Summer youth conventions/camps have been almost ritual for our high school youth for the last many years. Some of the churches involved in these discussions have attended the Youth Unlimited convention in Bozeman this past weekend and others the Reformed Youth Service (RYS) covention in Minneapolis last week... maybe your congregation went somewhere else, like a Young Life camp or wherever. Your eyewitness reports would be very helpful to all of us. We would love your comments, evaluations - good/bad/etc, especially as we are thinking about faith formation as a denomination. What role does "convention" play?
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Our youth group attended (with me tagging along) the RYS Convention this year for the first time - I was duly impressed. The format was similar to other youth conventions I'd been to (main sessions/worship, workshops, talent show, "day-away", sports/activities and just some hangin' out), but I was impressed with the deliberate Reformed content. The theme was "Don't Conform - Be Transformed" and the main speakers worked their way through Romans 12:1-2. Messages were very biblical and Christ-centered. The youth each attended five workshops (I think I attended one over four conventions as a youth - man, did I miss out). As far as faith formation, every evening we met as a youth group and I was able to gauge where each of my students were - spiritually, emotionally, etc. - what they were learning and how they were growing. It's given me some good things to carry into this coming year. RYS was very deliberate in its role of supporting the ministry in the local congregation - what the youth get at convention is consistent with what they see at church each week - although certainly geared toward youth. Our kids enjoyed it thoroughly and are eager for next year. Conventions give them a time away from family and friends (particularly school friends) to examine who they are as followers of Christ. The difficulty is coming back - we've made that a diligent matter of prayer as a whole congregation. There is certainly alot more to share, but I'll let others fill in.
I attended and served as a cabin counselor at our middle school Camp Calvin, July 14-18 near Yakima, WA. We had about 55 campers from the Classis of 14 churches. Rev. Joe Kamphuis taught from Gen. Each day he walked through another Genesis pericope with the kids. It was straight forward Bible exposition. I thought he did a fine job. It was not fancy. No humanistic appeals. He addressed the typical subject matter you would expect from Genesis - relationship with the Covenant making Creator-God who is always faithful to protect, provided for and guide his people, as God himself is our blessing. Again... not fancy. Just solid Biblical teaching from a solidly Reformed perspective. We, of course, spent small group time with our individual cabin reflecting on the various teachings. It was my first time serving at Camp Calvin and I wasn't sure what to expect or what to compare it to. I can't say that I saw an incredible amount of spiritual growth or faith formation, but I am confident that what happened there will bear fruit for the kingdom. Let's just say it was a bit more low-key than the Wesleyan teen camps I went to as a kid! I got save 3 or 4 times one week in 1978! Unfortunately, the entire sanctification didn't happen as was expected. I guess I didn't "pray through" as I had thought. I did have one very significant conversation with a 8th grade camper who was very much struggling with his brokenness and his worthiness to accept God's grace and forgiveness in Christ, especially as it pertained to the lifestyle expectations for Christian kids. (music, video games, girls, et al.) Another counselor and I had a meaningful 2-on-1 conversation with him that I believe God will use for his sanctification... (lacking in its entirety, as it might be.) Hope that reflection was helpful. I've attached a piece I wrote for our local newsletter reflecting on my time at Camp Calvin.
Bill Wilton here from Sunrise Church, McMinnville.
I took 16 of my youth group kids to the Youth Unlimited Convention in Bozeman Montana at the end of July. This was a high energy event with excellent speakers, great teen oriented seminars, and a real good praise band to kick off all of the Mainstage Worship services. The theme for the weekend was "Right The Wrong" and from a social justice perspective it really opened the eyes of some of my kids to the struggles others have just to survive. Shane Claiborne really challenged them in this regard.
The 5 day event peaked on Monday night with a short message and an altar call of sorts. A couple of the students seemed totally unaffected by all of it and couldn't wait to get back to the dorm and the card game they had going. A couple kids seemed a little confused by the whole altar call thing since they aren't a staple in the order of worship for a reformed church. However, the majority went to the front to kneel and pray, and if need be, get things right with God. Some went forward because it was a great place to talk to God. Others went forward because they did need to get some things right with God...to confess sin and then leave it there.
I have been to the last 3 Youth Unlimited Conventions and generally speaking I think they meet a need in the spiritual formation of High School Students. Generally speaking, I think High School kids are highly emotive kids who long to feel that God is moving in their midst. I don't think that is something they get a lot of in a deeply traditional service or a service that is more suited for their parents. Convention brings together music that they may relate better to and messages that are full of application. These points of application will help them connect what they have heard to the implications it carries in their own lives.
Sometimes we may downplay an event like convention because, if we were really honest, we don't believe that emotional decisions are built to last. In my estimation, the danger of thinking along those lines is that we subtly communicate to our kids that our faith is best lived when the feelings have been removed from it or only have a minimal role in our faith journey. I believe that it's events like convention that help bring balance to the spiritual formation of a kid growing up in a reformed church.
CH (Borculo CRC)
Hi Chad
Has your church had such negative experiences with Youth Unlimited Conventions that it is opting to go to the RYS Convention instead? (Isn't the RYS dominated by folks from URC churches?) It seems that if you need to get your Sunday School curricular resources from outside the denominational publishing house (recommending Great Commission, etc.) that your ties to the CRC are becoming more and more tenuous and you will be able to transition out of the CRC more easily. It just appears that the ties that bind are becoming more frayed - and that your involvement with RYS is indicative of that. Just wondering.
Dave in Kent
Dave - I think the general protestant trend in North America of ecumenicity and declining denominational loyalties has had both positive and negative effects. Positively, it has led churches, including ours, to realize there is life outside the CRC - and some good life! We have no intentions of leaving the CRC and in fact are deeply committed to our place here (I'd love to compare Ministry Share support...jk). We do use Kid Connection for our Sunday School at Central Avenue, but have also realized that good and beneficial stuff exists outside the walls of Faith Alive/CRC Pubs. We've just felt free to shop around to find what is going to nurture the faith our youth best. We use (and recommend) Great Commissions for elementary catechism because the CRC has nothing available.
In regards to RYS, since YU is not a denominational agency (it is endorsed by the CRC), we didn't feel tied to it. We hadn't been involved for a number of years so when it came time to become connected with some organization, we checked out the options. There were no negative experiences with YU. RYS just stacked up better in our opinion - more distinctly Reformed, better materials and servicing a broader age-group (middle school through post high). So all this running on just to say that we aren't reacting to anything, just being deliberately proactive and involved in the nurture of our covenant youth instead of leaving that decision to others.
Thanks for giving us a chance to clarify, Dave. I didn't even think about such actions as being perceived as "schismatic" but others probably would make that same assumption.
Chad Steenwyk
Holland, MI
Thanks, Chad, for your reply. I guess I'm just wondering whether The Returning Church group (I realize it's not a very tightly knit organization) is going to have a somewhat lasting impact on the CRC or if you are just going to move on to greener fields when you can't stomach the direction of the CRC leadership anymore (like the URC folk).
I'm not saying that breaking out of the walls of the CRC is all bad. A URC pastor I know said that once he left the CRC, he became much more "ecumenical" - fellowshipping at Banner of Truth or PCRT or Ligonier conferences with OPC, PCA, and others - doing more pulpit exchanges. Even though I have been a lifelong CRC member, I have always wished the CRC was less insular and had more ties with the other "distinctively Reformed" folk as well as broader Evangelical types (I have degrees from both Westminster/Philly and Wheaton College - as well as Calvin College & Seminary). I guess my main caveat would be to not get too "de-stink-tive-ly" Reformed, but to retain an "Evangelical" heart. (While the term Evangelical is becoming less discernable - I don't care for the negative characterization of Evangelicals I see in certain "distinctively Reformed" circles.)
Dave in Kent
Dave - I think you raise a great question but I don't want it to get lost under this heading. Let's create a separate post and see what kind of discussion we get on that. (In fact, I think you bring up about two or three great discussions).
Chad Steenwyk
Holland, MI
Chris, it was good to read about your experiences at Youth Unlimited's summer convention in Montana. Our group of kids attended the Reformed Youth Services' convention in St.Paul. And reflecting again on your post, I think there are important distinctions between the two. Which leads me to some broader observations. One of which was touched on by Dave's posts on here, too.
I've been asked at times why we didn't attend Y.U.'s convention this past summer, instead opting for RYS', since we're a Christian Reformed Church and shouldn't we be supporting the "CRC's convention." Besides the issue Chad brought up, that YU isn't a CRC agency and therefore isn't technically CRC (though most churches that attend are CRC), I guess I don't see the YU convention as CRC, outside of the names of the churches that attend. In terms of content, I wonder how CRC it is. Is it really a CRC convention?
Look at the main speakers...none of them are CRC. And it looks like none of them were even Reformed...I don't know about the Fuller Seminary professor. You never know with Fuller.
Or even Shane Claiborne, one of the main speakers...I would challenge people to check out his website. Ever heard of the Emergent Church? This guy is an Emergent Church guy...the language, the message. There are some good things to be gleaned from Emergent Churches, but on the whole it's a spiritually-dangerous movement for the church.
So I ask myself if I want to put our covenant youth under the teaching of this Emergent church guy, to hold him up as someone they can trust (not only then, but years down the road when they buy books, etc.).
I think those are important questions we as Reformed Christians need to challenge ourselves with, and particularly those of us who are leaders and have been entrusted with shaping our covenant youth.
I also have concerns about YU's being on Sunday, taking the kids out of the home churches and in that way teaching them that it's okay to find spiritual nourishment (not even church) on Sunday. If it wasn't such a growing problem among our covenant youth, I might not be as sensitive to that, but it IS a growing problem in CRC's of the youth moving about from church to church or skipping church to go camping or to the beach or to a concert. But for Christians, that's where their spiritual nurturing and accountability come from...their local church and coming there to worship and receive the means of grace whenever the Elders of that church declare that the saints need to be there. Which, for churches like Borculo and Beaverdam, is Sunday mornings and evenings. Do we want to subtly, in yet one more way, and from the church's leadership, reinforce to our youth that Sunday worship in the church where you're a member is good, but not essential?
That's one more thing I appreciate about RYS...the convention is Monday evening through Friday morning, very explicitly, to reinforce to the kids that their home church worship is SO important, it trumps even a great convention with its fun, energy, learning, and growing.
There are other things, but I've written enough for now.
- Rev. Tyler Wagenmaker
Beaverdam CRC (Hudsonville, MI)
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