We explore the findings of the Your Story Research Report — a significant national study that listens to the voices of more than 400 young people as they reflect on their spiritual journeys.
We find out who and what has, and is, shaping young people’s faith from their childhood, though to adolescence, to right now.
There are insights into the eight “faith journeys” —from Embracing to Reconstructing to Disengaging— highlighting the importance of relationships, trust, and belonging in shaping faith over time.
Plus advice for churches, families, and schools on how to nurture young people in ways that are both personal and sustainable.
Graham Stanton is Director of the Centre for Children’s and Youth Ministry. He lectures in Practical Theology at Melbourne’s Ridley College.
Download the Your Story Research Project: https://www.convergeoceania.com/yourstory
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:49):
What is really going on in thespiritual lives of young people?
It is the pastor's heart, it'sDominic Steele, and Graham
Stanton is with us, a key authorof a new report surveying 400
young Australians about theirfaith journey, finding out who
and what has and is shapingtheir faith from childhood
through to adolescence to rightnow.
(01:10):
Graham Stanton is one of thepeople behind the research
project.
He's director of the Centre forChildren and Youth Ministry and
Lectures in Practical Theologyat Melbourne's Ridley College.
Graham, as you've gone into thestories of all these young
people from across Australia,from all sorts of backgrounds.
(01:31):
What's it done to your pastor'sheart?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I think it's this overwhelming sense of privilege
of being led into young people'slives and experience.
So it's renewed my appreciationfor the contribution that young
people have to make, the depthof challenge that they're facing
.
So it's made my heart more bothexcited about what young people
(01:58):
have to offer, more empatheticabout the sorts of challenges
that they face, deeplyappreciative of what these young
people have been willing toshare with us.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Now, everyone's an individual and everyone's got
their own story.
Yes, but you were able to kindof crystallise the journey that
the 340 young people had beenthrough into eight, if you like,
reasonably identifiablepathways, and we'll put them up
(02:29):
on the screen.
And we're starting on the left,from Christian households and
non-Christian households, andwe're ending up on the right,
with well embracing somebody,embracing faith, persisting,
wavering, coasting, fading,rejecting, refusing, distancing.
Give us the overview first, andthen we'll get you to break it
(02:50):
down for us, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I mean the overview.
Firstly, like you notice, thewords are perhaps a little bit
inelegant, Like we're trying totalk about people who are on a
journey and the journey iscontinuing, so not people who
have embraced faith.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
They are currently embracing faith, they are
currently persisting in faith,and so on.
So we were looking for wordsthat would capture that sense of
journey and process.
And then this sort of lookslike a timeline.
It's really not, although inone sense it sort of is, but
it's that idea that… I thoughtit was a timeline.
(03:30):
Well, not a timeline in thesense that it's not like young
people told their story in thisway.
They didn't say, oh well, I camefrom a Christian household,
then I faced a faith challenge,my spiritual engagement is this,
but I do have this ongoingreligious identity.
Rather, these are the elementsthat, in one sense, is a way of
differentiating these particularstyles of narrative.
(03:51):
But these came from a wholebunch of open-ended questions,
as young people described thebeginnings of faith, sense of
ownership, sort of challenges,high points where they think
it's going now, anything elsethey wanted to tell us.
All of that was coded andreflected on and read and reread
(04:11):
and reread again and out ofthat we came up with this way of
being able to make sense, of away of looking that made some
meaningful distinctions is whatwe're talking about here.
That made some meaningfuldistinctions is what we're
talking about here.
So I think one of the keythings to notice is the
influence of faith challenge ina young person's faith narrative
(04:33):
.
What they tell the faithchallenge has a big impact on
the kind of narrative they haveand you also see the impact or
the result that that faithchallenge had For some their
faith challenge, which ismoderate and high.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
My mother dying or something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, although what was interesting was not so much
the challenge itself but theintensity to which they
described it.
So a young person might saysomething like oh yeah, so what
happened in my early years?
I had a difficult time atschool.
My mother died.
I had a whole lot of friends,but I was really into sport and
(05:17):
you listen to that and you think, oh okay, mother dying seems to
just be alongside difficulttime at school.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But sport was the big thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, Okay, Somebody else might say, in my middle
adolescent years I got an emailfrom a friend of mine and I was
completely floored and for thenext month I was in a time of
spiritual wilderness.
And you'd think at an objectivelevel, mother died.
(05:44):
That must be a significantfaith challenge.
Getting an email from a friend,that must be a minor one.
But no, we were actually payingattention to the way that young
people narrated theseexperiences.
So a narration of saying therewas something that was quite
significant as a challenge Forsome, that prompted them to a
(06:05):
greater spiritual engagement,and so a persisting type story.
For others it was sort ofresulted in a decline in faith,
and so you end up with awavering or even a rejecting
narrative.
So that's sort of you put thesebuilding blocks together and
it's a way of beginning to sensewhat's going on for people.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I mean, I meet Christians today who have never
had, if you like, that faithchallenge that you're talking
about, you know, and sometimes Ithink, oh, I just don't know, I
don't know if it's been testedproperly.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, Did you feel that?
Well, that's the embracingnarrative.
Yeah, and it's hard to say okay, A, because we're relying on
young people's self-report asthey tell their story.
That's what's really quitecritical in this work.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I mean, maybe the best way is to get you to take
us through each of these ones,so you're on the embracing one,
sure.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So the embracing.
It's a young person who, asthey tell their faith story,
they don't talk a lot aboutfaith challenge.
It's more the sense of you know, I came from a Christian home
and I just love Jesus and myyouth group is great and my
parents have really supported me.
There's been difficult times.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I want to be that parent and have a child in that
group.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Absolutely.
They like being Christian,they're keen and they're
optimistic about the future,which is great.
It doesn't mean that theyhaven't had challenge.
It just means that, as theytell their story, the sort of
challenges that may be presentdon't seem to be overly
significant.
That's certainly not somethingthat they dwell on.
(07:50):
Unlike those who are persisting, they would say, yes, I am
Christian, I'm looking forwardto remaining Christian and I've
had these positive experiencesand there was this challenge in
my life.
This challenge was quitesignificant in some sort of way,
but I've worked through it,unlike the wavering, like the
persisting.
(08:10):
There's been a challenge, butthat challenge has begun to
threaten their faith, theirconfidence.
As a result, they're sort ofwondering where is this taking
me?
So they are still Christian,but it's perhaps under threat.
And you can sort of see whywhen you look at the sort of
(08:31):
challenges that they narrate.
The coasting, on the other hand, they are more like the
embracing.
They tell a story that doesn'thave lots of faith challenge,
but their faith is not growing,it's declining or low, and that
word they're sort of coastingalong.
(08:52):
One step on is those who.
Their faith is now fading.
They've got the same sort ofbackground story Things have
been positive, low, decliningspiritual engagement, but
they've no longer identified asChristian.
They've taken the next step.
It's not that, yeah, look, myChristian life is sort of okay.
It's like, yeah, look, I usedto be that and I no longer am,
(09:16):
but they've faded out of faith.
Unlike the rejecting, therejecting have had a particular
challenge that has led them toreject their faith.
There's something moreintentional about what's going
on here.
Now you go down to the bottomand you've got these two
narratives that come from peoplethat aren't Christian.
(09:37):
They've never been Christian.
Why did they bother to fill inthe survey at all?
Well, a number of them were atChristian schools, right, and so
it was in the context at all.
Well, a number of them were atChristian schools, right, and so
it was in the context of aChristian studies class,
something like that.
There are others.
There are a number of peoplewho are in this category who are
connected with a youth group.
They may still be part of ayouth group.
(09:57):
They might have been invited bya friend.
They come along because it's athing to do on a Friday evening.
There were also Christian youthmission agencies, so like youth
drop-in centres, that did thisas well, and so you have people
who are.
They have no contact with faith, but they are around the
Christian community, which isanother thing to recognise about
(10:21):
this that the young people thatwe connected were all through
Christian organisations.
None of this is pretending tooffer a statistically
significant sample of theAustralian population youth
population.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Now, as I read the report, one of the things that I
mean I don't know whether itfrustrated me or it was kind of
the elephant in the room was theissue of the content of the
faith, because you were speakingabout faith and journeys with
faith.
But I've been working with myassistant minister today on a
sermon that he's going to givein a few weeks' time on the
(10:55):
cross being the stumbling block.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I'm thinking are we actually talking about the same
thing here, or is the content offaith that we're talking about
the same thing?
What's your, your, take yeah,because it's quite a broad group
that's behind the study.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, sure that that's right, and one of the
things that we were trying tomove away from was the kind of
snapshot research that asked ayoung person what, what are your
beliefs and practices today?
Do you believe in god, do youbelieve in the divinity of Jesus
?
Do you go to church, Do youpray?
And you get that slice in time.
That's what's happening rightnow and we were trying to get
(11:30):
this sense of journey andtherefore we consciously chose
we're focusing on faith as theprocess of believing rather than
faith as the content of what isbelieved.
And that distinction there's aLatin phrase for it.
I'm sure some theologians wouldremind us fit is qua, fit is
quae credita.
I forgot.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Do you remember that?
Yeah, I don't remember iteither.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But one means one thing, one means the other.
Right yeah, Faith is the act offaithing, the act of believing
and one of the content of whatyou believe.
Now it turns out that therewere some people, some young
people, in our sample that wereanswering these questions in
terms of a non-Christian faith,like they were embracing a Hindu
faith, or I think there was acouple of Islamic faith.
(12:15):
But such a small part of thesample, statistically it would
be irrelevant.
We excluded them from the study, from the study right Everybody
else.
They are talking aboutembracing Christian faith or
refusing Christian faith.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
There was in the report a gendered difference
that I picked up between youngmen and young women and I first
thought it was significant.
But you're saying it's not thatsignificant.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The difficulty was that there are a large number of
young people who didn'tindicate gender, so we don't
know whether more boys or moregirls didn't indicate gender.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's right, it did actually.
I mean, we've been talking fora little while about how
something seems to be going onwith young boys.
Have you noticed that too?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
young boys, not so much the gendered thing in my
experience of boys rather thangirls, but certainly generally a
sense of a greater….
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Revitalised faith or revitalised interest in?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
it Revitalised interest or a willingness to
have these sorts ofconversations?
Right, yeah, you know that.
Recognition that the newatheist thing that didn't work,
that's gone.
Yeah, the secular project hasnot delivered.
And what else is going on?
Is there something about thepost-COVID world that just made
(13:35):
people hang on?
Stop what's going on here?
Yeah, so that, I think, isthere.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
All right, let's go to some of the things here.
You were saying relationshipsare central.
Now, that's not a surprise forus in Christian ministry, but
what have you found out?
Flesh out that argument.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, so the one thing of the kind of
relationship which is central.
That was quite interesting tous and so we talk about, about
relationships convenient acronymrelationships of acceptance, of
belonging, ownership,understanding and trust, that
(14:12):
these were five dimensions ofthe positive relationship that
came out.
Whether the young people wereembracing or persisting in
Christian faith or rejecting andrefusing the sorts of when they
spoke positively aboutChristian people, then the
values in those relationshipscoalesced around these five
(14:35):
themes.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So what are you saying to the parent or the
youth group leader that theyneed to learn from that point?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
It's a handy set of ideas to keep in your mind.
And where might we get it wrong?
Yeah, yeah, Well, I think so.
Acceptance is there.
Do young people have that senseof you accept me, whatever I
say, whatever I do, or are thereconditions?
And now, of course, we have asense that we're persuading
(15:08):
young people to a certain way oflife, we're offering the gospel
of Jesus to them.
I do want them to say yes toJesus, but do they have a sense
that I will only be, Graham willonly like me if I say yes to
Jesus.
If I don't, then ourrelationship is over.
Or if I don't do these thingsthat he expects, then our
(15:31):
relationship is done.
That kind of tenuous belongingthat young people are alert to.
They want to know do youactually accept me?
Do I belong here?
Or is this your place and I'mhere on your agenda?
Provided I fall in line, then Ican belong.
(15:52):
Or am I actually welcome here,not just in the room, but in the
circle?
Do you recognise and this is abig one do you recognise my
ownership of my spiritualchoices, the whole theme of how
young people respond to the useand misuse of power and the
recognition of a young person'sagency, particularly in matters
(16:15):
of spirituality, was all the waythrough.
We were considering making it asixth key finding and instead
have separated out power andagency as a theme that runs
through all of the things thatwe've been saying very clear in
this ownership piece within therelationships.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So what do you do about power struggles between
kids and leaders in youth group?
I mean, I'm not talking aboutparticularly even spiritual
issues, just I want half thegirls to go over here and half
the boys to go over there, andyou know we'll have.
And then one of the kids sayshey, girls, let's all come over
here.
Sure Just defying their youthgroup leader.
(16:57):
No, if you want to come to ouryouth group, you've actually got
to follow, or what?
What would you say there as ayouth group coach?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I would say that there's a whole lot more going
on in that relationship withthat young person than just this
act of defiance.
It will say something.
Say something about therelationship that's going on
here.
And there's a danger, isn'tthere?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Because when you were , saying acceptance before and I
was thinking, oh, I've got thisdiscipline issue in the back of
my mind, yeah, so keep going,yes.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And I mean when we come to talk about the
discipling pyramid.
Thing there is a space for, andthere will be need for,
challenge, even confrontation,of saying, well, actually, no,
this is how it's going to be,but you're not going to be able
to say to that girl, no, we needto do this now.
And look, if you're not goingto do this, then this is not
(17:55):
really going to work out foreither of us, is it?
You'll be able to do that ifyou have a good relationship of
acceptance, belonging, a historyof emphasising and affirming
her agency, that you have asense of you are trying to
understand her and herexperience and she trusts that
you have her best interest atheart With those sorts of things
(18:18):
in your relationship.
Then you can ascend what wecall the discipling pyramid and
go up to a place where there isa challenge, there's a
confrontation, even.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So explain to me this discipling pyramid.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, we found really interestingly that there were
some discipling actions thatyoung people spoke about as
being really positive, but thesame discipling action other
people spoke about as beingreally negative.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah, was it to do with I'm on the way in or I'm on
the way out of Christian faith?
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, my parents take me to church every week and
it's been great.
Somebody else might say myparents made me go to church
every week and it was horrible.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And yet probably the parents' behaviour was similar,
identical.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Perhaps, yeah Well, at least in terms of the action
itself.
Another one was my dad is aminister and so I can have great
deep conversations abouttheology with him.
Another says my dad has lots ofbiblical knowledge and delights
(19:25):
in giving me the answer, makingit clear that he has an answer
to every question I have.
You see, the same thing isgoing on depth of theological
knowledge being brought by theparent to the child.
But in one instance you've gotthat being expressed in a
relationship of acceptance,belonging, ownership,
understanding, trust.
In the other it's aboutdemonstrating the father's own
(19:50):
depth of knowledge rather thanactually meeting the young
person, where they're at andwhat they're concerned for.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Next one on the triangle.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So the layers go from level one, which is very open,
where young people aren't beingconstrained in responding at all
, so things like just noticingit's like hi, dominic, nice to
see you.
So if your name is actuallyDominic, as you come through the
door of church, that level onething, you don't have to respond
in any particular way.
(20:22):
There's no requirement on youto do that Freedom to respond
however you want.
You go to the next step andsort of you begin to ask
questions.
So tell me about your week.
So now you've got to respondabout this particular topic that
I've set in my question.
You go from there.
Next step is that how comeyou're putting your hand up to
(20:44):
your eye like that?
Now there's a specific actionthat I'm questioning and asking
about.
Now, again, you've got freedomto how you're going to respond
there.
But we're narrowing down into athing.
And then you get to the toplevel, the challenge, the
confront of look, what you'redoing is wrong.
(21:04):
I think you need to go overthere where we've directed all
the other girls to go right, andagain they have freedom still
to either choose to defy you ornot.
But we're now at the level ofhere's a particular request and
(21:24):
there's consequences and I thinkthat the popular wisdom has
been with young people, you'vegot to stay down the bottom of
the pyramid because they needagency and so on.
But that's not what we found.
Because they need agency and soon, but that's not what we
found.
What we found was that you canascend the heights of the
discipling pyramid provided thatyour relationship is one of
(21:46):
acceptance, belonging, ownership, understanding and trust.
And if you've built this sortof strong relationship, then you
have that freedom.
And there were young peoplethat would say things like
relationship, then you have thatfreedom.
And there were young peoplethat would say things like my
church community.
They challenged and confrontedme about issues in faith and I
(22:06):
felt so supported by them that'shelped me to grow and mature.
But others who say you know thechaplain keeps asking us how we
are and always suspicious aboutwhat agenda they have.
So it's like if you have a goodrelationship, then there's the
possibility, still with care, togo up the levels of the
(22:29):
discipling pyramid and be moredirective, even confrontational,
when it's needed.
But if you don't have thatrelationship, then even the
lowest levels, even the mostpassive kinds of actions, can be
interpreted negatively.
So relationship is we didn'twant to say it's all about
(22:51):
relationship, because it's not.
There's more than that, but therelationship is critical and
the relationship is the lensthrough which young people will
interpret.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
I was quite surprised when you got to how engaged, if
you like, in the ecosystemdifferent kids were in school,
church and youth group, becauseChristian school played a
radically different role tochurch or youth group.
Yeah, Can you just unpack that?
Or was Christian school muchless effective?
(23:24):
How did you?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
read it.
Well, I read it, as Christianschools have a much larger pool
and there are young people whoare at school without choice.
They have to go to school andthey've been sent to this
particular Christian school,whereas they're at youth group,
more or less because they wantto go A lot more freedom to go
(23:46):
to youth group.
You notice that when you lookat the report there are more
people in that rejecting,refusing category in Christian
schools, that's what surprisedme?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
yeah, More in the refusing, rejecting category in
Christian schools than in thechurch youth group cohort.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yes, and then fewer in church and then fewer still
in youth group, and it makessense that, in terms of where
are young people required to be,I can understand that a young
person who has got no interestin faith.
They're required to go to thisschool.
They might even be required togo to church with their family.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
But are they forced to go Friday night or not?
Mum and dad might make them sitnext to them on Sunday morning.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Now, what about doubt ?
It's always interesting whenyou look at that, where young
people fit and the kinds ofyoung people that are in our
youth groups and churches andschools, the number of young
people who are facingsignificant faith challenge or
have significant faith challengein their story.
And you were going to mentiondoubt.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
I was about to say doubt, which is really where it
sounds like you're going.
Yes, I mean doubt is everywhere.
I mean we'll put it up on thescreen.
But that did surprise me thatwhether you were in the
embracing or whether you were inthe running away from category,
everywhere we had people whodoubt was a significant thing,
(25:07):
that's right, yeah, so itdoesn't mean that every young
person doubts because there aresome people who don't.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Some people are so confident in faith that doubt is
not a part of their story.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
But it felt like more than 50% did.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yes, that's right, and it is present.
It's present there, in thosefor whom faith is going really
well, in the embracings or thepersistings, yep, yep.
And I mean less so in thedistancing, because they're
mostly not interested.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
There's no confidence .
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
But yes, doubt can be everywhere and there are a lot
of young people who are dealingwith doubt and other faith
challenges in our ministries.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So what do I do if I'm a youth group leader?
Senior pastor?
Yeah, I'm aware.
Now you've told me that now,and so I've got to think okay,
there's 20 kids in our youthgroup, what's your advice to?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
me.
Well, the idea that the numberone aim of youth group is that
it be fun is not going to cut it, is it?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
No, because I'll just be there until I've got my
driver's licence.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, yeah yeah, or the sort of thing that you are
offering me is not helping medeal with the genuine challenges
that I have.
So now we need to pay attentionto these challenges.
Interestingly, when you getinto the wavering, coasting,
fading as they talk about thekind of faith challenges they're
dealing with, often they'redealing with that just
(26:38):
individually.
As they talk about this,there's inner reflection on this
, but not a lot of engagementwith others.
So a lot of young people aredealing with these things, but
just holding them to themselves,the opportunity to ask and to
listen what is actually going onfor you and then how might we
be able to help you through that?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
becomes an absolute priority.
So it sounds like you'repushing me for a more rigorous,
if you like syllabus in youthministry.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Syllabus perhaps, although the danger with
syllabus is that you would justbring an agenda, because that
assumes that we know what it isthat that their doubts are about
.
Exactly, yeah, the conversation, it's the conversation and the
accompanying.
That's what we're reallygetting at.
Okay, and that opportunity tolisten and then, as you listen,
(27:31):
to be able to not just presentan answer, because, again, that
doesn't necessarily advancetheir ownership, does it?
Or advance understanding.
It's like, oh, you've got thisproblem, their ownership does it
.
Or advance understanding.
It's like oh, you've got thisproblem, that's easy, that's
easy.
Here's this book, read this andit's going to be fine.
Rather, tell me more about whatthat's like for you.
(27:53):
We had young people that said.
My youth leaders recognise thegravity of the questions that I
brought and I think often asadults we make the mistake of
often really well-meaning youngpeople come with a question and
it's like we're so desperate tohelp.
Oh, it's so much easier, it'llbe okay In a few years' time,
you're not going to care aboutthat at all.
(28:14):
That doesn't help them becauseit makes them feel well, how
silly am I.
I'm thinking I'm here burdenedby something that I'm now being
told doesn't matter, is notimportant, is not going to be a
thing, but at the moment this isa thing.
So can we enter into theirworld, recognise that, stand
(28:35):
with them in that, so developthat understanding and then
begin to ask them so what do youthink you could do?
What do you think might behelpful?
What could I do to accompanyyou?
What other resources do youhave that might help you in this
space?
That kind of spiritualaccompaniment, I think, is what
(28:57):
this work would lead us towards.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Final reflections in terms of what you would want
youth leaders to change as aresult of.
I mean, as you survey youthgroups around the place and you
think, oh, if only they did this, it would just be better.
Because of what I've learnedhere.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Take more time to listen, ask better questions and
spend time listening to theanswers To learn how to say tell
me more about that, and to dothat before we say, oh, I've got
an answer to that.
We do have answers, and we arenot saying, or I'm not saying,
(29:43):
as a response to this work, thatwe need to just hide all the
answers of the gospel that wehave Absolutely not.
We do want to offer the gospel,but we want to adorn the gospel
with the kind of life thatembodies the attractiveness of
this.
And a key part of that for theAustralian young people that
we've heard from is they want tobe listened to and they want to
(30:07):
be respected and have theiragency honoured.
So to be able to ask thosequestions and to sit and to
really come to an understandingnot only, I think, will that
serve young people.
I think it's going to serve thewider church.
It will serve us as well.
As you were speaking, I thinkwill that serve young people.
I think it's going to serve thewider church.
It will serve us as well as youwere speaking.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I think if I could do that in all my pastoral
ministry that would probably bea help.
Thanks so much for coming in.
It's a pleasure.
My guest, graeme Stanton.
He's been with us.
He's one of the lead authors ofthis new report your Story
that's just been released andthat's just been released and he
is director of the Centre forChildren and Youth Ministry and
(30:45):
Lectures in Practical Theologyat Melbourne's Ridley College.
My name is Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastor's Heart and we'll look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
Can you help us with the pastor's heart?
We are running a special appealin the lead up to the 30th of
June in Australia.
We're aiming to raise $30,000to support the work of the
pastor's heart research,production, distribution and
promotion.
We've just worked out how toaccept tax deductible giving in
Australia to support theproduction of audio and video
versions of the pastor's heartand we have a web page dedicated
(00:22):
to that.
It's thepastorsheartnet slashsupport.
So if you are able to help usout in the lead up to 30 June,
we would really appreciate thatand we also want to invite any
existing Australian supportersto switch over to that tax
deductible fund,thepastorsheartnet slash support
.
(00:49):
What is really going on in thespiritual lives of young people?
It is the pastor's heart, it'sDominic Steele, and Graham
Stanton is with us, a key authorof a new report surveying 400
young Australians about theirfaith journey, finding out who
and what has and is shapingtheir faith from childhood
through to adolescence to rightnow.
(01:10):
Graham Stanton is one of thepeople behind the research
project.
He's director of the Centre forChildren and Youth Ministry and
Lectures in Practical Theologyat Melbourne's Ridley College.
Graham, as you've gone into thestories of all these young
people from across Australia,from all sorts of backgrounds.
(01:31):
What's it done to your pastor'sheart?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I think it's this overwhelming sense of privilege
of being led into young people'slives and experience.
So it's renewed my appreciationfor the contribution that young
people have to make, the depthof challenge that they're facing
.
So it's made my heart more bothexcited about what young people
(01:58):
have to offer, more empatheticabout the sorts of challenges
that they face, deeplyappreciative of what these young
people have been willing toshare with us.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Now, everyone's an individual and everyone's got
their own story.
Yes, but you were able to kindof crystallise the journey that
the 340 young people had beenthrough into eight, if you like,
reasonably identifiablepathways, and we'll put them up
(02:29):
on the screen.
And we're starting on the left,from Christian households and
non-Christian households, andwe're ending up on the right,
with well embracing somebody,embracing faith, persisting,
wavering, coasting, fading,rejecting, refusing, distancing.
Give us the overview first, andthen we'll get you to break it
(02:50):
down for us, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I mean the overview.
Firstly, like you notice, thewords are perhaps a little bit
inelegant, Like we're trying totalk about people who are on a
journey and the journey iscontinuing, so not people who
have embraced faith.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
They are currently embracing faith, they are
currently persisting in faith,and so on.
So we were looking for wordsthat would capture that sense of
journey and process.
And then this sort of lookslike a timeline.
It's really not, although inone sense it sort of is, but
it's that idea that… I thoughtit was a timeline.
(03:30):
Well, not a timeline in thesense that it's not like young
people told their story in thisway.
They didn't say, oh well, I camefrom a Christian household,
then I faced a faith challenge,my spiritual engagement is this,
but I do have this ongoingreligious identity.
Rather, these are the elementsthat, in one sense, is a way of
differentiating these particularstyles of narrative.
(03:51):
But these came from a wholebunch of open-ended questions,
as young people described thebeginnings of faith, sense of
ownership, sort of challenges,high points where they think
it's going now, anything elsethey wanted to tell us.
All of that was coded andreflected on and read and reread
(04:11):
and reread again and out ofthat we came up with this way of
being able to make sense, of away of looking that made some
meaningful distinctions is whatwe're talking about here.
That made some meaningfuldistinctions is what we're
talking about here.
So I think one of the keythings to notice is the
influence of faith challenge ina young person's faith narrative
(04:33):
.
What they tell the faithchallenge has a big impact on
the kind of narrative they haveand you also see the impact or
the result that that faithchallenge had For some their
faith challenge, which ismoderate and high.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
My mother dying or something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, although what was interesting was not so much
the challenge itself but theintensity to which they
described it.
So a young person might saysomething like oh yeah, so what
happened in my early years?
I had a difficult time atschool.
My mother died.
I had a whole lot of friends,but I was really into sport and
(05:17):
you listen to that and you think, oh okay, mother dying seems to
just be alongside difficulttime at school.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But sport was the big thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, Okay, Somebody else might say, in my middle
adolescent years I got an emailfrom a friend of mine and I was
completely floored and for thenext month I was in a time of
spiritual wilderness.
And you'd think at an objectivelevel, mother died.
(05:44):
That must be a significantfaith challenge.
Getting an email from a friend,that must be a minor one.
But no, we were actually payingattention to the way that young
people narrated theseexperiences.
So a narration of saying therewas something that was quite
significant as a challenge Forsome, that prompted them to a
(06:05):
greater spiritual engagement,and so a persisting type story.
For others it was sort ofresulted in a decline in faith,
and so you end up with awavering or even a rejecting
narrative.
So that's sort of you put thesebuilding blocks together and
it's a way of beginning to sensewhat's going on for people.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I mean, I meet Christians today who have never
had, if you like, that faithchallenge that you're talking
about, you know, and sometimes Ithink, oh, I just don't know, I
don't know if it's been testedproperly.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, Did you feel that?
Well, that's the embracingnarrative.
Yeah, and it's hard to say okay, A, because we're relying on
young people's self-report asthey tell their story.
That's what's really quitecritical in this work.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I mean, maybe the best way is to get you to take
us through each of these ones,so you're on the embracing one,
sure.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So the embracing.
It's a young person who, asthey tell their faith story,
they don't talk a lot aboutfaith challenge.
It's more the sense of you know, I came from a Christian home
and I just love Jesus and myyouth group is great and my
parents have really supported me.
There's been difficult times.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I want to be that parent and have a child in that
group.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Absolutely.
They like being Christian,they're keen and they're
optimistic about the future,which is great.
It doesn't mean that theyhaven't had challenge.
It just means that, as theytell their story, the sort of
challenges that may be presentdon't seem to be overly
significant.
That's certainly not somethingthat they dwell on.
(07:50):
Unlike those who are persisting, they would say, yes, I am
Christian, I'm looking forwardto remaining Christian and I've
had these positive experiencesand there was this challenge in
my life.
This challenge was quitesignificant in some sort of way,
but I've worked through it,unlike the wavering, like the
persisting.
(08:10):
There's been a challenge, butthat challenge has begun to
threaten their faith, theirconfidence.
As a result, they're sort ofwondering where is this taking
me?
So they are still Christian,but it's perhaps under threat.
And you can sort of see whywhen you look at the sort of
(08:31):
challenges that they narrate.
The coasting, on the other hand, they are more like the
embracing.
They tell a story that doesn'thave lots of faith challenge,
but their faith is not growing,it's declining or low, and that
word they're sort of coastingalong.
(08:52):
One step on is those who.
Their faith is now fading.
They've got the same sort ofbackground story Things have
been positive, low, decliningspiritual engagement, but
they've no longer identified asChristian.
They've taken the next step.
It's not that, yeah, look, myChristian life is sort of okay.
It's like, yeah, look, I usedto be that and I no longer am,
(09:16):
but they've faded out of faith.
Unlike the rejecting, therejecting have had a particular
challenge that has led them toreject their faith.
There's something moreintentional about what's going
on here.
Now you go down to the bottomand you've got these two
narratives that come from peoplethat aren't Christian.
(09:37):
They've never been Christian.
Why did they bother to fill inthe survey at all?
Well, a number of them were atChristian schools, right, and so
it was in the context at all.
Well, a number of them were atChristian schools, right, and so
it was in the context of aChristian studies class,
something like that.
There are others.
There are a number of peoplewho are in this category who are
connected with a youth group.
They may still be part of ayouth group.
(09:57):
They might have been invited bya friend.
They come along because it's athing to do on a Friday evening.
There were also Christian youthmission agencies, so like youth
drop-in centres, that did thisas well, and so you have people
who are.
They have no contact with faith, but they are around the
Christian community, which isanother thing to recognise about
(10:21):
this that the young people thatwe connected were all through
Christian organisations.
None of this is pretending tooffer a statistically
significant sample of theAustralian population youth
population.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Now, as I read the report, one of the things that I
mean I don't know whether itfrustrated me or it was kind of
the elephant in the room was theissue of the content of the
faith, because you were speakingabout faith and journeys with
faith.
But I've been working with myassistant minister today on a
sermon that he's going to givein a few weeks' time on the
(10:55):
cross being the stumbling block.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I'm thinking are we actually talking about the same
thing here, or is the content offaith that we're talking about
the same thing?
What's your, your, take yeah,because it's quite a broad group
that's behind the study.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, sure that that's right, and one of the
things that we were trying tomove away from was the kind of
snapshot research that asked ayoung person what, what are your
beliefs and practices today?
Do you believe in god, do youbelieve in the divinity of Jesus
?
Do you go to church, Do youpray?
And you get that slice in time.
That's what's happening rightnow and we were trying to get
(11:30):
this sense of journey andtherefore we consciously chose
we're focusing on faith as theprocess of believing rather than
faith as the content of what isbelieved.
And that distinction there's aLatin phrase for it.
I'm sure some theologians wouldremind us fit is qua, fit is
quae credita.
I forgot.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Do you remember that?
Yeah, I don't remember iteither.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But one means one thing, one means the other.
Right yeah, Faith is the act offaithing, the act of believing
and one of the content of whatyou believe.
Now it turns out that therewere some people, some young
people, in our sample that wereanswering these questions in
terms of a non-Christian faith,like they were embracing a Hindu
faith, or I think there was acouple of Islamic faith.
(12:15):
But such a small part of thesample, statistically it would
be irrelevant.
We excluded them from the study, from the study right Everybody
else.
They are talking aboutembracing Christian faith or
refusing Christian faith.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
There was in the report a gendered difference
that I picked up between youngmen and young women and I first
thought it was significant.
But you're saying it's not thatsignificant.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The difficulty was that there are a large number of
young people who didn'tindicate gender, so we don't
know whether more boys or moregirls didn't indicate gender.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's right, it did actually.
I mean, we've been talking fora little while about how
something seems to be going onwith young boys.
Have you noticed that too?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
young boys, not so much the gendered thing in my
experience of boys rather thangirls, but certainly generally a
sense of a greater….
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Revitalised faith or revitalised interest in?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
it Revitalised interest or a willingness to
have these sorts ofconversations?
Right, yeah, you know that.
Recognition that the newatheist thing that didn't work,
that's gone.
Yeah, the secular project hasnot delivered.
And what else is going on?
Is there something about thepost-COVID world that just made
(13:35):
people hang on?
Stop what's going on here?
Yeah, so that, I think, isthere.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
All right, let's go to some of the things here.
You were saying relationshipsare central.
Now, that's not a surprise forus in Christian ministry, but
what have you found out?
Flesh out that argument.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, so the one thing of the kind of
relationship which is central.
That was quite interesting tous and so we talk about, about
relationships convenient acronymrelationships of acceptance, of
belonging, ownership,understanding and trust, that
(14:12):
these were five dimensions ofthe positive relationship that
came out.
Whether the young people wereembracing or persisting in
Christian faith or rejecting andrefusing the sorts of when they
spoke positively aboutChristian people, then the
values in those relationshipscoalesced around these five
(14:35):
themes.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So what are you saying to the parent or the
youth group leader that theyneed to learn from that point?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
It's a handy set of ideas to keep in your mind.
And where might we get it wrong?
Yeah, yeah, Well, I think so.
Acceptance is there.
Do young people have that senseof you accept me, whatever I
say, whatever I do, or are thereconditions?
And now, of course, we have asense that we're persuading
(15:08):
young people to a certain way oflife, we're offering the gospel
of Jesus to them.
I do want them to say yes toJesus, but do they have a sense
that I will only be, Graham willonly like me if I say yes to
Jesus.
If I don't, then ourrelationship is over.
Or if I don't do these thingsthat he expects, then our
(15:31):
relationship is done.
That kind of tenuous belongingthat young people are alert to.
They want to know do youactually accept me?
Do I belong here?
Or is this your place and I'mhere on your agenda?
Provided I fall in line, then Ican belong.
(15:52):
Or am I actually welcome here,not just in the room, but in the
circle?
Do you recognise and this is abig one do you recognise my
ownership of my spiritualchoices, the whole theme of how
young people respond to the useand misuse of power and the
recognition of a young person'sagency, particularly in matters
(16:15):
of spirituality, was all the waythrough.
We were considering making it asixth key finding and instead
have separated out power andagency as a theme that runs
through all of the things thatwe've been saying very clear in
this ownership piece within therelationships.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So what do you do about power struggles between
kids and leaders in youth group?
I mean, I'm not talking aboutparticularly even spiritual
issues, just I want half thegirls to go over here and half
the boys to go over there, andyou know we'll have.
And then one of the kids sayshey, girls, let's all come over
here.
Sure Just defying their youthgroup leader.
(16:57):
No, if you want to come to ouryouth group, you've actually got
to follow, or what?
What would you say there as ayouth group coach?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I would say that there's a whole lot more going
on in that relationship withthat young person than just this
act of defiance.
It will say something.
Say something about therelationship that's going on
here.
And there's a danger, isn'tthere?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Because when you were , saying acceptance before and I
was thinking, oh, I've got thisdiscipline issue in the back of
my mind, yeah, so keep going,yes.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And I mean when we come to talk about the
discipling pyramid.
Thing there is a space for, andthere will be need for,
challenge, even confrontation,of saying, well, actually, no,
this is how it's going to be,but you're not going to be able
to say to that girl, no, we needto do this now.
And look, if you're not goingto do this, then this is not
(17:55):
really going to work out foreither of us, is it?
You'll be able to do that ifyou have a good relationship of
acceptance, belonging, a historyof emphasising and affirming
her agency, that you have asense of you are trying to
understand her and herexperience and she trusts that
you have her best interest atheart With those sorts of things
(18:18):
in your relationship.
Then you can ascend what wecall the discipling pyramid and
go up to a place where there isa challenge, there's a
confrontation, even.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So explain to me this discipling pyramid.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, we found really interestingly that there were
some discipling actions thatyoung people spoke about as
being really positive, but thesame discipling action other
people spoke about as beingreally negative.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah, was it to do with I'm on the way in or I'm on
the way out of Christian faith?
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, my parents take me to church every week and
it's been great.
Somebody else might say myparents made me go to church
every week and it was horrible.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And yet probably the parents' behaviour was similar,
identical.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Perhaps, yeah Well, at least in terms of the action
itself.
Another one was my dad is aminister and so I can have great
deep conversations abouttheology with him.
Another says my dad has lots ofbiblical knowledge and delights
(19:25):
in giving me the answer, makingit clear that he has an answer
to every question I have.
You see, the same thing isgoing on depth of theological
knowledge being brought by theparent to the child.
But in one instance you've gotthat being expressed in a
relationship of acceptance,belonging, ownership,
understanding, trust.
In the other it's aboutdemonstrating the father's own
(19:50):
depth of knowledge rather thanactually meeting the young
person, where they're at andwhat they're concerned for.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Next one on the triangle.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So the layers go from level one, which is very open,
where young people aren't beingconstrained in responding at all
, so things like just noticingit's like hi, dominic, nice to
see you.
So if your name is actuallyDominic, as you come through the
door of church, that level onething, you don't have to respond
in any particular way.
(20:22):
There's no requirement on youto do that Freedom to respond
however you want.
You go to the next step andsort of you begin to ask
questions.
So tell me about your week.
So now you've got to respondabout this particular topic that
I've set in my question.
You go from there.
Next step is that how comeyou're putting your hand up to
(20:44):
your eye like that?
Now there's a specific actionthat I'm questioning and asking
about.
Now, again, you've got freedomto how you're going to respond
there.
But we're narrowing down into athing.
And then you get to the toplevel, the challenge, the
confront of look, what you'redoing is wrong.
(21:04):
I think you need to go overthere where we've directed all
the other girls to go right, andagain they have freedom still
to either choose to defy you ornot.
But we're now at the level ofhere's a particular request and
(21:24):
there's consequences and I thinkthat the popular wisdom has
been with young people, you'vegot to stay down the bottom of
the pyramid because they needagency and so on.
But that's not what we found.
Because they need agency and soon, but that's not what we
found.
What we found was that you canascend the heights of the
discipling pyramid provided thatyour relationship is one of
(21:46):
acceptance, belonging, ownership, understanding and trust.
And if you've built this sortof strong relationship, then you
have that freedom.
And there were young peoplethat would say things like
relationship, then you have thatfreedom.
And there were young peoplethat would say things like my
church community.
They challenged and confrontedme about issues in faith and I
(22:06):
felt so supported by them that'shelped me to grow and mature.
But others who say you know thechaplain keeps asking us how we
are and always suspicious aboutwhat agenda they have.
So it's like if you have a goodrelationship, then there's the
possibility, still with care, togo up the levels of the
(22:29):
discipling pyramid and be moredirective, even confrontational,
when it's needed.
But if you don't have thatrelationship, then even the
lowest levels, even the mostpassive kinds of actions, can be
interpreted negatively.
So relationship is we didn'twant to say it's all about
(22:51):
relationship, because it's not.
There's more than that, but therelationship is critical and
the relationship is the lensthrough which young people will
interpret.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
I was quite surprised when you got to how engaged, if
you like, in the ecosystemdifferent kids were in school,
church and youth group, becauseChristian school played a
radically different role tochurch or youth group.
Yeah, Can you just unpack that?
Or was Christian school muchless effective?
(23:24):
How did you?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
read it.
Well, I read it, as Christianschools have a much larger pool
and there are young people whoare at school without choice.
They have to go to school andthey've been sent to this
particular Christian school,whereas they're at youth group,
more or less because they wantto go A lot more freedom to go
(23:46):
to youth group.
You notice that when you lookat the report there are more
people in that rejecting,refusing category in Christian
schools, that's what surprisedme?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
yeah, More in the refusing, rejecting category in
Christian schools than in thechurch youth group cohort.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yes, and then fewer in church and then fewer still
in youth group, and it makessense that, in terms of where
are young people required to be,I can understand that a young
person who has got no interestin faith.
They're required to go to thisschool.
They might even be required togo to church with their family.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
But are they forced to go Friday night or not?
Mum and dad might make them sitnext to them on Sunday morning.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Now, what about doubt ?
It's always interesting whenyou look at that, where young
people fit and the kinds ofyoung people that are in our
youth groups and churches andschools, the number of young
people who are facingsignificant faith challenge or
have significant faith challengein their story.
And you were going to mentiondoubt.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
I was about to say doubt, which is really where it
sounds like you're going.
Yes, I mean doubt is everywhere.
I mean we'll put it up on thescreen.
But that did surprise me thatwhether you were in the
embracing or whether you were inthe running away from category,
everywhere we had people whodoubt was a significant thing,
(25:07):
that's right, yeah, so itdoesn't mean that every young
person doubts because there aresome people who don't.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Some people are so confident in faith that doubt is
not a part of their story.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
But it felt like more than 50% did.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yes, that's right, and it is present.
It's present there, in thosefor whom faith is going really
well, in the embracings or thepersistings, yep, yep.
And I mean less so in thedistancing, because they're
mostly not interested.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
There's no confidence .
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
But yes, doubt can be everywhere and there are a lot
of young people who are dealingwith doubt and other faith
challenges in our ministries.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So what do I do if I'm a youth group leader?
Senior pastor?
Yeah, I'm aware.
Now you've told me that now,and so I've got to think okay,
there's 20 kids in our youthgroup, what's your advice to?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
me.
Well, the idea that the numberone aim of youth group is that
it be fun is not going to cut it, is it?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
No, because I'll just be there until I've got my
driver's licence.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, yeah yeah, or the sort of thing that you are
offering me is not helping medeal with the genuine challenges
that I have.
So now we need to pay attentionto these challenges.
Interestingly, when you getinto the wavering, coasting,
fading as they talk about thekind of faith challenges they're
dealing with, often they'redealing with that just
(26:38):
individually.
As they talk about this,there's inner reflection on this
, but not a lot of engagementwith others.
So a lot of young people aredealing with these things, but
just holding them to themselves,the opportunity to ask and to
listen what is actually going onfor you and then how might we
be able to help you through that?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
becomes an absolute priority.
So it sounds like you'repushing me for a more rigorous,
if you like syllabus in youthministry.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Syllabus perhaps, although the danger with
syllabus is that you would justbring an agenda, because that
assumes that we know what it isthat that their doubts are about
.
Exactly, yeah, the conversation, it's the conversation and the
accompanying.
That's what we're reallygetting at.
Okay, and that opportunity tolisten and then, as you listen,
(27:31):
to be able to not just presentan answer, because, again, that
doesn't necessarily advancetheir ownership, does it?
Or advance understanding.
It's like, oh, you've got thisproblem, their ownership does it
.
Or advance understanding.
It's like oh, you've got thisproblem, that's easy, that's
easy.
Here's this book, read this andit's going to be fine.
Rather, tell me more about whatthat's like for you.
(27:53):
We had young people that said.
My youth leaders recognise thegravity of the questions that I
brought and I think often asadults we make the mistake of
often really well-meaning youngpeople come with a question and
it's like we're so desperate tohelp.
Oh, it's so much easier, it'llbe okay In a few years' time,
you're not going to care aboutthat at all.
(28:14):
That doesn't help them becauseit makes them feel well, how
silly am I.
I'm thinking I'm here burdenedby something that I'm now being
told doesn't matter, is notimportant, is not going to be a
thing, but at the moment this isa thing.
So can we enter into theirworld, recognise that, stand
(28:35):
with them in that, so developthat understanding and then
begin to ask them so what do youthink you could do?
What do you think might behelpful?
What could I do to accompanyyou?
What other resources do youhave that might help you in this
space?
That kind of spiritualaccompaniment, I think, is what
(28:57):
this work would lead us towards.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Final reflections in terms of what you would want
youth leaders to change as aresult of.
I mean, as you survey youthgroups around the place and you
think, oh, if only they did this, it would just be better.
Because of what I've learnedhere.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Take more time to listen, ask better questions and
spend time listening to theanswers To learn how to say tell
me more about that, and to dothat before we say, oh, I've got
an answer to that.
We do have answers, and we arenot saying, or I'm not saying,
(29:43):
as a response to this work, thatwe need to just hide all the
answers of the gospel that wehave Absolutely not.
We do want to offer the gospel,but we want to adorn the gospel
with the kind of life thatembodies the attractiveness of
this.
And a key part of that for theAustralian young people that
we've heard from is they want tobe listened to and they want to
(30:07):
be respected and have theiragency honoured.
So to be able to ask thosequestions and to sit and to
really come to an understandingnot only, I think, will that
serve young people.
I think it's going to serve thewider church.
It will serve us as well.
As you were speaking, I thinkwill that serve young people.
I think it's going to serve thewider church.
It will serve us as well as youwere speaking.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I think if I could do that in all my pastoral
ministry that would probably bea help.
Thanks so much for coming in.
It's a pleasure.
My guest, graeme Stanton.
He's been with us.
He's one of the lead authors ofthis new report your Story
that's just been released andthat's just been released and he
is director of the Centre forChildren and Youth Ministry and
(30:45):
Lectures in Practical Theologyat Melbourne's Ridley College.
My name is Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastor's Heart and we'll look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
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