You’ll find a range of different kinds of youth events on our youth calendar. Some are trainings like Fundamentals of Healthy Ministry and Chaplain Training. Others are youth ministry weekends focused on specific topics such as racial justice, social action, or leadership. Some are called “cons”.

Youth “cons” are weekend long events planned by youth with adult support for youth ages 14-18. Between 30 and 100 youth attend each one. At heart a youth con is an experience in building covenantal community. Each con has a different theme and focus, but they all incorporate community building, fun, worship, spirituality, and youth leadership. Each event has it’s own covenant and is in covenant with the region’s safety policies. Youth experience both the safety of being in a covenantal community and the responsibility to repair relationships when difficult situations arise. Youth have the opportunity to serve in leadership roles to help plan events, help run events, help the con community live in covenant, or be peer chaplains for emotional support.

Special programming for junior high youth is available and can be found on Junior High Programs of the Central East Region.

Within each of the former districts of the Central East region is a planning committee that works with congregations to host youth community “cons”. See the sidebar listing for links to pages for each of these committees. CER also encourages individual congregations and clusters to host their own youth cons and will support and publicize these events when they are in alignment with our regional safety policies.

How do you know the difference? Events facilitated by our planning teams will be marked with that planning team’s name or acronym. Other events will be referred to as a “congregation” or “cluster” con. The webpage and registration forms for these events will name the congregation who is the hosting entity and state that we are not the sponsor.

Scheduled Youth Events

Please note that conferences, trainings and events are currently being scheduled and the list below may change. We will link to registration information and details when it is available.

• All youth events in the region are either being moved to a virtual format, being re-imagined or postponed. Details will be posted here when they are available.