{"id":3819,"date":"2013-04-09T12:32:24","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T19:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=3819"},"modified":"2013-04-09T12:32:24","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T19:32:24","slug":"calling-young-people-for-ministry-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/calling-young-people-for-ministry-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Calling young people for MINISTRY NOW!"},"content":{"rendered":"<style><!--\np.padding {padding-left:.5cm;}\n--><\/style>\n<p><strong>Calling young people for MINISTRY NOW!<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>By Amy Pazan<\/em> | <em>Photos by Kats Berry<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/relevancex.com\/\">Relevance X<\/a> took place in Las Vegas from February 14 to 17, 2013. Amy Pazan, from The Pacific Northwest Conference was in attendance and shares her passion and excitement for being a United Methodist young person.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The young people of the United Methodist Church are ALIVE, AWAKE, ALERT and ENTHUSIASTIC of what is the now and the future of the Church.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow can this be?\u201d one might ask. Through the Relevance X event in Las Vegas, Nev. sponsored by The Claremont School of Theology and hosted within The Desert Southwest Annual Conference, we came to realize and understand that the future of the church is within us &#8211; but, we have to start making an impact NOW more than ever.<\/p>\n<p>The future starts now\u2026because if we say we will start helping young people in year 2015 we will not get anywhere. The young people who are in the church of today want more opportunities and resources for how they can be involved in the church &#8211; on the local, district, conference, jurisdictional, and national level. Time and time again young people are left out of the conversation of what the future church needs or wants to be.<br \/>\n<!--more What do young people want?--><br \/>\nThe young people of today want a church that is accepting of who we are in this moment of our lives. Young people are the type of people who don\u2019t like the idea of conforming themselves into something they are not. This generation is one that is less judgmental about people. Whether it\u2019s having a different sexual orientation or cultural background we agree to disagree in some sense that what the church is doing is prohibiting its ability to flourish and revitalize.<\/p>\n<p>During one of the workshops the Rev. Shalom Agtarap of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ellensburgumc\">Ellensburg UMC<\/a> lead us through some exercises to discover who we are as young people and what we want to see in the future of the Church. Our first topic of discussion was about identifying our \u201cmountain top experience\u201d with God. A mountain top experience is something uplifting, inspiring, and\/or life-changing. My small group reflected on how we wanted other people to be able to experience the same mountain top experience we had &#8211; but tailored for their own liking.<\/p>\n<p>Another discussion topic involved our Church\u2019s traditions and beliefs. Some of the common occurring themes in all of the small groups were: potlucks, camping ministries, youth groups, and mission trips. My small group came up with a different one that no other group came up with &#8211; we liked that our church in the Western Jurisdictional community is able to go against the Book of Discipline\u2019s wording in order to stand up for a cause that we believe will strengthen and grow the United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n<p>The young people in the United Methodist Church are ALIVE and thriving all over the world. My generation has a passion for the church and often times we don\u2019t know where to start. We are AWAKE and know that our actions we make within the Church are making an impact big and small. We are ALERT and know our generation of churchgoers is going to have the biggest impact for years to come. The church is dying because of our age group\u2019s lack of interaction with the Church. If we are not able to get young people in the doors of our churches, we are missing out on the opportunity to utilize a vital resource that is right under our fingertips. We are begging to be used as examples of active young people from around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly we are ENTHUSIASTIC. Young people are working to revitalize the United Methodist Church. We love the church; we see the sense of community that brings us closer to God and to others. We want our friends and our acquaintances that don\u2019t belong to a church community to ask us why we feel so happy, refreshed, and spiritually fed by a church community. We see the need for others to be able to understand that mountain top experience so that they can see God has work not just some, but for all of us.<\/p>\n<p>The work we did in Las Vegas cannot end there. Sometimes \u201cWhat happens in Vegas stays in Vegas\u201d does not apply to work that needs to get done. Locally we can do so many things to reach out to young people. One of the things we can do is see if we have any young people serving on any committees &#8211; and if we don\u2019t, we need to put some on committees. Young people can provide a fresh perspective to the atmosphere. We bring gifts that we often times haven\u2019t seen in years that do the church wonders. In searching for a sense of community, what we want is not having fancy, big screen TVs and the hippest worship band who plays all the latest Christian hits. But rather churches that can provide us a sense of community, who can help us, grow and nurture our faith in God.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><center><em>Amy Pazan is a member of Aldersgate UMC (Bellevue, Wash.)<br \/>\nand is a student at Central Washington University (Ellensburg, Wash.)<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/channels\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Channels 62\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/COVER_Channels62_120px.gif?w=696\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"padding\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/channels\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Channels 62, April 2012 is NOW AVAILABLE!<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>INSIDE:<\/strong> Sand Creek Project \u2022 Mission u &amp; 5 Columns of Mission \u2022 &#8220;Deep Roots, Abundant Harvests&#8221; Training Event \u2022&nbsp;Jar$ for Jamaa Letu \u2022 Palestine: Sharing &amp; Storytelling \u2022 Lake Washington UMC &amp; Camp Unity Eastside \u2022 Musings: Why Pub Theology \u2022 Campus Connection: Imagine What&#8217;s NEXT \u2022 What is Resource Ministry? \u2022 Bishop: Cue, Routine, Reward \u2022 Elders: Hatching the Aging Heart \u2022 April\/May 2013 Calendar \u2022&nbsp;Summer Camps 2013 \u2022 E-mail <a href=\"mailto:channels@pnwumc.org?Subject=Re: Sign me up for Channels!\">channels@pnwumc.org<\/a> to subscribe.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calling young people for MINISTRY NOW! By Amy Pazan | Photos by Kats Berry Relevance X took place in Las Vegas from February 14 to 17, 2013. Amy Pazan, from The Pacific Northwest Conference was in attendance and shares her passion and excitement for being a United Methodist young person. The young people of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":3820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,112],"tags":[29],"class_list":{"0":"post-3819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-ministries-with-young-people","9":"tag-young-people"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/YPM_RelevanceX.jpg?fit=600%2C308&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-ZB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3819"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3853,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions\/3853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}