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By Erik Alsgaard
UMConnection Staff

ll that young adults want today, according to the Rev. B. Kevin Smalls, pastor at Queen’s Chapel UMC in Beltsville, is to meet a Samaritan along the road.

In other words, what they want is what every other human wants: authentic relationships.

Smalls spoke March 15 at the first-ever “Shift Happens” event, designed by and for young adults in the Baltimore-Washington Conference. More than 100 people attended the day-long gathering at Smalls’ church, which featured workshops, music by American Idol’s “Kurtis Parks & The Anthem,” a live Twitter feed, and off-the-hook food.

“I think the biggest hope for young adults is to discover authentic, meaningful relationships,” he said, adding that you can hear that hope laced throughout popular music, both secular and religious.

“A lot of the songs now sound like love ballads to God,” Smalls said. “That comes out of a desire to move beyond the divorce that we went through, to move beyond the family disappointments, to move beyond ‘I didn’t know my father,’ to move beyond ‘I was abandoned by my mother.’ I’m really determined to meet a Samaritan on this road.”

Smalls, of course, is referencing Luke 10:25-37, best known as the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Scripture for the 2014 Baltimore-Washington Conference Session in May.

“Even if the priest walks past me, even if the Levite walks past me, I will build community with the one that stops and helps me along the way,” Smalls said. He said that this parable is at the crux of young adult life: the community is on the road, boundaries are going to get tested, and we’re going to find out who stops.

“Young adults today are more than willing to build bridges with people outside of their race, people even outside of their religion,” Smalls said. “The neighborhood is becoming globalized every single day.”

The problem, as Smalls sees it, is that many churches are unwilling or unable to keep up with the shifts. As a result, many young adults see the church as being too closed and simply stay away.

Or, as Smalls said, using Luke 10 language, young adults are phrasing it: “You’re upset with me that I have a friend who is a Samaritan when you didn’t even stop. And then when I bring my Samaritan friend to church, you don’t make room for him or her!”

Loreal Scott, from Shiloh Community UMC in Newburg, said that she was ready for a shift in her life.

“I want to learn more about God,” she said, “and I want to learn more about where I’m going now that I’m a young adult.” Scott had attended a workshop on relationships, taught by Smalls.

“You need to have a relationship with God before anyone else,” she said. “Your love needs to be in God before you love anybody else.”

Scott said that she attended Shift because it was important to her to move forward with her life, and to be able to share her story with others.

Charlene Pinkney, who came with Scott and her friend Tyrika Ford to the event, said that she had learned about a big shift in her life: money.

“Remember, the reason that you have the money you have is through God,” she said. “God deserves a lot more than what we already give.” She said that the subject of tithing — giving 10 percent to God — was a good reminder for her on how to set one’s priorities.

Gary Derr, with Crown Financial Ministries for the past 26 years, was the workshop leader where Pinkney was reminded of tithing. He shared biblically-based principals on how to manage financial shifts.

“As Christians, we can’t separate our finances from our spiritual life,” he said. “There’s a better way, a better purpose, that God has for our material possessions than what many of us do now.”

Derr said his goal in teaching the workshop with young adults was for them to understand that people of faith need to recognize that God is the owner of “everything.”

“Because of that,” he said, “we need to change our mindset from one that says ‘we are the owner’ to one that is ‘we are the steward.’ That means we’re going to manage the things God gives us.”

Derr said that he is struck by how young adults today haven’t been taught how to deal with finances.

“A lot of that is because it’s a hard area for a lot of churches to go into,” he said, “because of past failures of some Christians in high standing.” Derr added that financial conversations are often difficult because of the “owner” mindset prevalent in today’s society, even in the church.

Derr said his message for all Christians — not just young adults — is a reminder that God calls us to faithfulness, not success, in our finances.

Washington East District Superintendent, the Rev. Rebecca Iannicelli, delivered a keynote address during Shift, talking about the differences between work, jobs and vocation.

“Vocation is not your work or your job,” said Iannicelli. “Vocation is the work of discovering and living into the answers of the questions ‘Who am I?’ ‘Who will go with me?’ and ‘What am I to do?’”

Iannicelli shared her own personal story of how she came to be a Christian at the young-adult age of 31. Her then four-year old son prompted her to go to church one Saturday, and by Tuesday —after having cold-called that church that Sunday morning — she knew the answers to those questions for the first time in her life.

“I felt love and forgiveness wash over me, and that I had found new life,” she said. From that moment on, she knew her vocation was to “go and tell.”

After going over some steps of discernments, Iannicelli reminded her audience that vocation always brings life, not death; that your life has purpose; and that we are to “hear and do, and look for a clue.”

“Vocation is never boring,” she said. “It will take ALL of you.”