Back when I was a youth minister, people would regularly tell me how my students were “our church’s future.” I would always smile and nod and politely thank them. After all, I knew the comment was well-intentioned. Still, I had a few reservations. For one, I was never teaching students to be the future of our individual congregation; our youth would be going far and wide and taking the lessons learned in their adolescence to other communities. Additionally, the whole “church’s future” line always had an exclusionary undertone to it; people were happy to praise our youth from a distance, but they weren’t quite ready for them to be in leadership roles for the church as a whole. I still chose to shrug off the comment every week when I inevitably heard it, but our senior pastor at the time, Dr. Chris Cadenhead, had a different approach. On hearing a church member describe our youth as “the church’s future,” Chris gave a beautiful rebuttal:

I disagree.
Teenagers aren’t the church’s future.
I see them active in the church now,
serving in the church now,
showing the love of Christ now,
and being the church to their schools and neighborhoods now.
So no, they’re not only the church’s future.
They’re our present, and we should treat them as such.

In the debates in the UMC right now, I’ve heard a lot of similar talk about how younger inclusive Methodists are the church’s future. I’ve even heard some younger Methodists speak of the UMC as “the church we’ll inherit.” But one of the main takeaways for me from this most recent General Conference is that young Methodists are already engaged in the running of the church, and after this conference, we will be even more so.

If we are active in the church,
serving in the church,
showing the love of Christ as the church should,
and being the church to their neighborhoods,
then we aren’t just the church’s future;
we’re the church’s present.

I know a lot of United Methodists are deeply frustrated by the church’s past— that the church has behaved in a regressive and bigoted manner toward those on the outskirts. I know a lot of United Methodists are deeply frustrated by the church’s present— the refusal by a slim majority of delegates to take a step forward into inclusion. But consider the young Methodists we keep saying are the church’s future. As my former pastor said, we’re not only the future; we’re part of the church’s present as well. When I see the work and the passion of young Methodists (whether in the speeches floating around on social media or in the actions of my peers right here in Jacksonville), I’m not just excited about the church’s future. I’m excited about what’s happening here and now too.