Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church

Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) was chartered in 1963. Currently, the congregation has about 360 members, but about 500-600 people are involved with the congregation. The congregation is predominantly white and middle- or upper-middle-class. Many congregants are professionals. Parishioners come from a range of religious backgrounds, including un-churched, evangelical, LDS, and Roman Catholic.

MOPC describes itself as a “relaxed, inter-generational congregation” whose mission is to “invite people to experience Jesus Christ and to become his passionate followers.”⁴ Average worship attendance is about 300 people per week combined from three services. Each worship service has a different feel. The 8:30 am service is attended mainly by older adults, who were described to me as the “meat of the congregation” because they are “so strong in their faith.”⁵ The service feels like a traditional Presbyterian service. The service centered on the sermon, preached by Pastor Phil Hughes on texts from Deuteronomy, as the congregation makes its way through the entire Bible during 2015. The choir led traditional hymns, accompanied by the organ. The contemporary service at 11:00 am replaced this traditional hymnody with praise music led by a team of young musicians. This service was attended by a younger crowd, with more families, many of whom wandered in during the opening songs. While both services reflected the relaxed character of MOPC, this service was more casual. (The pastor even took off his tie for this service!) Most of the youth who were present on Sunday morning attended this service, sitting together in groups, although some sat with their families. Communion was offered at both services. A third service, the Mount, is geared toward young adults and meets at 6:00 pm on Sunday evenings.

Inverted Student Ministry, like many youth programs, is highly relational in character. It was abundantly clear from their interactions with youth that leaders Jamie White and Jared McClure know their youth well, love them, and treat them with respect. They always called students by name and referred to their lives, families, and experiences. In the focus group, at which their leaders were not present, youth shared that they “can tell” that their leaders “really love and care about us, and really want to know what’s going on with us.”¹⁷ An opt-in six-month- long mentorship program intensifies the relational aspect of the program for some students, as they meet one-on-one with a lay member of the congregation with whom they have been specially – and prayerfully – matched.

The youth also have strong relational bonds with one another. In the group of 20 students that I interviewed, students ranged from fifth grade to twelfth grade (about ages 10 to 18). With that significant of an age range, I was surprised at how well the students knew each other and how well they got along with one another. They had a good rapport – jokes and good-natured jibes abounded. They also were comfortable disagreeing with one another and working through conflicts among their different perspectives. They built on one another’s observations and comments. It was abundantly clear that they felt at home at MOPC and with each other. The consistent refrain of our time together was that this was a “safe” and “non- judgmental” space, where they could be free to doubt and question. Pastor Phil Hughes thinks this sense of safety at MOPC may be an “[unconscious reaction] to the larger LDS culture which can tend to be judgmental and discouraging of questioning one’s faith.”¹⁸

A unique feature of the program at MOPC is its strong emphasis on student initiative. In contrast to earlier iterations of confirmation, which Jamie said were driven by “parental pressures and motivations,” the current program relies heavily on students’ self-motivation and decision to opt-in.¹⁹ Students who come on Sunday mornings normally have a choice between attending either the Track Two or Track Three classes, based on where they think they are in their faith journey. (Jamie did say that sometimes she strongly encourages individual students to attend one or the other, based on her own assessment of their needs.) The mentoring program, which was mandatory under the old confirmation program, now is optional, but more students are choosing to participate in it than before. Although one parent expressed to me a wish that more would be required of students, it seemed to me that, on the whole, this focus on student initiative is quite effective.

The youth ministry program at MOPC differs significantly from traditional confirmation programs in several key ways. First, it spans the student’s entire middle school and high school years (seven, in all). Unlike many other Presbyterian confirmation programs, which last from as little as a few weeks to as long as two years and often take place separately from the other youth programs, Inverted Student Ministry allows for consistent and prolonged discipleship formation over the lion’s share of an adolescent’s development. This also makes it flexible enough to account for students’ different starting points when they enter the program. No student is expected to be baptized or make a profession of faith before she is ready because of scheduling. It reduces the number of transitions among programs that students make and facilitates transitions from children’s ministry and to young adult ministry. Parents, the youth directors, and the children’s minister all mentioned the relatively high retention rate that already exists for students heading into college. It will be interesting to see in the coming years how the revised program (started in 2012) impacts how many students keep attending after they graduate. Most of the students in the focus group indicated that they expect faith to continue to be important for them as they get older.

However, very few of the students expressed any sense of identity as a Presbyterian Christian. The exception was those who had grown up going to MOPC and whose families had been longtime members. None of the students expressed any interest in confirmation or profession of faith as a means to formal membership in the church. When I asked about this, students responded this way: “Is it like a sign-up?” “What would you do?” and “I thought we were already a part of the church.”²⁴ Several, however, who had recently been baptized gave positive accounts of their experiences, and many viewed telling others about their faith as important. The youth directors (who come from Assembly of God and non-denominational backgrounds) and the pastor (who is Presbyterian) all indicated that formal church membership is a relatively low priority for their congregation as a whole. Unlike most mainline churches, MOPC has many more active congregants than members. Part of this they attributed to negative connotations of membership in Utah because of connotations of doctrinal conformity in the Mormon church, but Pastor Phil Hughes pointed to larger conversations in the PC(USA) and mainline Protestantism about redefining membership. It seems that youth are being shaped by the broader Reformed tradition implicitly in this program, rather than explicitly, as in more traditional confirmation programs.

Planting the seeds, tending the garden. One metaphor that comes to mind for confirmation-equivalent practices at MOPC is that of a garden. Several parents expressed their hopes for youth discipleship in terms of “planting the seeds” of faith in youth that may not grow until later. There was a sense of hopefulness but also realism about this work, that we do not always see the harvest or the fruits. Yet the image of planting seeds alone does not do justice to the ongoing work of discipleship formation that happens at MOPC. Seed is not merely scattered in the hope that it might one day grow. Instead, gardeners are constantly at work. They have a relationship with the garden: spending time in it, watering, weeding, nurturing. The leaders and, I think, the youth are in this for the long haul. This metaphor of the garden speaks to the relational heart of Inverted Student Ministry and to its integration with other ministries of the church. Some of the garden’s growth can already be seen in the excitement of students in their study of Scripture, in their encouragement of one another, in their service in the world. Other seeds may lie dormant, not yet ready to sprout, but still cared for and nurtured in this garden by these workers in hope and expectation for the future.

Haven: a place to be Christian in a non-Christian context. This metaphor applies as much to the youth ministry program at MOPC as to the whole congregation, perhaps even more. Students clearly were drawn closer together by their experiences of being Christian in a predominantly Mormon context. Students spoke articulately and eloquently about their experiences growing up in this context. They shared stories of the positives – of their Mormon friends and neighbors welcoming them and bringing them food when they were in the hospital. But they also talked about “harsh treatment” from the LDS community, of being excluded by friends and neighbors when they did not convert to Mormonism.²⁵ Jamie, Jared, and others talked about this in the language of “shunning,” saying that by high school many of the students will have lost friends because they are not Mormon. One student said that being in the religious minority led her to question her beliefs more, especially since it can be hard to understand and explain the differences between Christianity and Mormonism. She appreciated that there was space for questioning and doubt at MOPC.²⁶ Inverted Student Ministry, including its confirmation-equivalent practices, offers students a place to learn what it means to be Christian and to just be Christian in the midst of a culture that wants them to be something else. As a haven, it performs an important stabilizing and sustaining function for students as they grow in faith and discipleship.

The youth program at MOPC once again demonstrates that relationships are essential for youth discipleship formation. Students time and again referred to relationships – with each other and with their adult leaders – as being a primary motivator for their current participation and as a primary factor in considering their future connection to the church. About half of the students I interviewed said that they come to Inverted Student Ministry because of the “support system,” “friends,” or because it is “a good community.”²⁷ The consistency of the adult staff and the length of the program deepens this relational element. Parents identified Jamie and Jared’s leadership as being fundamental to the relational culture of the program.

Others can also learn from MOPC’s student-centered approach. Jamie and others have worked hard to create a culture of self-motivation and accountability among students for their own participation and faith development. None of the students I interviewed said they were there because their parents made them come. All said they were there because of either a desire to grow in their own faith or because of the community.²⁸ These are compelling reasons to participate that seem less likely to fade with time. Inverted Student Ministry is also student-centered in its expectation that students can and will engage with challenging theological and biblical content. Access to difficult biblical texts humanized the Bible for youth in the program and gave them a sense of coming of age, which they took seriously and in which they took great pride.