| Local layman dreams a church for young adults by Erik AlsgaardUMConnection Staff The United Methodist Church will strengthen its ministry to young people if a proposal to General Conference is adopted this spring. The Baltimore-Washington Conference, maybe unknowingly, has a lot to say about it.  Bill Lizor Jr. works as the communications and project coordinator for the Shared Mission Focus on Young People, based in Nashville, Tenn.
Lizor hails from St. Pauls UMC in Sykesville. The Shared Mission Focus is partnering with other groups to bring legislation that would create a Division on Ministries with Young People. A division is a unit of a general agency of the church. Currently, the Shared Mission Focus does not operate within such an umbrella organization, but is housed at the General Board of Discipleship. A division would help provide resources, train youth leaders and workers and empower the denomination to respond to the needs of young people, Lizor said. There are a lot of great things happening in youth ministry, but there is nothing to connect these great things. The Shared Mission Focus was created by the 1996 General Conference, Lizor said, and given the task of improving ministry with youth and young adults. In 2000, General Conference charged the Shared Mission Focus to develop a denominational strategy for ministry with young people. Out of that charge was born the idea of creating a division and housing it in the Board of Discipleship. Many people are excited to reach this group, Lizor said, but theyre not sure how to approach them. A division will give us a centralized networking body. The Shared Mission Focus hasnt been waiting for the 2004 General Conference to begin its work. Lizor pointed to the groups I Dream a Church Web site, www.idreamachurch.com. People are dreaming a church that is open and inclusive to all, to have a voice that is accepted, he said. We keep hearing that youth are not the church of tomorrow, but the church of today. I dream a church where young people are understood as instruments of Gods love and justice. The current director of the Shared Mission Focus also has a Baltimore-Washington Conference connection. She is Ciona Rouse, who served as the Rev. Judith Weidman Racial Ethnic Intern with the conference communications department from 2001 to 2002. Rouse became director of the Shared Mission Focus in 2003. How Lizor came to this ministry is a story unto itself. He started attending St. Pauls UMC in Sykesville in middle school. He became very active with us, said the Rev. Bud Brown, pastor of St. Pauls. Lizor was also very active with another churchs youth group at the same time, he said. Brown said hes always been concerned that The United Methodist Church might lose Lizor to another denomination. Even when Lizor was away at college, Brown would send e-mails ending with, Dont forget your United Methodist roots. They made me think, Lizor once told me, Brown said. Thats what I was trying to do. The pastor describes Lizor as a very talented, natural-born leader who is now sensing Gods call on his life but is unclear in which direction to go. Ive heard him sing, Ive heard him preach, said Brown. Hes a remarkable young man. Lizor graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan University in Buchannon in May 2002, with a degree he created himself, drama ministry. The degree, he said, combined communications, Christian education, religion, theology, arts and English studies. Lizor moved south in July 2002, with a job at the United Methodist Youth Organization. At the same time, he did contract work with the Shared Mission Focus. When Rouse became director, the communications position opened, and Lizor was made full-time last October. Lizors duties include internal and external communication. He helps with the Web site, design work, publicity materials, e-mail list-serves, and contacts with annual conference communications staff. My mother told me, If you have a problem with something, change it. So, thats what Im trying to do, he said. Im excited and passionate about my ministry. Young people are an integral part of the Kingdom of God, he said. If this (new division) is really the will of the church, then local churches and all the people in the pews will know this and support it. | 
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