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by Lyle Griner

OUR JOB: As church leaders we are in a position where we get to facilitate intentional faith and life connections. As much as we would like faith conversations and sharing in faith practices to just happen they require our nudges. Maybe our job title should be FAITH CONNECTOR. It certainly can be one of our top goals.

We already know that parents and grandparents are the primary influencers of faith. We also know that partnering adults and Peer Ministry youth effectively model and mentor faith in both formal (programed) and informal (every day life) ways. Faith connecting is a form of MENTORING.

A POWERFUL MEMORY: It is such a significant aha memory! Picture this. A high school candle group sitting around the flame, a Peer Ministry young person leading the discussion. “What do you remember from confirmation?” he asks. Silence. A few claim they remember nothing. “Nothing!” Three years and they remember nothing! Finally one youth says, “You know what I do remember? I remember a lot of things my mentor and I talked about. One by one all the youth started sharing things they remembered from their lenten one-on-one mentor conversations.

MENTORING-LIKE: Some modeling and mentoring conversations are informal. People connect during the flow of every day life. Others are in the midst of programs. These range from a series of and planned one-on-one traditional mentoring meetings to one time facilitated conversations. We get to teach the skills and create the opportunities for faith mentoring experiences. 

ANAM CARA:Think about these mentoring style conversations as Anam Cara! It’s a Celtic phrase meaning Friend of Your Soul! Let that soak in! What a cool term! Anam is for soul and cara is for friend. In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an Anam Cara. Read about it, go deeper with it in the book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdomby Irish poet, priest and philosopher, John O’Donohue.

Here are some teasers from O’Donohue to whet your appetite!

• “Friendship is the nature of God.”
• “Where you are understood, you are home.”
• “One of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen.”
• “There is no cage for the soul. The soul is a divine light that flows into you and into your other. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship.”

You also have to appreciate this gem of a quote from the philosopher, Aristotle who says that, 

“Friendship is the art of holding up a mirror to each other’s souls. Friends hold a mirror up to each other; through that mirror they can see each other in ways that would not otherwise be accessible to them, and it is this mirroring that helps them improve themselves as persons.”

MENTORING, being a soul-connecting friend, mirroring each other’s souls, having intentional conversations, is all about daring to ask the deeper questions and to love the sifting and exploring thoughts that flow out. My mentor, Barbara Varenhorst, said about people’s fears of asking questions that that seem too prying, “The danger is not in asking overly personal questions, but that we go through life with no one ever asking the real questions that matter most to our lives.”

Our work may be less about strategizing programs and more about helping people discover the richness of faith connections. Blessing as you ponder more of your job as a faith connectors.

An interview with Pastor Aaron Werner!

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your connections with Peer Ministry!

In 1997 as a high schooler, I attended Leadership Training School, a week of camp teaching and practicing Peer Ministry Leadership skills. Our synod’s leaders also invited me to join a synod-wide Peer Ministry Leadership (PML) team, who, after a training lock-in, served as hosts at our Michigan Youth Gathering.

After becoming a pastor, I wanted to pass on the gift of Peer Ministry that I had received and so started organizing PML training lock-ins for high school youth in Michigan and serving as their advisor for the Michigan Youth Gathering.

I’ve been a participant or leader in PML activities for over twenty-five years.

You have started a PEER-TO-PEER program in your local school. Can you share what that is and how it got started?

While meeting with the high school counselors about a community program, I mentioned I taught Peer Leadership. They were immediately interested. They spoke about the need for their students to connect, especially after the pandemic and they wanted to start a program to help youth learn, use, and experience welcoming, listening, and helping skills. We set up a meeting with the principal and got started.

The counselors invited a group of 40 students who they identified as good candidates for joining our new club. We held a half-day training at the local library to get things started. I walked them through building a vision of trust, basic small talk and listening skills, and invited them to continue with twice-a-month meetings at lunch time.

During the school year, we meet in the student lounge at lunchtime. Students bring their meals. We go over our vision of trust they put together at the workshop. We do a quick check-in. Then we focus on the topic of the day. During the fall, I brought the topics. In the spring, we discussed items they brought up.

What are some of the needs PEER TO PEER addresses?

Here are the topics the students wanted addressed this year:

• How do I maintain my own safety and integrity when other people do not share my values around having a good conversation?
• What do I do when my friend is hurting?
• How do I respond to the intense emotional reactions of others?
• How do I have a good classroom conversation/discussion, especially when I disagree with the teacher or a classmate?
• How do I respond to someone who is ranting?
• What do I do when someone I care about seems closed-off?
• How do I begin to help when I see someone might be doing something that could harm themselves?
• What do I do when I lose a friend, or I don’t want to maintain a friendship?
• What do I do when gossiping is going on?

What are some of the elements that happen during your time together? 

Here’s our outline for lunch meetings:

1. We do a general welcome.
2. We talk about our vision of trust and provide examples. Often, I will connect the topic of the day to how it embodies an item from our vision of trust.
3. We do a one/two word emotion/feeling check-in. Students invite each other to share. I utilized a feeling wheel to help people find words.
4. We invite people to share a PML story or question. Students talk about a time they used a skill; a time they tried to use a skill and maybe it did not go as planned; or a scenario where they would like more skills.
5. We discuss and practice the topic of the day.

What are some of the results? What are students saying about it?

Almost everyone shared how utilizing WHEAT gave them more confidence in starting conversations. 

One student shared how she felt much more confident going to college, that she could make real friends and good authentic connections amongst a whole new group of people now that she had these PML skills.

Another student talked about how learning to identify and talk about her feelings, as well as truly listening to and for the feelings of another person, helped her and her sister resolve a conflict honestly and openly rather than “sweeping it under the rug.”

If a church or group of churches wanted to start their own Peer To Peer in their schools what wisdom would you suggest?

Our PML club got off the ground because of the full support of the counselors and principal. One of the counselors or vice-principals attend every lunch meeting and organize the logistics for the workshops. Finding a staff champion is a must.

We have found our greatest success when the students themselves become inviters and advocates. I was able to step back this past year and let one of our students lead the lunch meetings. When the group is student led and owned, the group’s organic feel and welcoming nature really creates an authentic atmosphere of non-judgement and hospitality.