‘Our friendships and memories will ’

THIS year the National Youth Assembly (NYA) ran for the final time from August 16 to 19 at Gartmore House in Stirlingshire.

NYA gives those aged 17-25 who have an association with the Church of Scotland the opportunity to have their voice heard on various topics that concern Young People and the Church. This year the topics discussed were hate speech, missional buildings and testimony and confirmation.

As always, this year’s NYA had a packed schedule comprising of worship, workshops, discussion and plenty of time for cake and hot chocolate in the COSY Café. Delegates began arriving on Friday afternoon and had a chance to meet those they would be spending the weekend with in their small groups. After dinner on the Friday night everyone joined together for the first worship and the opening session, this year all the worship had a theme of Building One Another Up.

For our opening session we were thrilled to be joined by the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Rt Rev Colin Sinclair and his wife Ruth, who addressed the youth assembly and took time to do a question and answer session. The Friday evening ended with a quiz with various challenges to be completed in the small groups and then a picture round and Christmas song round to finish up. After this delegates had a choice of going to COSY Café for an opportunity to get to know people more, to do something sporty, go for a torchlight walk or to head to bed ready for an early breakfast the next day.

On Saturday after breakfast and morning worship it was time to start the first input of the weekend on hate speech. We heard about what defined hate speech and how it diff ered from being hateful and therefore how it relates to freedom of speech. This was a great way for delegates to gain an understanding of hate speech before splitting into more specific workshops of how certain groups deal with hate speech; these workshops were race, sexuality, gender and religion. Within each small group someone attended each workshop which better equipped them for their small group discussion to look at how hate speech can aff ect people from diff erent walks of life. When the delegates came back together for our full group discussion the conversation began with delegates sharing their experiences of hate speech and whether it was something they had ever experienced. We then spoke about how the Church could help with issues of hate speech especially in relation to the workshop topics.

On Saturday before dinner we again had worship and this time we shared in communion led by the Rev Scott Brown from Gartmore and Buchlyvie Parish Church. Since our discussion topic on Sunday was missional buildings, we began thinking about this topic on Saturday evening with an Accessible Human Library. We had the opportunity to learn from people about their views of how Church could be more accessible for others with disabilities and themselves and their own disability. Saturday night ended with a ceilidh which was a great chance to get to know other delegates better and enjoy ourselves after a long day of discussion and learning. There was plenty of energy and the evening was great fun.

For a number of years the National Youth Assembly has joined Gartmore Parish Church for their Sunday morning service and this year was no diff erent. It’s always a joy to join with them in worship and to get an opportunity to share with the congregation what we have and will be discussing over the weekend. Upon arriving back at Gartmore we continued our input for the Missional Building discussion topic. We also had input from the General Trustees about having the right buildings in the right places and we heard more from Peter Gardner about the Peacemakers project and how our church spaces could be used more creatively. Peter and Heidi Gardner joined us for the whole weekend at NYA and brought their peace loom with them. This was a great way for delegates to experience first hand how it could be used and also created an important space over the weekend where people could have some quiet time and a place to be listened to. During the delegates’ discussions there were a lot of ideas about how our churches could be made more accessible and what it would mean to use our spaces more creatively. It was also a great opportunity to share what was already happening in our churches and how those spaces were used eff ectively in the community. As well as the missional buildings discussion on Sunday there were also two sets of workshops available, one group were based on Faith in Everyday Issues which had a choice of; Theology of Forgiveness, Faith in the Workplace and Faith in our finances, and the second was on National Church Projects which included; Church and Society – Fossil Fuel Divestment, World Mission – stories and opportunities and CrossReach – tackling loneliness. As the last full day of the National Youth Assembly came to a close, worship on Sunday evening was a guided refiection on Discerning vocation. It was a very peaceful time to refiect and pray on what is to come and consider what our call might be.

On our final day, we started and finished the programme with worship and the day continued with a focus on Testimony and Confirmation. For the input of this topic we heard from Sarah Lane Ritchie from the Theological Forum who spoke about the meaning and impact of confirmation and profession of faith. Following this there was interesting discussion about what it means to be a member of the Church and how important this was. There was much discussion about what the diff erences were between confirmation, profession of faith and becoming a member, and whether they should always be linked together or if they could be separate things.

This year the closing worship was a particularly poignant time as NYA ended for the final time. Over the twenty-five years that the NYA has been running it has had a huge impact on a lot of people. Personally, it has helped me to grow hugely in my faith and discover more of what it means to be a part of a national Church. For many it has been a safe space for discussion and to ask questions, to experience new styles of worship and to explore their calling.

It’s also a great opportunity to meet other young people from all over Scotland who are a part of the church and many have formed great friendships which will continue past the event. There are many things to be thankful to NYA for and everyone has different memories and personal experiences. It’s also important to remember everyone over the years that has been a part of organising and helping out with the event and that have made it into the event that it is.

Although NYA will be hugely missed by many, our friendships and memories will remain and we look forward to seeing what will come in the future. 