_W O R K S H O P_

Youth and 500 Years of Church Reformation

at GKSBS Kurotidur, North Bengkulu

The church reform was a historic moment of the birth of Protestant church around the world, precisely October 31, 1517, when Dr. Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses against the abused practices and dogmas of church and shackled the congregation, especially the practice of buying and selling indulgences as a requirement to liberate one from purgatory. This year of 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the Church Reformation. Not many young people know the church history how a protestant church emerged and lived apart from Roman Catholic church, especially those who do not study theology. The workshop was held with two aims: introducing theory about conflicts and the solution, and giving understanding to church youth about Church Reformation.

The workshop was held on October 7-8, 2017 at GKSBS Kurotidur church. This place was chosen because it is located not far from the houses of the youth so it is quite conducive, by not forgetting to inform head of RT 02 sub-village VII and head of sub-village VII Margasakti Village. There were 21 youth recorded as participants with some university students from Bengkulu. These students were active in organization of Indonesian Christian Student Movement (GMKI), Bengkulu.

Actually, the workshop was held twice, the first on September 30, 2017 with the activity of watching movie of Martin Luther. It was attended by 14 church youths and some of them said that they did not understand what the film was. Yohanes Dian Alpasa as the facilitator told the message of the film in a simple way so they could understand what happened 500 years ago.

The second activity was a workshop entitled "Youth and 500 Years of Church Reform". It consisted of four sessions: 1) Introduction of Stube-HEMAT and  Multiplication Program by Yohanes Dian Alpasa, 2) Youth context of GKSBS Kurotidur by church assembly and local congregation member (Ananias Suwarno and Hari Pujianto), 3) Church experience to face changes and the meaning of reformation for us by Pdt. DR. Tumpal MPL. Tobing., Mag. Theol, and 4) Types of conflicts and approaches by Ariani Narwastujati, S.Pd., S.S, M.Pd.

The current church struggle is facing bustle and time limitation of youth that causes church lose many youth, especially church in villages. The youth go to city, to study or to work. Today, youths are busy with themselves and less active in society and church, it was admitted by Suwarno, one of church assembly member, "Back to our younger era around 1992-1999, we were always eager to get together even we had to go on foot about 7 kilometers. We never forgot the date of our deal to meet again, although there was no mobile phone or what's app as today", he added. "It was only me who have motorcycle, so they used it to pick up back and forth until its tire torn", added Hari Pujianto when he recalled his memory with laughing.

Martin Luther's reforms brought changes not only to church dogmas but also freedom of thought and criticism. "The church is not a cruise ship that invites passengers for fun, but it is like a battle ship where its passengers are ready to fight against injustice, poverty, moral degradation, ignorance, and oppression", Rev. Tumpal illustrated the current role of church after 500 years of reformation. A change often creates conflicts so it is important to learn about types of conflicts and how to approach to conflicts for resolution. In the last session participants did role-plays in their daily conflicts, and learned how to be a mediator and a peacemaker. (YDA).