Andre A. Samuels, a dynamic and enthusiastic Jamaican-born speaker and youth leadership coach who is passionate about seeing the growth and success of others, wants churches to create a space where young people can feel welcomed.

“It is important that we create a space where young people can feel welcomed, their voices heard, their presence can be felt, and their identity and personhood affirmed and appreciated,” said Samuels, a youth minister at Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in Brooklyn, in delivering the message on Youth Sunday at Fenimore Street United Methodist Church (FSUMC) in Brooklyn.

“We must allow our young people to have a space in our worship service,” added Samuels, who works as a business operation manager for a charter school network in New York City,” preaching on “Go Get Them,” with Acts 20: 7-12 as the text.  “We must cultivate an atmosphere and community where young people, with all their talents, skills and passion, can come on fire for God.

“So many young people live on the edge, living in a space not designed or built to hold and care for their young bodies, a space that is dangerous and that can cause death,” he continued. “Living on the edge is living between right and wrong: the Word and the world: wanting to do good but struggling with peer pressure, wanting to accomplish their goals and dreams while also wanting to fit into and be relevant in the day’s culture.”

Samuels said many young people lack proper guidance and care to help them see where they are right now.

“Being on the edge of life is not where God intends them to be,” he said. “Young people need mentorship and coaching from adults who are not there to judge, ridicule and belittle them but adults who care and relentlessly love them.

“We create a safe space for young people to thrive every time we connect before we correct; when we work to build a relationship rooted in grace, love, and compassion,” added Samuels, stating that his hope is to challenge the church community to “reflect upon  religious protocols and traditions and question where changes can be made to accommodate and include young people — a way of worship that also takes into account their presence and lived experience; a space where they can express themselves in a way that seems authentic to them; create an intergenerational worship community where no age feels wearied, but all feel accepted.”

Samuels noted that Acts 20: 7-12 tells the story of an occasion when Paul was speaking, and a young man named Eutycus was sitting on the edge of a window listening.

“Paul’s abundance of speech and lack of attention to where this young man was sitting led to Eutycus falling to his injury,” he said. “The church must not be so bottled down in going through the motions of church and following the protocol, litany and tradition that we fail to realize that we are losing the attention of young people.

“In our effort to maintain tradition, we can sometimes overlook the young bodies present – we must learn how to deviate from tradition and the church-as-usual mindset to ensure that young people’s presence is recognized and ministered to,” Samuels urged.

As a mentor, Samuels said he has unwaveringly invested his time in providing leadership, communications, and self-empowerment training to young people, “helping them to identify their greater potential and ignite an unquenchable passion to succeed.”

He said he endeavors to impact, equip and encourage while advocating for justice, both social and economic.

Samuels said he has worked in a Youth Correctional Facility and has seen firsthand the endless potential not realized within young men caught up with the law.

He said this has fueled his passion for empowering young people to “live boldly in what God has ordained for their lives.”

Samuels said he answered the call to ministry at 12, while growing up in Jamaica, and has been serving in church since.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management and has earned his master’s in divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.