Posts Tagged: presbyterian youth triennium

Pentecost Offering: We Are All Builders

You may never have thought of yourself as a builder, but you are — we all are. Some people you know actually do build solid things like houses and bridges or maybe roads and highways. But we all build things that support our future. Perhaps you build a garden each spring or a menu plan… Read more »

Pentecost Offering connects youth in the body of Christ

Fifteen-year-old Grace Reck usually can’t wait to try new things, but when given the chance last year to attend her first churchwide youth conference at Montreat, she dragged her feet — for a minute. “For both Grace and her twin sister, Emma, the Montreat Youth Conference was a pivotal experience in their faith journey,” said the Rev…. Read more »

Pentecost Offering Helps Young People Challenge the World’s Injustices

Yuriko Beltran wants to change the world — which is exactly why the 23-year-old entered the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program. “I like the fact that I actively contribute to change, which is what the YAV program mainly seeks to accomplish,” she said. The YAV program is an ecumenical, faith-based year of service in sites across the U.S…. Read more »

Pentecost Offering Sets At-Risk Youth on the Road to Success

Everywhere he looked, the Rev. Allen Shelton saw tremendous gaps — gaps keeping high school-aged young people of color from succeeding in life. Rev. Shelton, a veteran educator, community advocate and pastor in New Jersey, was determined not to watch promising youth fall through the cracks of an increasingly broken educational system. He wanted to… Read more »

Pentecost Offering: How did they do that?

“… building up the Body of Christ.” Ephesians 4:12 How many times have we seen a modern building, an historic landmark, a great cathedral or a monument and thought, “How did they do that?” Regardless of when it was built, the skill and craftsmanship needed to not only imagine it, but to make it sturdy… Read more »

Pentecost: Creating Welcoming Spaces for Youth with Disabilities

Like most kids, Josh Davenport-Herbst has a hard time saying no to his parents, especially when it comes to showing up for stuff at church. But unlike most kids, both of Josh’s parents are PC(USA) pastors and unlike many of his peers, he doesn’t like to be around too many people, loud noises or too… Read more »

Pentecost: More Than We Can Plan

From the day they are born and even before they are born, we are busy making plans for our children. Some of our planning is about the really big things, like the name they will carry or finding the college that will help them fulfill their dreams. Some of our planning is much smaller, like… Read more »

Why we can all celebrate “Father’s Day”

By Emily Enders Odom The first time I served as an adult advisor at the Presbyterian Youth Triennium — that storied gathering of nearly 5,000 exuberant and excited high-school youth from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church — was in 1989. That summer, as I continued to live into my evolving call… Read more »

Building faith connections that last a lifetime

By Lynne Foreman In the late 1980s, when I was serving as a youth group leader in my local congregation, my pastor invited me to attend a gathering that I recognize now as the early stages of a new movement for youth in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Even as I was being drawn headlong into… Read more »

Pentecost: A world away, yet connected through faith

Just when most young people were beginning to imagine what nontraditional instruction might look like during COVID-19, Sami Han took things a step farther — a big step farther. She moved to South Korea with her parents. When the 16-year-old’s parents, the Revs. Myung Sung “Martin” Han and Jieun Kim Han, accepted the call to… Read more »