The life and death of LRY has a lot to teach. Obviously, the clearest lessons are to those of us in the denomination, but other organizations may face similar problems.

Situation: One of the most unfortuate side effects of the vilification of LRY by the UUA was that the new youth organization (YRUU) ended up reinventing the wheel a lot. When LRY was dismantled, most of the experience and materials produced over its 30 year tenure were lost or stored in unlabeled, unsorted file drawers. It was a tragic waste of time and experience. In addition, YRUU youth are rarely encouraged to seek guidance from LRY alumni in their congregations. Every time a new group has gotten started, the youth have had to find training from nearby groups, the UUA, or their own instincts.

Lesson: Any person or organization which is undergoing radical and painful change will probably be tempted to walk away and not look back. Some people say goodbye like that. For organizations, the transition time is a time of grave vulnerability, so the organization has a definite interest in keeping the transition as short as possible. Unfortunately, as in the case of LRY and the UUA, that kind of abrupt change can cause grief and hard feelings that will ultimately make the transition-incurred weakness last much longer.

That temptation to walk away can also lead one to repeat history and reinvent the wheel. A "clean" cut often leaves a mess behind: lack of materials, experience, and institutional memory. If there are existing program materials, for example, they need not be lost simply because the entity which produced them has fallen from grace. For LRY and YRUU this would have meant keeping the publications and experienced alumni available for incoming youth; for a church this may mean keeping old hymnals; for a school with a problem teacher it could mean firing the teacher but teaching some of her popular and creative teaching techniques to other teachers.

When one is deep in an argument, it is easy to forget the humanity and fragility of one’s opponents. When the dispute is over, especially if it is resolved in one’s favor, it is easy to implement one’s plans without fully consulting one’s opponents. The grief and hard feelings which were left behind by LRY’s demise alienated most of the continental-level leaders of the time. Those youth leaders would have been the rising denominational leaders of this decade; a scouting organization could lose their next troop/pack/den leaders, a camp its next counselors, a club its next president, a president her next supporters. Easing the loss of a dispute can mean a stronger, united organization in the future. This is especially true when the "winners" are already in power, and "winning" because of that status.

Adults and youth often engage in power struggles. They are complicated affairs—whole books have been written about them. Teens need freedom. Teens also need adult support, if only because adults hold legal power. Teens are quick to recognize need #1, and sometimes less quick to recognize #2. Teens and adults need to work together, which requires both parties to learn a little. Adults learn to give up some control; teens learn to listen to adults sometimes. Each learns to respect the other. Adults have their place. They set absolute limits at the extremes (you may not kill anyone) and explain the possible ramifications of various actions. Then they stand back, observe, and let the youth start to fashion their own rules. A well-mixed group of youth will usually do a perfectly good job of making and enforcing rules—individuals are more variable. If both parties do their parts, no one need lose face or total control, and there are likely to be fewer people who will leave.

Another problem that often surfaces first in families is bad communication. When communication goes, so do trust, efficiency, and effectiveness. LRY asked the adults to step out entirely, and then stopped telling the adults what was going on—and the adults stopped asking. Youth-adult communcation broke down. When LRY’s reputation began to worsen and local groups were no longer necessarily affiliated with LRY, the local-federation and local-continental communication broke down. Without communication, the continental and federation organizations stopped being able to serve the youth. Soon rumors and suspicion were running rampant throught the denomination, and LRY died.

Everyone knows that rumors are unreliable. Unfortunately, common rumors can be taken for common knowledge and/or truth. An organization in the throes of anything controversial is likely to face some rumors, and the risks that go with them. While remembering that rumors are not to be trusted, it is also vital not to underestimate the power of pervasive ideas. A large part of LRY’s downfall was that many people believed LRY was bad. Some believed in the sex rumors, some believed the drug stories, some believed in budget problems and a lack of continental leadership. All of these had elements of truth, and none were as pervasive as the stories held. If so many people had not believed the rumors, it is unlikely that people would have felt it necessary to act on them, whether an image change or an organizational overhaul was at stake.