CYM Lives!

Keynote address by Mr Chris Kilowan at the gala event of the CYM Southern Synod Regional Conference at the A. O. G. Conference Centre on the 29^th April 2017.

I wish to thank the Regional Executive Committee of the CYM Southern Synod, for allowing me to address this CYM gathering even though I am long over the age of 35. I hope the constitutional experts will not throw me out.

The title of my message is CYM Lives! I will expand further on why I have chosen this theme, but first let me talk a little bit about the history and foundation of the CYM. In June 1995, the young people from the CJV (Christelike Jeugverenging) and MBB (Mokgahlo wa Bacha wa Bokreste) came together in a historic meeting in Bloemfontein. This was to be the first gathering of young people who were kept apart for more than 60 years by apartheid. This was an era of hope and willingness to stretch out hands across barriers and bridge divides.

Today many are questioning that historic moment and the divide seems wider at all levels in our church. It is within this context that we have assimilated political language into our church and structures instead of infusing politics with our church language. During the 80's (here I must tell you what my 15-year-old daughter asked when I said I will be speaking tonight – she asked whether I would talk about my plastic bag for schoolbooks – she said I shouldn't tell that story, so I won't) but in the 80's we had a common enemy and our struggles were filled with church language. The church itself became a site of struggle.

We were talking of bringing the church closer to the youth instead of the other way around. We were praying: “Come Holy Spirit renew your whole creation.” Not only part of His Creation. Not only renewal for us within the church. Not only for us within the youth structures, but the entire creation. The youth was alive, committed, involved and motivated. We were everywhere. We worked in different community, youth and student structures. We reached out. We were inclusive. We participated in ecumenical activities across denomination.

If we look around us today, I would say the time has come that CYM provide leadership once more. We have become inward looking. We should be looking at what we can do outside of our usual gatherings. There are 3 things we should do:

1.    Start reconnecting with our community, not only congregation. Infuse community/political discussions with church language. Join political parties of your choice and act as catalyst for good instead of becoming part of the negative narrative about and within our country. We should reach out again to young people of all shapes, colours and sizes. We should bring back the level of ecumenical inclusion that was the order of the day in the 80’s and 90’s.

Say CYM Lives! in every engagement that we have with people outside of the CYM. Adopt programmes that will be inclusive of more than just the members of the CYM in a branch.

When we arrange our conferences at presbytery and regional synod levels, think about having it within congregations and having members of the congregations hosting delegates. You will be surprised at the bonds you will form that will last long after you have departed from the house of that family. Recently I bumped into the sister at whose house I stayed in 1985 during the CJV Congress in Stellenbosch. When I walked up to her and asked if she knows who I am she threw her arms around me and said “…of course, how can I forget my children?”

In this way, the CYM Lives!

2.    Educate yourself about everything that has to do with our church. Arrange discussion groups. Invite members of the Rings Kommissie or regional synod to come and explain the church order and processes in our church. Have a year-long engagement around these issues. By immersing ourselves deep in the business of our church at all levels we will prevent the sort of oppression that we often see within our church these days. This in turn results in young people being pushed away from our church and our church becoming a site of dispossession, pain and hatred.

3.    Swing our focus away from a dogmatic following of our CYM Constitution and see how it can become a living document that facilitates the youth ministry rather than box people into corners. If the CYM Constitution were to be abolished today, there should still be a CYM that will continue to do the things that we have set out as our aims and objectives of the CYM.

Focus more on what we agreed to do in our church, rather than on who will occupy which position. Focus on how we draw all young people into the activities of the CYM, rather than marginalising them through our programmes or the language we use when we debate issues.

Avoid the lobbying that takes place around leadership elections because we should be infusing these processes with Christian values and raise servant leaders rather than power obsessed young people. In this way, we will provide leadership even to our church structures such as presbyteries, regional and general synods.

#FeesMustFall and other social formations have shown us as a church what it means to be engaged with our context. If we read the entire Bible we see constant engagement with context by the prophets and even Jesus and the Apostles of the early church.

CYM must, therefore, say it lives! It lives today. It must say:

·         Oppression Must Fall,

·         Favouritism Must Fall,

·         Nepotism Must Fall.

CYM exists today. CYM acts today. CYM reflects on our context today.

If we look at it in this way the questions we will ask of ourselves and the programmers of action will be more pro-active rather than reactive. We will be agents of change rather than victims of externally induced change.

So as from tonight let the rallying cry be CYM Lives!

I thank you.

Mr Chris Kilowan was elected as the first chairperson of CYM in 1995.  

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