youth ministry plan to address the problems. 

“That’s where we are at; we continue to mentor monthly,” said Pastor Graves. 

The youth ministry team identified the parish’s lack of involvement by youth in grades 10th through 12th as its most pressing problem.

“It’s not the only struggle we have, but through holding that up as our most pressing issue, we are looking to connect those kids into the congregation, and not just through youth group,” Pastor Graves said. “So we have talked about a Bible study specifically for them. Or worship time just for them.”

She said the ministry team set as their goals to have three separate adult interactions with each youth each month. Additionally, she said, the team is striving to each month involve the older youth in the church’s worship conversation in at least one way, whether that be in reading liturgy during the service, playing music during worship, attending worship, Bible study, or some other way.

For instance, during this past Lent in February, the youths were required to sit with a mentor during the church’s meal before worship on Wednesday nights. 

We want to build a web of support around our youth, connect them,” she said.

Grace-Red River officially started participating in the pilot program in August 2023, and they will be enrolled through May 2025.

“This second year will live out what we created in the ministry program,” she said. “But we will be continuing to learn. We were told to expect to fail a lot, but we will learn from failure. It’s been exciting to be part of the program: Hearing from the kids about what they struggle with. There’s a lot of space between what their life looks like and when I was their age.

“We want to hear from them about what is important to the youth, rather than presuming we know what they face,” she continued. “A lot of what we hear from them is that they want to be involved; they want to help out with things. They enjoy it, and they want to be there and they want to experience it. So that momentum is exciting!”

The team’s work is far from done.

Even 11 months into the program, they are still preparing what their full youth ministry program will look like. Once that is completed, they’ll begin communicating that to the two congregations and look for their buy-in.

“As pastor, working with the team, and hearing from congregation members, I am reminded about how grateful I am to be here. There are a lot of great people with vision and put their heart and soul into this place. Yes, we struggle as everybody does with having enough volunteers, the same people doing everything. Things all congregations deal with in their own way. I sense the Holy Spirit here,” Pastor Graves said. “Though the gospel never changes, and the truth of Jesus never changes, the ways we live that out and we experience that do change. And in youth ministry in particular, what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working for several years.”

For more information, visit the “Formation Co-op” website at: https://www.elcaymnet.org/formationco-op