Allie Papke-Larson: A bittersweet year of pandemic
This year has been bittersweet as a youth director at Shepherd of the Hills in Flagstaff. As a youth director just starting out in my call in the last few years, in March of 2020 I felt as if I was just getting some traction under my feet when, like for all of us, it was yanked away.
At this time I scrambled to pull together zoom youth group, socially distanced art projects, and felt anxiety over the tugging question of how do I encourage youth to show up once a week to yet another virtual (and awkward) zoom call? It’s not always the most appealing place for a young person to be, especially when they have already spent all day in virtual school.
As youth directors we work to build trust and connection with young people and their families, mostly through a consistent amount of just showing up, asking questions, and encouraging young people that authenticity is valued. At the beginning of the pandemic the question of how to do this when the whole world seems at arm’s length, and the online “ether” so many of us, including our youth, are immersed in, seems the opposite of authentic?
The temporarily loss of being able to show up as we always had—through breaking bread, playing games and reading scripture—planted a fear within me that the bonds the youth ministry had been nurturing these last couple of years would swiftly disintegrate into that ether.
What I slowly, and unintentionally came to discover is the personal nature that virtual meetings (sometimes) bring. Each confirmation class or youth group gathering is located not just in the ether, but intimately in our youth’s homes. I am seeing their dining rooms, how they decorate their bedrooms, their art work, messes, pets, and watching them eat whatever is for dinner that night. I am catching glimpses of the community I serve in a new way. And my community is also seeing me, their youth director, in my home with my messes and art work and dinners and Christmas tree that is still up near the end of January. It’s an intimate sharing of what’s behind each other’s curtain. The compartmentalized boxes of “Church,” “School,” “Acquaintances,” or whatever, blends together during this time in a new (sometimes stressful, sometimes hopeful) way.
The virtual nature of our gatherings has also revealed an authenticity to people once placed in those boxes. Seeing my youth in their homes surrounded by their day-to-day life and their day-to-day struggles and joys gives them more dimension, and I hope they feel this way about me, too. It has also pushed me to share my own need to be seen as human with the youth I serve, reminding them that I am a real, alive human behind this screen and not an a 2-dimentional character; a person who gets hurt or annoyed when ignored by those I am trying to connect with.
Youth ministry isn’t something that just happens in the church “box” with church people, when you we are all wearing our Sunday best, both in clothing and demeanor; but is something that happens at home, too, and these virtual gatherings are a beautiful reminder of this. By seeing each other in these personal ways we start to emerge from the boxes we placed each other in for so long, it’s a particular openness I haven’t experienced before, a particular humanizing of each other. We are still showing up for each other, just in a more 2-dimensional, non-traditional way.
Allie Papke-Larson is Program Coordinator for Lutheran Campus Ministries/Canterbury Episcopal Campus Ministries at Northern Arizona University and Youth Director at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Flagstaff.
