The Red Sea

The Red Sea ~ is what I envision when I think of what might be to come on Saturday of Annual Meeting. I just picked up all the red tshirts for the youth at annual meeting. With 30 youth & 13 youth leaders set to wear them, I envision what I loving am calling, "the red sea".

I have heard that folks are curious, "What's with this year being focused on Youth and Young Adults".
Well, let me tell you...

A year ago I joined the Youth and Young Adult Task force. We were charged with the plan to do at least one good thing for youth and ya's. Six months ago I had a vision of what the good thing could be. What if our one good thing was putting some effort into getting our Youth and Young Adults to Annual Meeting. What if we invited them to give their voice to the conference? What if we told them they mattered just the same as clergy and "full grown" adults? :-)  What if we could get our younger generations into the wider church life!? --future church geeks! :-)

So with the task force fully on board, we launched our efforts to acomplish our good thing - Youth and Young Adults to Annual Meeting 2011. I began to have visions of what the meeting could look like to have camp experiences and youth group experiences meet Annual Meeting. I knew that we get 30 - 40 high schoolers at Pilgrim Firs in January and I know that there are churches with youth attending worship and/or youth group. I wanted this to be one more way our youth could engage in the life of this conference. I had visions of pews filled with youth during plenary and matching t-shirts. I had visions of the youth being a part of the hearings, the discussions and being delegates for their local churches!

I knew to do this, I would need my trusty brothers and sisters in ministry. I called up the troops and they responded. We then set out to recruit. Folks made phone calls, talked it up at church and youth group, sent messages on facebook, etc...   I logged onto UCC.ORG and clicked "find your local church". I began finding numbers for UCC churches all over WA state and N. Idaho. Then, I smiled and dialed! I called church after church to tell them about this event and to invite them to round up their youth. The youth of UCUCC put together a video to futher invite youth to the meeting. Promising lots of games - i'm working on it!  We hope to deliver!

And now... we are here... it's Annual Meeting time and we have 30 youth signed up to be part of the Youth Program at Annual Meeting. They represent 17 churches and 7 area codes. They are travelling from North, South, East and West.

To me, this is a big dream coming true. The visions of youth being part of a discussion, or wearing matching t-shirts is about something bigger. My deeper dreams are for the wider church to know and to see the youth of this conference, I want the youth to feel empowered and informed and I want the youth to know each other and to share in the experiences of being "church" together. The youth of this conference are amazing! and.... there are amazing, amazing adults that give of their time and energy to mentor these youth, to empower these youth and to share in the growing of minds, hearts, souls and faith!

So... as the excitement builds to friday when we will all come together and for one weekend become our own youth group, I sit back to be grateful for all that God has made possible and for all who God has called to the weekend. I look forward to the Red Sea that tells me God Is Still Speaking! Thanks be to God!

THANK YOU'S:
I want to thank Susan Andresen, Andrew Shanafelt, Andrew Holcom, Angela Pahlow, Brian Gregg, Kristen Almgren, Tessa Nearing, Mark Boyd, Dana Sprenkle, Tara Barber, Brandon Adams, Brandon Duran and Staci Schulmeric for being our amazing Youth Leaders! And thank you to Richmond Beach UCC & University Congregational UCC for hosting the youth program overnight!