CHURCH YOUTH WORK IN FINLAND

Gloria, Dembo, Liisa, Ola

CONTENTS

1. What is Church in Finland? 2. Lutheran Churches - activities 3. What is church youth work in Finland4. Visit in the field: Snellu 5. Career opportunities in church, youth

work in Finland6. Bibliography and references

• Christianity is the main religion in Finland • 100 years ago: the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland • 10000 Catholics• 1 % Ortodixis • Catholics and Ortodixis: only for spiritual needs of members

1. WHAT IS CHURCH IN FINLAND

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

• 20000 employees • 5.5 milion of inhabitants of whom 78 % are

member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

• Almost 90% partecipate in confirmation work during the year they turn 15

1. LUTHERAN CHURCH AND ACTIVITIES

There are 430 parish units in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

This is what they do:

• organise public worship

• administer the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion

• conduct weddings and funerals and other ceremonies

• administer records on behalf of the state.

In addition, the parishes offer:

• children's and youth work

• pastoral care

• diaconal work

• mission work and other activities based on the Christian message.

• In school, children attend non-confessional religious studies that correspond to the family’s denomination. Children from non-religious families go to a course entitled Ethics.

The contents of Christian faith are taught, for example in daytime clubs , Sunday schools and confirmation school. About 60,000 children and youth participated in Scout clubs in 2011 designed to promote Christian education

• Infant - Baptism • Daytime clubs 3-6 years old • Sunday School 4-14year Olds • Confirmation 15 Year Olds • Volunteering (YCV trainings) • "Isoset " Big Brothers 15-18• Diakon work (for everyone )• Missionary work (for everyone ) • Bible study groups -for everyone

Conviviality and Diakonia Conviviality is used as an alternative concept to multiculturalismbecause conviviality refers to the everyday interactions and practices of living together across diversity and without domination.• Diakonia focuses on people who are marginalised or

who are in some way disadvantaged. Based on the understanding that all are made in the image of God and are valued equally regardless of their status, class or abilities and therefore cannot be denied the basics for a life in dignity, diakonia has to work directly with those who are marginalized in order to address their needs.

• The concept of human rights together with diaconal self-understanding also implies that diakonia is able to ally with other civil society organisations to both provide support and to campaign for change.

• The question of justice also comes to the heart of church and diakonia because it challenges all situations where the churches are selective in deciding whom to help and it also challenges diakonia to practice participation and non-discrimination in all its activities.

• The first and biggest concern is related to the decline in the church membership, confirmation attendance rate and attendance in other church rites. The confirmation rate has declined a little, but still remained high even while church membership rate, church wedding rate and several other markers have been decreasing more clearly.

• The clear decline in church membership rate has been especially strong among young adults. The membership rate among young men of the age of 25-32 has dropped close to 60% and among young women to 70%. The number of resignation from the church kept growing through out the decade and the trend in resignations is expected to continue.

• According to surveys conducted in the 2000's the most common reasons mentioned for resigning from the church were 1)Not wanting to pay church taxes 2)Not being a religious person 3)Not believing in the church's teachings 4)The church as an institution did not seem to have any significance to them.

Challenges for the future

3. CHURCH YOUTH WORK IN FINLAND

1. The church youth work involve young people who need no extra support.

2. The church youth work involve young people who are in need of extra support. The umbrella work modules for this is YOUTH DIACONIA which is a Christian work with young people and families in need of extra support (offering support with experienced loneliness, mental health problems and finances etc.).

• THE STATE (from gaming proceed – youth NGOs funding). The State funding for youth work amounted to around EUR 69.9 million. The figure accounted for about 0.13% of the total State budget.

• THE MUNICIPALITIES (from municipalities taxes and central government subsidies). They spent EUR 200 million per year which forms around 0.5% of the total municipal budgets

• THE CHURCH (from church’s members taxes and municipalities funding). The Church spends in the region of EUR 190 per year on work with children and young people, out of which around EUR 100 million is spent on youth work. Overall, the work with children and young people account for around 30% of the Church budget

Youth Work in Finland is funded via:

1. The State (the central government)

2. The Municipalities (the local authorities)

3. The Church (The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland)

Churchs works together with NGO and musicipalities

• The general responsibility for basic form of comprehensive education and care of the poor was started and saddled by the Church.

• These duties were transferred to the municipalities after the Church Act was passed in 1869.

• This Church Act gave the Church its own legislative body, the central synod, having her own finances and administrative bodies separate from the secular municipalities.

Church involvement in youth work

What does church youth work entail?

WHO THEY WORK WITH

The youth work leaders employed by the Church work with:• School-aged boys and girls (0-14 years of age),• Young people (15 – 29 years of age) and • Their families.

CHURCH YOUTH WORKER’S ROLE

• Education and training related activities, • Provision of information and (spiritual) guidance, • Organisation of events and youth camps, • Hosting youth clubs and meetings, • Listening and supporting young people and their families.

The Church and NK

• Church Youth Work is therefore referred to as the youth work delivered by the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church via the NK (The Evangelical Lutheran Association for Youth in Finland).

• The NK members include local Lutheran parishes and Christian youth associations. • The NK serves parishioners and association members in the 15-29 -year age range. The

organization indirectly focuses its work on the young by serving the youth work in the parishes.

• The NK supports the physical and mental growth of young people and motivate the young to become active members of church and the society.

4.Visit in the Field: Snellu

• We interviewd the boss Mare Kinanen• It works in different area of the city, it helps and support children with speacial needs. • Over 50 prisoners working with youth. • It also helps people with personal crisis, there are different kind of personal crisis. • Job is voluntary here • Also work with differnt kind of school • 10 employeers

• There are bigger problems than 2 years ago

• Depression from society, it has increased. 

• Female prisoners

•  Youth people with mental problems.

Look at this video!!

5. Career opportunities in Church Youth Work

• Education• Youth worker• Special Youth Worker • Volunteering

Education

• Barchelor of Social Services• Diakonia and youth work education is centred in the Diakonia School of Applied

Sciences DIAK.• The number of students at DIAK has remained high and a significant part of the

students seek jobs in the Church.• In the period 2008-2011, approximately 420 students graduated with qualifications

to diaconia offices.• A novelty in the education of the field is a professional master’s degree focusing on

diaconia and Christian education; the first such degree students graduated in 2008. The second group of students began their studies in January 2009. The profile of the education remained the same but youth work replaced Christian education in the title. The students also have the possibility to get an international joint degree called Master in Diaconia and Christian Social Practice.

Youth Worker

• Congregational Youth Work is closely tied with Confirmation Class. It includes, for instance, the training of the voluntary peer helpers called “isoset”for the following years’ Confirmation Classes. Youth Work provides the young opportunities to deepen their spiritual life and ponder the questions of life together with others.

• Church youth work in Finland is characterized by the scale of operation, the organization locally and nationally, as well as a large number of trained officials. (Launonen 2007, 78.) The Church youth work officials of ecclesiastical education qualifications defined by the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church of the Episcopal Conference. (Jussila et al. 2004, 248.) The Church of the staff were in 2009 a total of 1286 youth leaders. (Church Personnel Statistics 2009).

• The Church’s special youth work refers to seeking and neighbourly work with youth and adolescents directed to children and youth who are risking to be marginalised or already are marginalised. Ever since 1968, special youth work has been part of parish youth work. The Youth Act that entered force in the beginning of 2011 made special youth work statutory.

• The work is a multi-professional cooperation, the church, workers' organizations, schools, the police, social and health services with. Special youth's roots are primarily in the service and with young people. Special youth work by taking the church is also looking to lose contact with those young people who have lost their connection to the church.

Special Youth Worker

• In Finland, all young volunteers participate in a training course (YCV/Young Confirmed Volunteers training) after their own confirmation.

• These courses are organized by local parishes and they consist of approximately 50 hours of teaching (up to 100 hours in larger parishes). The course takes place over a period of one to two years.

• Today the training of YCVs consists of topics like camp work skills, parish life, Christian theology, young persons’ own growth and how to live as a Christian.

• In the three and four year models, the older YCVs become peer leaders for their younger counterparts.

• “YCV activity aims towards strengthening the faith of young people to God as the Holy

Trinity and to equip them to live as a Christian” (Isoja ihmeitä 2016, 9).

Volunteerism

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY and REFERENCES

• Adler, H./Feußner, H./Schlenker-Gudbrod, K. (2007), Teamer Schulungsmodelle für Ehrenamtliche. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus.

• Schweitzer, F., Kati Nimelä., Thomas Schlag & Simojoki, H. . (2015). Youth Religion And Confirmation Work in Europe

• Salomäki, Hanna ; Palmu, Harri ; Ketola, Kimmo ; Niemelä, Kati ; Hytönen, Maarit ; Salminen, Veli-Matti ; Shelby, Jaana, kääntäjä. ; Community, participation, and faith : Contemporary challenges of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, Kirkon tutkimuskeskusChurch Research Institute 2013.

• THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN ASSOCIATION FOR YOUTH IN FINLAND (2010). Retrieved: 04/02/2017 from Nuorten Keskus website, http://www.nuortenkeskus.fi/fi/jarjesto/in+english/

• Helve, Helena (n.d). The Finnish perspective: youth work, policy and research. Retrieved: 04/02/2017 http://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/8437152/H1_Finnish-parspective.pdf/0c3d8735-8312-44fe-9684-6a9f16a112f2

• Höylä, Sari (2012). Youth Work in Finland. Series E. HUMAK Publications 4, Retrieved: 04/02/2017 https://www.humak.fi/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/humak-verkko-hoyla-youth-work-englanti.pdf

• European Commission (2014). Working with young people: the value of youth work in the EU. Directorate-General for Education and Culture: Retrieved: 04/02/2017 http://www.youthpolicy.org/library/wp-content/uploads/library/2014_EU_Youth_Work_Study_Country_Report_Finland.pdf

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY and REFERENCES

• http://sakasti.evl.fi/sakasti.nsf/0/26C13F2F2D14B14BC225771100453087/$FILE/Christian_guidebook.pdf

• http://sakasti.evl.fi/sakasti.nsf/0/4D9073DDB9C38745C22576F20030A70E/$FILE/publ%2062.pdf

• www.snellu.info • http://www.snellu.info/vuosikertomus• K. M. & Porkka, J. *Confirmation Work in FinlandNiemelä 2015 • Schweitzer, F., Niemelä, K., Schlag, T. & Simojoki, H.Youth, Religion and Confirmation Work:

The Second Study. 2009