by the Rev. Rich Nelson
Founding Director, Community of St. Francis and Clare
This coming October 4th, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, will mark the 800th anniversary of his death in the year 1226. This is a significant milestone, and a particularly poignant one given where the Church finds itself in our generation. St. Francis, and his friend St. Clare of Assisi, were both young adults when they faced a series of significant choices that would have profound implications not only for their own lives but for the trajectory of the Church. Francis was the son of a cloth merchant, a part of a newly emerging middle class in his society. His father had grand plans for him to become a knight, furthering the family name through the tributes that came at that time from fighting in the Crusades. Clare came from a wealthy family who were exiled from Assisi during part of her childhood due to a peasant uprising, which may have included Francis. Clare's father had plans for her to marry someone from a prominent family to help secure alliances. Eventually, both of them rejected their family and society's expectations for their lives in favor of a different path, the one they felt God was calling them to travel. Their decisions caused deep pain and division within their families, but it would go on to transform the faith down to our day. While praying in front of an icon crucifix at a dilapidated monastery just outside of town, Francis heard Christ on the cross say to him, "Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin." Initially, Francis took this literally and began rebuilding that monastery, which would later become the home for Clare and other young women. He later worked on another small chapel further outside of town where Francis and other young men would live.
These places of worship existed beyond the city walls of Assisi, out in the wilderness, out amongst the outcasts and the lepers. Young adults today face a series of pressures and choices which in some ways resonate more with Francis and Clare's decisions from 800 years ago than my own decisions as a young adult just 30 years ago. I grew up in the 1970s-90s, a time before the internet and the great reshuffling of society, work, social norms, and economy that it brought. Young adults today never knew a time when there wasn't the internet, when 9/11 hadn't happened, when a global pandemic hadn't shaken our presumptions of predictability, and when artificial intelligence wasn't looming on the horizon threatening to reconfigure everything we believe about consciousness, agency, and the future of the human enterprise.
The future is up in the air in newly concerning ways, just as it was in Francis and Clare's day. And the Church I grew up in as a child didn't face the concerns the Church today faces. I need not recount statistics here about dwindling church attendance and a Christian witness gone astray. Suffice it to say, it falls upon our generation, and even more so the generation of young people currently rising into adulthood, to answer a new call from Christ to "rebuild my Church." The Church today's young adults will lead should and must look different from the one I have served in as a priest these last 22 years. Just as young adults in Francis and Clare's time found it necessary to step aside from family and societal expectations to discover how they might spend their life in service to God, young adults today also need spaces to ask the deeper questions about their sense of vocation, relationships, worldview, and identity. The Church can and should be right alongside them, supporting them as they wrestle with these questions and challenge the answers we have previously taken for granted. The Diocese of West Texas strongly supports the formation of our young people through the ministries of our congregations, Camps and Conferences, Happening, Young Adult and Campus Ministries, and in many other ways.
The Community of Saints Francis and Clare in West Texas (CFC), located at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Kerrville, aims to be another important piece of the formation ecosystem in our diocese and the larger church. People ages 20-32 can spend nine months living in intentional community; praying the offices; studying and discussing scripture, theology, and life; serving the very real needs of Kerr County; and going on adventures together across our diocese; and finally going on pilgrimage to Assisi, Italy, to stand in the footsteps of Francis and Clare. This capstone event, and the blessing and commissioning we give them on their last night together, provides them with the inspiration and commitment to boldly move forward into their next steps in life, bolstered with the same conviction to gospel living that Francis and Clare held. Some will return to become leaders of their local parishes. Some will go on to minister on behalf of the Church in the larger world. Some will go on to seminary and ordained orders. But all will go on to help define the role of a changing Church in the midst of a transforming world. The CFC is not a respite from the cares of the world. It is an opportunity for young people to fully prepare to meet the myriad of unknowns the world holds for them ... and to face each of the decisions they must make through being deeply rooted in their faith in Jesus Christ. Christ calls to each of us, "rebuild my Church." How we choose to respond to that call will have a profound impact on the future of the Church for the next 800 years. It is an incredible responsibility and opportunity. The Community of Saints Francis and Clare is here to support young adults across our diocese and the Episcopal Church as they seek to answer that call. It is my honor to stand with them and support them. I encourage us all to do our part.
The Community of Saints Francis and Clare in West Texas completed their pilot cohort this past May. If you know of a young adult who could benefit from such an opportunity, please encourage them to contact the Rev. Rich Nelson, CFC Founding Director, at rich@stpeterskerrville.com. If you would like to learn more about the program, join the CFC's email list, and financially support this ministry, please visit their website: www.stpeterskerrville.com/cfc
