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National Young People’s Happenings 2019-2020

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Greetings, workers with Young People!

Below is a great list of events and other helpful resources for workers with young people from our national UMC Discipleship office.

Please note that we are negotiating to have another opportunity or two for you to be trained with the Perkins School of Youth Ministry in January (we sent a delegation of 8 last year) and possibly bringing this training to our conference. Let me know if you are interested.

Blessings in your work and thanks for your commitment to disciple-making with young people!

Rev. David Berkey
Director of Camp, Retreat and Discipleship Ministries
dberkey@calpacumc.org | 626.568.7335

EVENTS

  • Oct 7-10 National Gathering for Conference Leaders of Young People’s Ministries. You already know about this one (hopefully) Thanks to Kaye Wolfinger for hosting!
  • Nov 1-3 Exploration in Orlando, FL. The Young Clergy Initiative from GBHEM organizes this gathering. If you have folks from your conference attending, it is an excellent opportunity to connect with them when they return home to share calling stories with youth or connect them with clergy recruiters in your area. https://www.explorecalling.org/exploration/
  • Nov 14-16 “Foundations” event in Western PA. Continuing a partnership with Perkins School for Youth Ministry, WPA is hosting a Foundations training, designed for youth workers in their first two years of youth ministry in a UMC. Registration is closed and sold out! If you are interested to bring this training to your annual conference, email cwilterdink@umcdiscipleship.org or bartp@mail.smu.edu to discuss.
  • Nov 21-24 National Youth Worker’s Convention (NYWC) in Tampa. We are working to host a United Methodist Fellowship time Friday night. More details to come in October. The discount code DENOMfriend19 can be shared with anyone, and gets a $229 registration.
  • Got an event you’d like us to highlight? Email cwilterdink@umcdiscipleship.org

TRENDS

–                                  13-37-year-olds Top 15 Financial Worries. https://www.ypulse.com/article/2019/09/10/these-are-gen-z-millennials-top-15-financial-worries-right-now/ Giving/charitable giving is nowhere on the list. Compare that to this article from Burlap: https://www.thinkburlap.com/blog/millennials-and-giving 

  • “8 Questions” series from the Fuller Youth Institute.

RESOURCES

  • umcyoungpeople.org and youthworkercollective.com are undergoing website updates, hopefully to be completed before next year. Podcasts from Youth Worker Collective remain available and current! https://youthworkercollective.com/category/podcast/
  • Grants for Ministry with Young People will be available again in 2020. We are undergoing budget approval, and will know about amounts that we can award before the end of 2019. Reminders about grant submissions and Youth Service Fund application deadlines will be sent before the end of 2019.
  • Youth materials that complement Discipleship Ministries’ lectionary-based worship helps are available and published weekly. They show up in the “Latest” section of umcyoungpeople.org https://umcyoungpeople.org/the-latest/season-of-creation-creation-renewed
  • Soul Reset, by Junius Dotson is now available. Consider church-wide and age-level appropriate companion resources as you sit to discuss how reset and self-care can have a positive impact on your ability to disciple others. https://upperroombooks.com/soulreset/

OPPORTUNITIES

  • There will be a “Wesley Week” at Taize, France August 2-9, 2020, organized primarily by the Irish Methodist Church and open to all folks in the Wesley/Methodist Movement family. Details are still emerging, but would a week in France be something that 14-35 year olds in your area would find interest in? The week with food and lodging would cost about $150, with travel cost being the primary burden. Email me if you’d like to discuss further!
  • Methodist Youth Ministry Association in the formation stages. There are several folks working to create an association model to resource and network youth ministry in the Methodist family. You can join an email list and check out the vision at https://www.methodistyma.com/
  • Axis Resources is interested in partnering to make their parent-help materials through the network of UMC churches. I am negotiating a pilot program, where we could identify 1-3 conferences to make the resources available and track the impact on local churches or on parent usage over the course of 3-6 months. I’d front the cost for the pilot conferences. Interested? Email me. Want to check out Axis’ parent guides? https://axis.org/

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