Youth Ministry Training Webinar 9

By Jennica Davis-Hockett

Webinar9

In the April Webinar, Natalie Briscoe, Congregational Life Staff in the Southern Region, and Kim Sweeney, Congregational Life Staff in the New England Region, talked about new models and methods for stellar Youth Ministry that may challenge our assumptions about what ministry to and with Youth can and should be. When asked to sum up the webinar, Briscoe said "In particular we lifted up a vision of whole Unitarian Universalist communities where youth are a part of the entire congregation as well as having youth-specific space for developmentally appropriate stretching. We also explored methods for relationship-centered ministry (rather than program-centered ministry) that builds sustaining, multigenerational connections throughout the congregation. These models both rest on the foundational idea that youth are a valued and important part of congregational life." Now you may be saying to yourself, “Well, that all sounds great, but now what?” To that, Briscoe responds, "Many of the models we described in the last session incorporate significant aspects of adaptive, or cultural, change in the congregation, which is not as easy as implementing a new program or augmenting an existing one. Those large-scale changes can seem overwhelming and insurmountable. As Religious Educators or Volunteer Youth Advisors, we may not always have the time and resources to make these kind of grand changes, no matter how much we wish we could." Never fear! Support is here! Please join our next Youth Ministry Webinar on May 10 at 1pm Eastern to learn the next, practical steps for implementing these models in your congregation. The webinar will be led by Natalie Briscoe, Congregational Life Staff in the Southern Region, and Kim Sweeney, Congregational Life Staff in the New-England Region, and a panel of experienced Religious Educators who have employed exciting models of Youth Ministry in their congregations. They will tell us how they went about making these changes, the steps they took in implementing these models, and what they learned to avoid along the way. There will be plenty of time to ask questions of both the panelists and the leaders of last month’s webinar in this interactive and practical session. Register now.