Bern, Switzerland [CD EUDNews]. The European Valuegenesis Survey is a research project conducted in 2007, involving approximately 6,000 Adventist young people in seventeen European countries. The Valuegenesis Report originates from two distinct research contexts. On the one hand the contributions written by Thomas Spiegler, Andreas Bochmann and Stephan Sigg were developed as part of the work of the team of researchers who originally participated in the European Valuegenesis Project. The findings presented in their articles cover the entire dataset of the survey and paint a wide-ranging picture of the contemporary scene of Adventist youth ministry in Europe, with highlights on the most significant differences among the countries involved. Alexander Schulze’s article, on the other hand, summarises the conclusions of a derivative study stemming from the main project. It focuses on a specific dataset related to the German-speaking area (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), and was developed as part of Schulze’s doctoral thesis project.
Independently from these distinctions, the European Valuegenesis Project represents a significant contribution to the reflection on youth ministry practice within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but not only this denomination. The informed reader will find significant points of contact between the trends emerging from the European Valuegenesis Survey and the findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a landmark research on Christian youth ministry in the USA. The concern behind the launching of the European Valuegenesis Survey was closely connected to the reality – not uncommon in the wider evangelical context, especially in the USA (Dean and Foster 1998, 30–31) – of large numbers of young people leaving the denomination in which they have grown up.
The architecture of the questionnaire tries to reconstruct the picture of the faith environments where young people grow, and more specifically of their families and church congregations. Starting from the study of these two contexts the research team tried to situate factors that would correlate with positive or negative outcomes in the area of youth devotional life, doctrinal beliefs, ethical values and behaviours, and church involvement.
The articles of the European Valuegenesis series constitute an important source of reflection on contemporary trends in the Adventist denomination. While the findings represent the reading of a specific group – mainly young people who have grown up sitting on the pews of Adventist congregations in seventeen countries of Europe – Valuegenesis Europe constitutes a voice from inside the churches, from individuals who know the Seventh-day Adventist Church well. It is a wake-up call that rips aside the curtain of religion-as-preached and projects a (sometimes uncomfortable) light on religion-as-lived, challenging the Church to reflect on the reasons of the many gaps between the two. It also is an invitation to value the Church in all its potential as the real and only true agent of authentic youth ministry.
"This book concludes a further phase of the Valugenesis Research in Europe," said Corrado Cozzi, Communication Director at the Inter-European Region of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (EUD) and former Youth Leader at the time the survey started. "I invite all church leaders to read this report. It will inspire you to understand the feelings of our youth, and allow to build a church responding to the need of today's youth. "
The Valuegenesis Report Book is available only in english so far. Efforts are made to translate it as soon as possible in other languages
