How can the church help?

Given the immensity and complexity of the crisis, the issue of youth unemployment should, at the very least, be on the prayer list of each South African church congregation. We bring unique gifts and graces to every challenge, and prayer is one of those unique graces we can and should bring to this crisis, acknowledging that it will require more than human ability to solve it.

If we begin to pray about it, we give it a certain prominence because we have spoken about it to God, and we will then have no choice but to act on it.

Prayer is also one of the factors that give the church confidence to deal with multiple and often converging crises. We gain our confidence from a relationship with someone who says “I will be with you always, until the end of time” and from Scriptures that proclaim that “for human beings it may be impossible, but for God it is possible”. When it becomes clear that other agencies are not going to – or simply cannot – deal with this and other crises any time soon, the Church has no choice but to stand in the breach as young people are part of the special concern of the church and also part of the marginalized and the voiceless or the unheard.