The church’s calling: Are we failing our young adults?

Today in Greater Memphis, we have more than 45,000 young adults who are out of school and out of work. We also have more than 2,000 churches. We live in one of the poorest metropolitan regions in the country but you will find a church on nearly every corner.

While our entire city is failing our most marginalized citizens, Christians have a special responsibility to do more.

God’s passion for economic justice is written into the very fabric of the Christian and Jewish faith. When the prophet Micah envisioned God’s kingdom, he declared “everyone would sit under their own vine and fig tree, and none should make them afraid” (Micah 4:4). These “vines and fig trees” represented the family businesses that provided socioeconomic flourishing for families. Micah understood that economic security, peace, neighborliness and prosperity come when everybody has a stake in the neighborhood, an economic portion to steward and a socioeconomic place to stand in the community.

This vision is not restricted to the prophet Micah. The Torah established debt forgiveness every seven years, guaranteed work opportunities for the vulnerable, and confronted multi-generational poverty by allowing families to reclaim their family farms in the year of Jubilee. Scripture calls the people of God to let “justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” in their economic lives.

Young adults in Memphis need churches to answer that call now more than ever. In our city, we lack pathways to prosperity.

Our minimum wage of $7.25 leaves many working residents in poverty. Tennessee has the highest percentage of part-time jobs of any state. Many companies rely on temporary labor, which can fail to provide job security and benefits to our hardest working. Predatory lenders profit from poor communities. Post-secondary education leads to better opportunities, but in Memphis today only 1 percent of young adults out of work will obtain an associate degree by the time they are 28.

The success of initiatives like Tennessee Promise and My Brother’s Keeper demonstrate that young adults are hungry for options, but as a community we are failing to provide them with viable pathways to social mobility. We will begin that work at the 2019 Urban Summit on Feb. 22-23. Attendees will hear from visionary pastors like the Revs. Stacy Spencer and Earle Fisher; leaders from The Collective, World Relief, United Way, and Economic Opportunities; hear from young adults; find minorityowned businesses and social enterprises at our Summit market; attend workshops designed to help us better support young adults in our own lives, congregations, and workplaces; and hear aspiring and current entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas in a competition for 0-percent loan investments.

Join us as we get inspired by God’s vision and equipped to embody a just economy for all.

To register for The Urban Summit, visit www.theurbansummit.org. This year’s Summit is organized by the Memphis Center for Urban and Theological Studies, the Memphis Leadership Foundation, Su Casa Family Ministries and The Collective.