This Is a Day of New Beginnings for the YMCA / by Harold C. Smith

“This Is A Day Of New Beginnings”

By Harold C. Smith / September 6, 2000 / Silver Bay YMCA, NY

Reproduced and Distributed at Springfield College to the inaugural OnPrinciple cohort by Mike Bussey, Chair of Friends of the Jerusalem YMCA

“The faith that brought the YMCA into being is a faith of ever new beginnings.

“Behold I make all things new” God proclaims in the Book of Revelation.

We are to embrace this newness and work with and for it.

That was a motive of mine when I called for this seminar and meeting. I appreciate the response.

It confirms I was not alone in my concern and thinking. I hope I can help move us into the new century in a revitalized and dedicated way.

My concern is the Christian part of our very name.

When I read the inspiring words of the former leaders of the Y, I am astonished by their vision and inspiration.

They envisioned “mobilizing the Lay Forces of Christianity” and “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation.”

They meant it and so did the Y.

When I look at our meetings and publications I don’t perceive vision or fire. That is a bad sign; “For without vision, people will perish.”

Let’s look at what we are and where we are and see if light comes onto the problems.

There is a feeling Christianity compromises our openness.

Yet the Christianity of the YMCA had as its core is John 17:21 “that they all may be one.”

This Christianity has always been inclusive.

Indeed, one of the most Christian aspects of the YMCA as I have known it is this openness and acceptance of everyone.

This said, there are dangers in openness.

We can be perceived, and are, as being all things to all people and ending up as being nothing to no one.

There is also a danger of being captured, shanghaied as it were, because of being open.

This could yield attempts to subvert or reinvent our association, its purpose and its mission.

Still further, there is the danger of assimilation. Of becoming part of a secular culture, or as a part of an American “state religion” in general.

Those who went before us realized this yet remained open.

Because it is in the very nature of the Christian faith as they understood it and it was an integral part of what they hoped for in a YMCA.

It was to be a community rooted and grounded on the love they perceived God had for everyone in sending the world Jesus as the Christ.

Now the YMCA was lay movement. Early on it agreed not to be theological or doctrinal.

But it also agreed to be inspired, moved and illuminated by God’s Word in the Bible as they understood it.

The YMCA wasn’t conceived with the right beliefs and confessions but with Christian action and life: “By their fruits you shall know them.”

And what fruit the Y brought forth and continues to bring forth!

The world is better for the YMCA; lives are better because of the YMCA.

In many ways faith in action worked.

But there are dangers here too.

It is harder to live faith than be doctrinaire about faith.

This is especially true of Christianity, a subtle faith without signs (except the signs of Jonah).

The Y position was: we will live our Christian faith and others will be attracted by that faith in life and perhaps catch it.

The YMCA approach as its best is magnificent and effective and at its worst is a disaster.

It assumes a deep, nourished, renewed and renewing faith on the part of those who would live it.

And this leads to the role association plays.

The YMCA creates community at the same time it serves as leaven in the larger communities it is part of.

For the member the goal is the loving community envisioned by prophets, Christ and the early church leaders.

That community helps people reach their highest potential, and unity of mind, body and spirit (as Luther Gulick of Springfield College pointed out) under God.

What a need there is for this association.

We live in fractured communities living fractionated lives and desperately need the wholeness the YMCA has pointed to, and, at its best, delivered.

But this community is not an end in itself.

It has as its mission to change not only individuals by bringing them to wholeness but by bringing larger communities to wholeness under God.

For the Y serves a God of not only unity but peace and justice.

The function of the Y is not to reflect a community but redeem it; to lift it to new levels and promise.

The Y does this one person at a time, and by mobilizing those touched by the unity and purpose under God the Y can offer to reach out to others.

And what creative reaching out there has been, and what scope there is for more yet to be done, and not just locally.

From the earliest days the YMCA has had a world outlook, purpose and mission.

That mission, the product of the unity of a person under God, had and continues to have an appeal that transcends borders, cultures and historic baggage.

For the essential genius of the YMCA does not concern techniques, management, buildings, but reaches by God’s grace, into hearts, minds and bodies and strengthens them in wholeness and offers a unifying purpose that is needed and longed for.

God created something unique in the YMCA and works uniquely in the YMCA in spite of all of us.

Again and again God has reshaped and renewed this organization, and it is my prayer that we, who have this great gift in our lives and time will be open to ways God will make all things new in this new century and always.”