The Young Leaders Colab

Exploring faith and life

The team of Youth Pastors in the Parish of St. John’s have been on a deeply transformative journey over the last 3 years, much because of our time at the SJLA. Questions about discipleship, faithfulness and context have emerged, and together we have wrestled with what it means to follow Jesus faithfully in a fragmented city like Cape Town. The important role of leadership has come into sharper focus for us and in our wrestle we have discovered that leadership requires an address, it has to find location somewhere and has to be an active practice of action and reflection. As a team we recognised the need to be having these conversations with our young people as an imperative of our discipleship task. We recognised the need to foster spaces where young leaders could consider how their faith in Jesus helped them and us navigate really significant social challenges within our society. Our picture of God has certainly expanded over the last few years, our relationships have deepened and we are discovering healthy ways to collaborate as we pursue being one Parish with multiple stories.

This journey is what we wanted to invite others on, a journey that would deepen our theological reflection and grow our discipleship. This was essentially the start of the Young Leaders Colab, a 14 week leadership journey for those 16 – 22. YLC was birthed out of the desire to grow young leaders in community. We designed and covered 5 modules that included exploring our stories, unpacking the idea of collaborative leadership and considering the significance and process of critical thinking. We also looked at the spiritual practise of friendship and explored ways to foster a new imagination. The rhythm of meetings meant that we met for two consecutive weeks and then had an off week – so as not to rush the process but to create time for reflection. Every week we gathered (online) we started our time together looking at the life of Jesus and in particular , we camped in the Gospel of Luke reflecting on 10 movements of Jesus growing a deeper and more faithful picture of discipleship and the call to follow him here in our world.

25 young leaders joined the YLC journey from across the Parish and St. Peters. It was a mixed group of people from across socio-economic, cultural, racial and gender divides. It meant that young leaders could reflect on their own experiences in this city but also that of others – could share about their communities and the schools they attend and places they frequent and explore their own theology and how that influences how they live in this world. For us this was only the beginning of a long walking together in discipling and growing leaders for a City in great contestation. In the midst of a very trying and challenging year, these 14 weeks brought me great delight and hope. I am so thankful for the Youth Pastors team in this Parish – we do have some really phenomenal (younger) leaders: who think deeply, who love God above all else, who are actively discipling others in their following of Jesus and who want to be faithful in their leading in this city. It is beautiful to bear witness to their formation.

Blessings

Keegan Davids

Parish Youth Pastor

You can watch the 5-part YLC series on YouTube here.