SPEAKERS
Dear Youth Leaders
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks to the church in Corinth about the importance of realizing not only the diverse expression of the church body but also the importance of each individual member’s gifting within that expression. His primary metaphor is that of the human body. The eyes, the ears, feet, hands and all the other parts have vital roles in the body’s function and potential. With this example, it is easy to understand what happens to the body if one part of it is lacking. Over the past few years God has been showing me, as well as many others, the importance and value of the youth in our churches. I truly believe that there is a wonderful prophetic destiny that rests over the youth in our movement. This destiny will dramatically shape the face of our movement in the years to come. My concern, however, is the ability of our churches to not only realize the importance of this next generation but to also act on that belief.
Last year, I was touched dramatically by a message Glenn Schroder shared at our youth conference. He spoke of when he was just a teen and John Wimber would lead him and his fellow students out on trips. He would entrust to them “doing the stuff,” and they saw dramatic results. Most of us have heard the stories of how God used Wimber to push these young people to radically bring God’s kingdom into the lives of others. Towards the end of Glenn’s message, he told a story of a speaker he heard one time that communicated to young people they where the church of tomorrow. Glenn’s response to this remark was that it was completely un-biblical. The truth of the matter is the youth are the church of today.
The challenges and questions I believe we all face are difficult but important. Are the youth really active parts of our churches today? In our church, do the youth not only have a grasp of its mission, but are they committed to acting on furthering it? Do the youth really have a role in our church besides being the elder’s kids that have a youth group? Are we envisioning our youth with missional kingdom values and do we equip and enable them to do the kingdom stuff? As leaders this is a challenge we all face with the next generation. We are praying that this conference will serve as a starting point where we can attain the following goals:
1. Cultivate an environment where our youth can fall more in love with God
2. Instill youth with the reality that they are the church of today
3. Inspire a vision of ministry that reaches young people’s world through the local church
4. Connect youth leaders/pastors in order to encourage, envision, and pray for one another’s ministries and their lives.
(Below you is a diagram of how we wish to attain these goals)
Lastly, I believe that God has amazing things in store for both our youth and the Vineyard Movement in this next year. I sincerely hope you all can attend this conference with your youth. May God richly bless your lives as well as your ministries!
Sincerely
Jeremiah Carlson
Youth Pastor of Vancouver Vineyard Church
How we wish to attain our goals
Last year, I was touched dramatically by a message Glenn Schroder shared at our youth conference. He spoke of when he was just a teen and John Wimber would lead him and his fellow students out on trips. He would entrust to them “doing the stuff,” and they saw dramatic results. Most of us have heard the stories of how God used Wimber to push these young people to radically bring God’s kingdom into the lives of others. Towards the end of Glenn’s message, he told a story of a speaker he heard one time that communicated to young people they where the church of tomorrow. Glenn’s response to this remark was that it was completely un-biblical. The truth of the matter is the youth are the church of today.
The challenges and questions I believe we all face are difficult but important. Are the youth really active parts of our churches today? In our church, do the youth not only have a grasp of its mission, but are they committed to acting on furthering it? Do the youth really have a role in our church besides being the elder’s kids that have a youth group? Are we envisioning our youth with missional kingdom values and do we equip and enable them to do the kingdom stuff? As leaders this is a challenge we all face with the next generation. We are praying that this conference will serve as a starting point where we can attain the following goals:
1. Cultivate an environment where our youth can fall more in love with God
2. Instill youth with the reality that they are the church of today
3. Inspire a vision of ministry that reaches young people’s world through the local church
4. Connect youth leaders/pastors in order to encourage, envision, and pray for one another’s ministries and their lives.
(Below you is a diagram of how we wish to attain these goals)
Lastly, I believe that God has amazing things in store for both our youth and the Vineyard Movement in this next year. I sincerely hope you all can attend this conference with your youth. May God richly bless your lives as well as your ministries!
Sincerely
Jeremiah Carlson
Youth Pastor of Vancouver Vineyard Church
Cultivate an environment where our youth can fall more in love with God
We truly believe that the heart of all we wish to do starts with intimacy with God. Therefore we hold sessions that allow an environment of creativity and worship through music, multi-media, painting, dance and more. We believe when we offer up our creative art to God he absolutely loves it and so do we. As he inhabits the praise of his people and we taste and see he is good.
Instilling in the youth the reality that they are the church of today
We believe that through teaching as well as dialogue our youth can begin to grasp who they are as the church of today. Our goal is to provide words of encouragement that hopefully spill out of our conference onto your individual youth groups for discussion. We strongly encourage bringing team leaders in order to provide group discussions with your youth throughout the weekend.
Inspire a vision of ministry of reaching our world through the local church
We will be providing opportunities to go out into the streets of Vancouver to reach out to our community. We do this to encourage team building, individual missional thinking and practical application to what God is showing us through the conference. Our hearts desire is to simply give each youth group a chance to work together as a church in order to change lives.
Connecting as youth leaders/pastors in order to encourage, envision and pray for one another in our lives as well as our ministries.
We will be having a Youth Pastor/leader meeting the morning of Friday Aug 8th. Here we wish to offer encouragement to the Youth Pastor/leaders of our churches in the Northwest as well as network together in order to develop a cohesive vision for the youth in our movement. Breakfast items will be provided. All youth pastors as well as youth leaders are strongly encouraged to attend.
© 2008 NW Cultivation