The Asia Youth Initiatives (AYI) 2020 was held on 22-23 August 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic and during a time when some countries were riding off the tail end of the first wave and others were dealing with second waves. The purpose of this online programme was to provide a safe, open platform for young adults from East and South Asia to learn, mutually share and discuss pressing issues pertinent to their lives. CWM sees and upholds the value of young people as full participating members of their churches and communities. Though young adults are given a presence in all of CWM’s programmes, the AYI is distinctive in that it is exclusively catered for them.
This year’s programme was for the very first time held by virtual conference over Zoom, and was organised for young adult participants from 10 member churches across 8 countries in East and South Asia. A new feature of this year’s virtual conference encouraged participants to invite their friends to join the meeting, especially those who did not previously experience CWM’s programmes.
The two guest speakers, Rev. Daniel Ng of Gereja Presbyterian Malaysia and Rev. Solomon Paul of the Church of South India, were resource persons for the AYI 2019 held in Bangkok, Thailand. Bringing significant experience from their youth-centred ministries, they delivered relevant and impactful presentations that engaged all who were present. Four panellists were also invited to deliver presentations, all of them past participants of the AYI 2018 and AYI 2019. These presentations, as well as a series of polls and breakout group discussions, formed the structure of the two-day virtual conference.
On the first day, Rev. Daniel Ng spoke on Youth and Church Worship. Calling out the “concert culture” of many of today’s churches, he emphasised the need of churches, especially during this critical coronavirus pandemic period, to promote a participatory culture in their services and to intentionally design healthy activities that maintain high levels of engagement and maximise interaction and fellowship. Yu En Wang of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan continued on the subject of Youth and Church Politics. Beginning by highlighting the reality of the absence of youth at the decision-making level in churches, he proposed that young adults should seek to engage in church politics. By taking action through certain guidelines, youth can debunk the myth that they are “weak” and truly take their place as valued members of the body of Christ. The last speaker of the day, Doris Wong of the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China, presented on Youth and Political Unrest. Establishing through a poll that most participants had been involved in social movements in one form or another, Doris shared her perspective on how church and politics do not always have to be mutually exclusive concepts. She focused on the administration of justice and caring for the oppressed as missions of the church that ought to shape the way churches handle (or ignore) political issues.
Rev. Solomon Paul opened the second day with a video presentation on Youth and Racism. Drawing examples of racism against Chinese-looking people during this coronavirus pandemic, including discrimination against the North-Eastern people in India, he offered a difference perspective towards racism. His message was summarised in the closing video that revealed data from the highly mixed human genetic pool, suggesting that a “pure race” does not exist and that all of us are indeed one family. Jun Bum Park of the Presbyterian Church of Korea gave a presentation on Youth and Social Media, zooming in on cyber bullying in the Korean context as an example. Stressing that the kingdom of God extends into all spheres and realms, the social media space ought to be part of that kingdom, challenging Christians to use social media responsibly and influentially for God’s purposes. Grace Lalkhawngaihi of the Presbyterian Church of India closed off the conference by sharing her analysis in the area of Youth and Resilience. Drawing summaries from the previous five speakers and linking them all to the area of resilience, she suggested ways to show resilience in the contexts of church worship, church politics, political unrest, racism and the social media space.
Unlike previous physical AYI conferences that took place over five full days, this year’s virtual conference took place over two 3-hour sessions. Despite the challenge of time, the online conference allowed participants a safe space to link up once again, discuss hot-button issues freely and gave all of them much to ponder about and work on. Through this programme, the CWM East and South Asia Region continues to demonstrate its commitment to youth using technology, during these unprecedented times.
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