Good morning. Thank you very much for welcoming me here to speak on this beautiful Sunday.

My name is Megan Dowdell, I am 20 years old and this year, I am retiring. From the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Board of Trustees, I mean. In June, when I arrive in Fort Worth, it will be my final General Assembly as the youngest Trustee-at-Large to serve our member congregations. The Youth Trustee-at-Large position, the one I’ve held since June 2003, is a new thing for the UUA. It was created as part of a conversation on youth leadership in the Association that has been going on for decades within the youth community.

Youth have long been considered a part of our UU future, but increasingly, they are being recognized as vital leaders of our UU present. As a “living faith,” often what holds onto us today is what pushes us toward tomorrow. Tom Owen-Towle’s book, Growing a Beloved Community reminds me that we should think of ourselves not as human beings, but “human becomings.” In that way, I would claim that each of my colleagues on the Board of Trustees is a Youth, committed to growing, changing, and reshaping our institution – always looking toward the future. Perhaps, so is each of you—striving to live the Unitarian Universalist principles that bind us together.

As the words of dismissal in your order of service state, I feel privileged to be part of a “community of transformation” on the Board. How I see it is that there’s a bug going around the Board of Trustees. Something is airborne; everybody’s got it. The future of Unitarian Universalism and the role of the UUA in that future is something that my colleagues on the Board and I have been discussing with new energy. Energy, around possibilities, new ideas, new ways of supporting congregations, and new ways of training our leadership. And I have a hunch that this energy, this bug will grab hold of you at General Assembly this year in Fort Worth, as embark on the free and responsible search for truth and meaning in our Association.

For me that bug that’s grabbed hold of me has been about youth ministry and empowerment in our congregations, districts and the Association. In October, the Board asked that a consultation on ministry to and with youth be held so that the entire association’s leadership could look at how we DO youth ministry and how we MUST do it better. President Reverend Bill Sinkford and I were asked to co-convene the February meeting. Along with a planning team and an amazing facilitator named U.T. Saunders, we gathered thirty youth and adults from across the Association and the continent not very far from here, in Essex, Massachusetts. Beside Bill and me, our participants included youth members of the leadership in Young Religious Unitarian Universalists or YRUU. It included parents, youth advisors, ministers, religious educators, UUA administration, staff, and the Trustee from this district, Paul Rickter.

But, to me, perhaps the most important participants were the youth who do not take part in YRUU activities, those who have been left out of the continental youth leadership structure. Those who may have gone to General Assembly, attended a district conference or “con,” but decided those youth communities weren’t for them. They sing in the choir, they baby-sit your kids, they teach in our Sunday schools, and they minister to each other. I identify with these youth in many ways. I, too, never found a social, spiritual or political home in continental YRUU. For me as a teenager, I found my Unitarian Universalism called me to my congregation. I was the President of my youth group and I was the only youth on the Welcoming Congregation Task Force. Being involved in youth-adult collaboration at the local level allowed me to easily transition to the Board of Trustees my sophomore year in college, but I have not gotten as many chances to work with my peers, the Unitarian Universalist youth leaders who are doing amazing and radical activism across the country and Canada.

This two-day consultation was an opportunity for all these stakeholders, all this people, youth and adults together, to redefine and recommit ourselves to youth ministry. But, for me, whatever process we outlined to transform how we serve youth in congregation, the power of seeing these leaders and non-leaders, educators, parents, youth leaders and youth pulled from the pews working together—that was enough to move me. Working intensively over the course of the weekend, we came up with five priorities to be addressed that I would like to share with you.

You may be asking: What’s next? And, how does youth ministry fit into the overall future of Unitarian Universalism and the work we must do to get there?

Well, at the end of our gathering, a smaller group was charged to synthesize the ideas into one coherent plan and meet this month to create a draft plan and implement it in order to support local congregations, districts and the Association in creating better youth ministry. I can assure you if you go to General Assembly; you will hear more about it and be asked to bring feedback, questions and suggestions.

At the Board of Trustees meeting this upcoming weekend, Bill Sinkford will present his draft of a document called “the future of Unitarian Universalism”. In this draft he outlines how we as an Association of Congregations must build on our great heritage and our recent successes, like the fight for equal marriage. We must encourage growth for our congregations, strength to build partnerships, and depth in mind and spirit. How we, as a community, encourage the spiritual growth of young people, youth, in our congregations is an essential part of this vision. As Bill poignantly states and I as your youth representative from the Board of Trustees this Sunday truly agree: In order to grow a liberal religion strong enough to transform humankind with liberating hope and justice-making love, we have to be serious and intentional in our efforts. And, as a movement of human “becomings,” we cannot lose our youth.