Mennonite Weekly Review

BURGOS, Spain — A vibrant youth group such as that of Comunidad Evangélica Menonita de Burgos (Burgos Evangelical Mennonite Community) is rare in post-Christian Europe.

Youth from Burgos, Spain, travel around London on a bus. Front, from left: Noelia Fox, Brian Fox, Asuncion Soria, Miriam Lozano. Second row: Mikaela Fox, Gadea Garcia, Hugo Viera, Pablo Zaldivar. Third row: Lara Monjon, Vanesa Morena, Andres Vallejo, Elias Melguizo. — Photo provided by MMN

Not content to bask in their faith, eight youth and four leaders traveled to the United Kingdom July 28-Aug. 11 to learn about coffeehouse ministries.

“Our congregation sometimes seems like a youth camp,” said Connie Byler of Mennonite Mission Network, an elder on the church’s leadership team. “It’s a real privilege and a real responsibility to have young people stay in the church.”

Byler’s husband, Dennis — professor, author and Anabaptist networker — said that churches in post-Christian Europe don’t have a good record of retaining second-generation Christians.

“I would describe as post-Christian those who had a basic understanding of Christianity and rejected the traditional, cultural beliefs they think are Christianity,” Dennis Byler said. “And, I would describe as pre-Christian those who grew up in post- Christian homes. It would only take a two-generation transition to go from Christian to pre- Christian.”

Dennis and Connie Byler moved to Burgos in 1981.

Connie Byler has high expectations of what God will do through the Burgos youth. She enjoys their creativity when she shares leadership with them.

She is grateful for the increased cohesiveness within the group that is developing through the guidance of Brian and Noelia Fox, MMN workers since 2007. Noelia Fox is a native of Burgos and grew up in the Burgos congregation.

Some highlights of the youth group’s summer trip were the stories of the Irish ministries’ beginnings, often through the vision of one or two people.

“Their response [to the call to ministry] was to start praying,” said Brian Fox. “One group met every Thursday morning around a kitchen table to pray. They did this for two years before their ministry was able to start up. To this day, more than 10 years later, they still meet every Thursday morning to pray. For us, this was an encouragement and challenge to focus on prayer.”