The Power of Input

This past weekend, the Wisconsin Conference Youth Department held its annual young adult event: The Table. Thirty young people attended the weekend, which was hosted by The Shepherd's House SDA Church. Thirty is about the perfect amount for an event like this, because by design it is less of a traditional youth "rally," and more of a summit or advisory for senior youth and young adults. In other words, the desired outcomes of this event are high-quality discussion, close connections, and intentional feedback for future planning. Keep in mind, The Table is the very first official Wisconsin Conference effort at Young Adult ministry, and this is it's second annual iteration. We're slowly trying to build something that will grow and last in our Conference, and we want our Young Adults to have maximum input in the process.

To that end, we keep the celebrity guest speakers to a minimum and create a safe space for Young Adults to hone their own public speaking/preaching skills. This year, we had three young preachers present to their peers, with a ten-minute discussion time after each message, for the sake of feedback and deeper exploration of the ideas presented. Olivia Sachse talked about struggles with faith and how we can find strength in the knowledge that God chose us and gave it all for us. William Ramos testified about a season of discouragement while attending college, but his journey toward looking up to Christ and finding encouragement in Him. Megan Peddie dug into the character of God and how we each have different personalities but are still created in His image. It was impressive to hear the depth of thought and personal testimony shared by these young preachers, and we hope that they will continue to hone that gift.

In the afternoon, there were three notable segments worth mentioning. First, Pastor Titus Naftanaila, our Wisconsin Conference President, came over to speak to our Young Adults about his personal calling to leadership, how the conference operates, and his role as president. An important point that he made is that, when it comes to leadership positions, we are not our position. "I am Titus," he said, "and president is a role I am playing, but it is not who I am." The decision to bring in our Conference administrators (Dr. Amir Gulzar last year, and Pastor Titus Naftanaila this year) was inspired by the Oregon Conference's Young Adult event "Dinner With Dan," where they brought in their Conference President, Dan Linrud, to talk to young adults. We want our young leaders to know that they're important enough to sit in a room with our top leaders, hear their stories and philosophies about leadership, and ask them whatever questions cross their minds. We appreciate Titus for being willing to spend some time at this event, and I want to affirm any administrators who are willing to make time to support our young people.

After our Time with Titus (TM), we pivoted toward strategy. What do we want Young Adult ministry to look like in the Wisconsin Conference? Over the years, we've leaned toward using the Growing Together/Growing Young model. It was voted by our Wisconsin Conference Executive Committee, back in 2019, to utilize this set of tools. No significant progress was made, and the pandemic slowed down a lot of ideas and initiatives soon after that time. We reaffirmed the vote a couple of years ago, and have talked with some key figures in our conference who would support and even lead out in implementing the model. However, we still needed buy-in from our Young Adults. If something like this is going to actually take hold in our Conference, we want there to be well-rounded and widespread support and awareness. So, as a group, we discussed the six core commitments of "growing young churches," which are as follows.

1. Unlocking keychain leadership

2. Empathizing with today's young people

3. Taking Jesus' message seriously

4. Fueling a warm community

5. Prioritizing young people and families everywhere

6. Being the best neighbors

After discussing the meaning of these commitments and analyzing the model and the resources that come with it, the group voted that they supported utilizing this model. In future events, Growing Young will be a component of our Young Adult events in Wisconsin.

For the final portion of our programming, we spent 90 minutes discussing the upcoming Lake Union Conference Youth Evangelism Congress. For full details about this exciting event, coming up February 13-15, check out last week's #WW article HERE. Regarding our discussion, we asked each table group to answer the question, "what would you do if someone gave you $1,000 and told you to use it for Jesus?" Groups were prompted to brainstorm several ideas, narrow those ideas down to three that could be fleshed out with details and a budget, and then present one big idea to the room. Between the various table groups, our Young Adults came up with some great ideas that they could present at the Youth Evangelism Congress. We want to encourage churches: many of these young people will be approaching you and asking for help to get to the Congress. Please consider financially helping them to attend, as the ideas they will be bringing to the event will be a blessing (both evangelistically and financially) to your church.

After the programming, some had to head back home. But several stayed late into the night to play games, get to know each other, and even spend the night at the church. We appreciate The Shepherds House Church leadership helping to provide us with food, space, equipment, and a place to stay for those who came from further distances. Our Wisconsin Conference Young Adult effort is strengthening. The group that comes to these events, gives input, and continues to communicate with each other is growing. We have direction for future events and messaging. We have support from across the Conference. I'm looking forward to seeing how this ministry grows and develops in the future. Things are lining up for God to move in big ways.