Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

Working with youth is challenging at the best of times ­ but especially when the word youth doesn't simply mean people under 18.

Autalavou is part of the youth ministry model from Samoa brought by this Pacific Island community as part of the culture when they came to live in New Zealand. It is a nationwide ministry to Samoan youth - youth being everyone from 13 to 30 and above. Most Samoan congregations in New Zealand have such a group. Through sporting, cultural and artistic events (on regional levels as well as congregational), adults mentor their Samoan youth and disciple them in the ways of faith and life. As such the adult component and leadership in Autalavou has always been very strong with lots of wider family and parish involvement.

Rev Asora Amosa of Glen Eden PIC in Auckland says that while the model worked very well initially, now the first and second generations of New Zealand-born, urban, Samoan youth are not fitting as easily within this traditional model.

"The term Autalavou to the teens to mid-20s is exclusive of them, that it is refering to the oldies. There is a tension: 'youth, yeah that's us - Autalavou? oh, that means them telling us what to do'."

Rev Amosa believes it is time to encourage a model of Autalavou where the younger adults (in their 20s and 30s) are given permission to take the lead in the group. In his own parish, the leader of the Autalavou group is 32-years-old. It is the first time someone so young has been given such a responsiblity.

That is not to say older adult involvement is no longer necessary. Rev Amosa says the youth and the adults need each other like two sides (tala) of a fale in Samoa - without each other the house would collapse.

"I can never imagine Autalavou without the adults but more in a kind of discipling, mentoring fashion rather than the old model of telling the young what to do," says Rev Amosa. "The adults being mentors rather than controllers of the movement and that's the exciting thing."

But he admits the "integration model" of Autalavou is a difficult one at times - balancing both the valued traditions and openess. It is a balancing act for both the old and the young.

"Autalavou serves a different purpose in our eyes and that's why a lot of young people don't get heavily involved in Autalavou because a lot of them are searching for not just a social group in church but they're searching for that spiritual understanding too," says 25-year-old Walter Samuela, one of Rev Amosa's parishioners.