Meeting minutes for April 2012 Conference Youth Team Meeting

Southwestern Conference Youth Ministries Team Meeting
April 7, 2012 9 am
First Lutheran Church


Meeting minutes

Present: Ian Eastman (SW Conference), Tara Eastman (First Lutheran), Mike Felsman (Tri-Church), Judy Lind (Immanuel), Ann McKillip (St. Tim's), Jennifer Spacht (Bethel), & Jason Wood (St. Tim's). Regrets: Sue Kilmartin (Bethel)

ENGAGING YOUTH...

PASTOR ON THE PLANK... A lot of progress has been made on our pool party since our last meeting just a month ago. We have a speaker (Sally Baer, missionary to Ethiopia), worship team, and five pastors in the running to walk the plank. Donations for the 100 Wells Project are going well. Details of the event can be accessed in the window below:

Open publication - Free publishing - More elca

We are still looking for several youth to participate in the worship:

• Someone to read the Call to Worship
• Scripture reader (Acts 4:32 – 35)
• Someone to lead an icebreaker
• Prayer leader

We need 5 - 7 adults to assist with the event. We need help with registration, supervision, and set-up and tear down. Volunteers need to be at the event 15 minutes early and we'll be finished 15 minutes after the event. So far we have:

• Tara Eastman - First
• Mike Felsman - Tri-Church
• Gary Lester - First Lutheran (Warren PA) - photographer
• Jason Wood - doing games in the transition time between swimming and worship

Let Ian know if you or youth from your church are willing to help.

Spring break throws a lot of people out of their regular routine. Some emails inviting your youth to the event (grades 5 - 12) will go a long way towards building attendance.

Ian needs to know the totals you collected for Pastor on the Plank on Monday, April 9 so he can inform the winning pastor. Email Ian or call him at 720-8584. Churches can bring their funds collected on the day of the event.

CAPTIVE FREE... We hope to engage Captive Free, an evangelistic outreach of Youth Encounter, for our autumn event. They are not yet booking dates until July.

• We will rent the Gateway Center again for the event, as that was very much enjoyed by youth during The Toilet Bowl.
• Rick Mollenkopf-Grill, the Conference Youth Coordinator for the Niagara Frontier Conference, told Ian that he will have Captive Free for an event on Nov. 16 & 17, which would put them nearby if we wanted to book them in Jamestown for Sunday, Nov. 18. That is the Sunday before Thanksgiving and we wonder if families will be away or we are conflicting with other church traditions... If we can book Captive Free earlier in November or October, we will, as we would like to do a Conference Youth event as early as possible in the school year. We'll stay away from Veteran's Day Weekend as that didn't work last year.
• The service/justice aspect of the event will be collecting personal care items for the Captive Free team, as they will just be beginning their evangelistic efforts for the year.

ENGAGING OURSELVES...

EQUIPPING YOUTH MINISTRY...

• We can apply for a grant from The Connections Project at Princeton Theological Seminary. This would enable us to purchase books to discuss together as a group, pay for tuition for the October Youth Worker retreat at LCLC, and give us access to webinars from the Institute for Youth Ministry.
• We need 7 - 10 people to commit to meeting a six times to be eligible for the grant. We will meet during the second hour of the regular conference youth meetings.
• Why is this important? Because people doing youth ministry often feel isolated and lack continuing education resources. Fostering the Conference Youth Ministry Team and providing theologically sound/research based continuing education will help the longevity of people doing youth ministry in our conference.
• We are making better contacts in the conference, and have some more leads at churches to follow up on. Maybe these folks will want to be part of this group?

ENGAGING ADULTS...

CONTACTS AT CHURCHES THROUGHOUT THE CONFERENCE...
Ian has made contact with Pen Younghans at Bethel in Portville regarding Conference Youth. He has some leads on people ministering to youth at Zion (Frewsburg), Bethlehem (Falconer), and St. Mark's (Mayville). He is still looking to find a parent or Sunday School teacher, etc. at Bethany (Olean), Grace (Dunkirk), Zion (Silver Creek).

FULL CIRCLE TRAINING... The Conference Youth Ministries Team can provide Full Circle Training to churches in the conference, either as 4 weekly hour long sessions or a one-day session. Full Circle is a process where adults participate in learning specific skills and ways to mentor a young person’s growing faith. The outcomes of the training are:

• Adults who are intentional about building faith-forming, authentic, available, and affirming relationships with young people
• Adults who share a vibrant faith through faith practices such as caring conversations, devotions, service, and rituals and traditions 
• Adults who are attentive to the big and small milestone times, using them to support and nurture the faith growth of youth and their families by naming, blessing, equipping, and gifting
• Adults who make a commitment and receive a blessing to be spirit bearers in the lives of young people
• Youth who grow up encircled by faith-nurturing adults who model and equip the youth for a vibrant Christian faith
• A congregation knit together by a common mission of caring for, and nurturing the faith of, every child in their congregation and community

We discussed how to roll out this training. Ideas included:

• Combined Confirmation (something for the parents while the youth are in confirmation).
• Sunday School classes at the various congregations
• Spreading the training over 4 parent "dessert nights" across the school year.
• A one-day Sunday School teacher training for the conference

We will discuss this further at the next meeting.

DEVOTIONAL/LEARNING...


FAITH 5... We learned about and practiced the Faith 5 Model, a simple method for doing devotions with young people. The model consists of:

1. SHARE highs & lows of the day

2. READ and highlight a verse of Scripture in your Bible

3. TALK about how the verse relates to your highs & lows

4. PRAY for your highs & lows, for your family, and for the world

5. BLESS one another

It is definitely a model worth learning and teaching. It is primarily a practice for family devotions in the home, but could also be used in intergenerational gatherings, like First and Saint Tim's are doing monthly. For more information about the Faith 5, see the Faith Inkubators website.

UPCOMING MEETINGS...

5/5/12
6/2/12

Meetings are at 9 am at First Lutheran Church, 120 Chandler St., Jamestown.

(Note: The Southwestern Conference Youth Ministries Team is open to young people in grades 9 - 12, plus interested adults. Please circulate these minutes to youth, Sunday School teachers, Christian Ed committees, etc.)