An Invitation from the Children, Youth, and Families Advisory Council

Happy Earth Day, my favorite holiday. I spent my Earth Day saying hello to the new blooms in my garden (pulsatilla, tulips, and bloodroot!), writing electronic letters to the elected officials I want to make change, and walking through my neighborhood in South Minneapolis with a friend and fellow parent. We walked past kids playing soccer and neighbors out enjoying the sunshine while talking about community building, community repair; how it takes a village to raise our kids and sometimes when we look around, we can have a hard time finding the village.

This week your Children Youth and Family Advisory team met and tasked me with writing not the usual update, but an invitation. We are seeking to understand what our families need from our village now, in this moment. We want to know what the last five months have been like for you.

We are seeking to understand what our families need from our village now, in this moment. We want to know what the last five months have been like for you.

I started volunteering with RE because my children couldn’t separate from me on Sunday mornings. What I needed from the village was for other adults to know my children, to ask about them and show care for them so they could feel safe enough to step away from me in church spaces. There was a time when my children did feel like their RE volunteers knew them and cared for them. My family didn’t stop showing up to RE this year because there were not enough adults to care about my children; we stopped showing up because Operation Metro Surge drastically changed the way we navigated our neighborhood. Some Sundays driving across the city just wasn’t a risk we were willing to take. We weren’t always sure we were going to find a space where people were willing to talk openly about what was happening. Some Sundays I could not leave my neighborhood because I was tending to neighbors, or acute situations. Some Sundays it was too much to ask all five members of our family to pull their shit together all at the same time; and we weren’t sure how our messy, falling apart selves would be received at a Sunday service.

Most often I hear parents say, “We need other adults to help our children feel connected to and cared for in order to make church feel like a safe space for them.” Safe so children can separate from their families, attend RE classes, building relationships with peers with the safety net provided by known, reliable adults. Children need the continuity of seeing the same adults weekly, adults who know them, care about them, can ask questions and talk to them, can be a safe lap to crawl into or be the friend who shares the same sense of humor, who remembers to ask them about their current interest, obsession, hobby or book and they feel seen.

I hear some parents need their children to go to RE so they can have space to themselves or to fortify themselves with time with friends before heading back out into a week of solo parenting. Some parents need the Sunday worship space to be more welcoming of noisy children, children who might run through the aisles or play with toys, making noise. Some children need RE to be focused on a project or a story, they need a task or a structured classroom while other children need RE not to feel like school.

You can email this feedback, you can give it in real time to one of the members of your council, or you can ponder the questions and share your feedback later. There will be space to share your feedback when you register your children for next year’s RE later this summer. We really, really want to hear from you. Things have only continued to get harder, now is the time to start shoring up the village, building the community we need.

I end this message as I do every time, but please know the emphasis is here, on this paragraph. We would like to go for a walk, get a beverage or a meal, and meet with you to hear your thoughts, your experiences, and your needs. Please reach out to me, co-chairs Samatha White or Kirk Cozine, Sarah Heuser Troi Ferguson, or our fearless youth and family leader Allison Connelly Vetter. We want your feedback, especially in light of the trauma our community has endured these past months.

Usually I say ‘I look forward to seeing you in church,’ but as already mentioned, getting my family to church lately has been no easy task. Instead, I leave my email below and I look forward to reading your feedback to our questions or making plans with you to hear about your experiences and your needs for our community. We take care of us.

Thank you,

Annie Holtzclaw
apholtzclaw7 [at] gmail.com