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| Monroe Congregational Church |
by Rev. Peter Allen
Like many active youth programs in the Connecticut Conference, the Senior Pilgrim Fellowship (PF) at Monroe Congregational meets weekly to provide a safe, nonjudgmental space for high school young people to discuss concerns, grow in faith, play, worship, and serve the community. What makes this group special is the sense of stewardship the youth themselves have developed within the group and the spiritual leadership they provide to the church as a whole.
“The older members of the group, especially the seniors, take tremendous pride in the group’s culture and traditions – including the tradition of youth leadership – and want very much to pass them along to the group’s younger members,” says Tracy Summerer, one of five adult advisors with the group. “Young people are encouraged to be completely honest here. That allows all of us to be open to God’s healing and guidance in an authentic way.”
Several of the group’s members started out as visitors and found themselves joining both the PF and the church. Some even brought their entire families with them.
Desiree Accomando, who is entering her junior year at Hofstra University, became active with the group while in high school and later started attending worship. She is now one of the leaders of the newly-formed College Fellowship (an outgrowth of Senior PF), which meets during summer and winter breaks. “I found that the group was accepting of people from different denominations and also of those with no spiritual background whatsoever. The church as a whole is the same way. I walk into worship and it feels like a bear hug. They don’t care where you come from; you are there and that’s what makes you a part of the congregation.”
Dana Allen Walsh was 17 and a senior in high school when she joined our Senior PF. Today, she is entering her senior year at Princeton Theological Seminary, seeking ordination through the Fairfield East Association, and serving as the summer Student Minister in Monroe. “Evidence of the spiritual growth the PFers experience and the leadership they provide can be seen in the worship service they lead each year,” says Walsh, reflecting on the group as she finds it today. “The kids take ownership of everything they do. They empower one another. It’s fantastic.”
Mission trips are a common highpoint in many youth programs but in Monroe, the youth’s mission experiences have inspired the adults in the congregation to begin their own tradition of an annual summer mission trip. According to the newly elected Senior PF President, James Viglione, “Our group is willing to be open to new ideas and to the different ways God touches us -- and I think that’s beginning to rub off on the rest of the church.”
Rev. Peter Allen is Pastor of the Monroe Congregational Church.
