A National Youth Council to advise Council of General Synod (CoGS) may soon be a reality after General Synod voted June 29 to endorse creation of such a body and ordered CoGS to develop an implementation plan, as well as to consider a change that would allow for two youth members on CoGS per ecclesiastical province rather than one.
Resolution C013 endorses the creation of a National Youth Council to serve as an advisory board for CoGS, directing CoGS to examine options for its creation including any necessary constitutional or canonical changes; to garner input from youth members of General Synod and to create a plan for bringing about the National Youth Council.
Noah Skinner, lay youth member from the diocese of Toronto, moved the motion. He quoted Archbishop Anne Germond, then-acting primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, who said to youth members at the beginning of General Synod, “I will not let anyone call us the church of tomorrow, for we are the church of today.”
“Today we are present, engaged and eager to be a part of the life of the church,” Skinner said of youth members. Youth at General Synod were engaged and listened to, he added, but not as involved as they would like to be. “We’re often thrown a bone, so to speak, being given issues that people believe the youth want—typically issues in social justice,” he said. “But we’re much more than that.”
Youth members at General Synod include liturgists, ecumenists, doctrinalists, financiers and others, Skinner said. While they had elected two additional youth as lay members to CoGS, he said, no youth were present on any of the sessional committees that oversee issues young Anglicans have a stake in.
“Any of you with teenagers will have heard this one before: ‘You just don’t get it, Mom.’ It’s not always a fair phrase, but it contains an element of truth,” Skinner told General Synod.
“The world changes deeply generation by generation and the youth of today are more in tune with struggles and feelings that will be at the forefront of tomorrow’s conversations,” he said. “The need for a National Youth Council arises from the idea that the youth deserve a space where they can put their heads together and work together on how to help the church prosper tomorrow.”
Adam MacNeil, lay member—and former youth member—from the diocese of Niagara, seconded the motion. Earlier that week, he said, General Synod had heard in a presentation that one of the hallmarks of synodality was engaging in dialogue.
“It is through speech, discussion and listening that we as a church discern the voice of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit,” MacNeil said. “Young Anglicans are deeply attentive and discerning and we have gifts, charisms and vocations to the life of ministry in our Canadian church.”
Throughout General Synod, he said, youth members had engaged in rigorous dialogue about synod matters over meals, coffee breaks and in the evenings after the day’s work had concluded. “Establishing a National Youth Council would ensure that youth dialogue and robust participation in our synodality continues past the conclusion of this gathering.”
Bishop: ‘I believe in the power of the youth’
Several members of General Synod spoke during the discussion of Resolution C013. All endorsed the motion.
The Rev. Grace Burson, clergy member for the diocese of Montreal, spoke strongly in favour. “My little parish in Dorval, Quebec has been blessed in the last few years with an extraordinary cohort of youth” mainly between the ages of 12 and 16, she said. Burson said she was “blown away” by the youth at General Synod, and thrilled to see them working to create structures for themselves like the National Youth Council.
Karen Chapeskie, lay member for the diocese of the Yukon, applauded the youth of today. “They have the courage to stand up and do what I wish I had done many years ago as a youth,” she said. She asked whether youth initiatives might be broadened to include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the United Church of Canada, given their close relationships to the Anglican Church of Canada. Canon (lay) Clare Burns, chancellor of General Synod, said she had invited a youth member to join the Governance Working Group going forward. “I have no doubt that they will reach out to the other people,” Burns said.
Michael Wolff, lay member for the diocese of Islands and Inlets, said he would vote strongly in favour of the motion. “Fifty years ago we were all saying the same thing—’We’re not the church of tomorrow, we’re the church today,’ ” Wolff said. “And it is amazing to me that 50 years later, we still don’t have a National Youth Council.”
Bishop of Niagara Susan Bell urged General Synod to support the motion. She recalled her own experience as a youth delegate to the General Council of the United Church of Canada and serving on committees in her home congregation. “I was supported at every level of the church as I matured as a Christian, first in the United Church and then in the Anglican Church … I believe in the power of the youth. Believe me, they will change us as they advise us, which will be a wonderful thing,” Bell said.
In her 10 years as senior chaplain at Havergal College in Toronto, Bell said, she had worked joyfully with youth. “They do their homework,” she said. “They will not only create structures that will support their own involvement, but they will change the shape of who we are [as a church], and we are in a season of change.”
Youth say more CoGS representation would help overcome barriers to participation
General Synod also voted in favour of Resolution C015, which requests CoGS to consider a change to Section 33.a.vi of General Synod’s constitution that would allow for the election of two youth members per ecclesiastical province onto CoGS. Currently the constitution allows General Synod to elect one youth member per province, based on their nomination by members of the Orders of Bishops, Clergy and Laity from each province.
MacNeil, who moved the motion, said it was imperative for CoGS to have greater representation for the diversity of youth.
“Young people are not a homogenous group … Those of us under the age of 25 or so have a wide variety of interests, ideas, hopes and dreams for the church,” MacNeil said. “Just as it would be inappropriate for one member of the laity or clergy to speak for the rest of the members in that particular order, so too would it be misguided to suggest that one young person in the church can speak for the thoughts and hopes of every other young person.”
Charlotte Hardy, lay youth member from the diocese of Kootenay, seconded the motion. She said C015 sought to ensure youth voices are not lost, particularly when barriers such as school, work, finances and familial obligations prevent youth members from attending CoGS meetings.
Hardy described her own experience as a youth member of CoGS for the ecclesiastical province of B.C. and Yukon during the 2023-2025 biennium and being unable to attend two of four meetings—the first time due to a familial obligation to attend her brother’s wedding, the second due to university midterm exams. “Both of these barriers could not be avoided and resulted in no youth delegate voice west of Manitoba,” Hardy said.
Doubling the youth membership of CoGS, she added, would strengthen the community of young people at council and facilitate their work.
“I fully believe that this [resolution] would ensure that the youth can build connections, learn the way of the church workings, and not just thrust a youth into a meeting room which they do not have the toolkit or building blocks to participate wholly [in] if they were all of a sudden called to serve,” Hardy said. “It would also work to close the [geographical] gap of the youth voice on the council, creating greater representation of our wonderfully large church.”
In addition to spearheading passage of resolutions C013 and C015, youth members produced a memorial to General Synod, meaning a formal written statement describing a position taken by an individual or organization. The memorial thanked Sheilagh McGlynn, the church’s animator for youth ministries, “for her excellence in running the current and past iterations of the Youth at General Synod program for youth delegates, and in general for her excellence in uplifting youth ministry across the Anglican Church of Canada.”
