09221
March 18, 2009

‘Check it with God’

Youth, adults explore God’s call at inaugural ‘Pathways’ event

by Emily Enders Odom
Associate, Mission Communications

Beth Bannerman Gunn, recreology specialist, introduces Pathways participants to the theology of play.

MONTREAT, NC ― For 16-year-old Tim McEachran, the pressure is on.

A junior at St. Stephens High School in Hickory, NC, McEachran confessed that he was quickly getting to the point where he needed to think about college and what he was going to do with his life. Only he didn’t think he had the resources and tools to discover his calling and “check it with God.”

Enter Pathways, a collaborative effort between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Ministries with Youth, Office of Christian Vocation and the Princeton Theological Seminary Institute for Youth Ministry. 

The inaugural Pathways event, held at the Montreat Conference Center here March 14, was the first of six regional programs designed to provide theological and practical training for volunteer youth leaders, pastors, and youth directors while offering a parallel track for youth, grades 9-12, who are themselves leaders in their congregations. 

Each unique, one-day training opportunity is preceded by a Friday night pre-event specifically focused on vocation. That pre-event, entitled “Who Is God Calling Me to Be?” attracted McEachran and his church’s director of Christian education, Chandler Guess, and some 20 other youth and adults.

“When I was a youth, it was important to have opportunities to explore direction in where I was headed in life,” said Guess, who has served the 250-member Northminster Presbyterian Church in Hickory for two and a half years. “That is why I was especially excited about this particular event and brought seven of our youth.”

In the virtual world inhabited by so many of today’s youth ― where the word “calling” can often simply mean “texting” ― Friday night’s pre-event participants welcomed clarification and exploration of the word offered by the Rev. Aimee Wallis Buchanan, keynote speaker and author of the study guide Vocation: God’s Calling, Our Work.

“The words vocation and calling are confusing because they’re similar,” Buchanan told the gathering. “For some reason it feels like a lot of times we’ve taken the word ‘calling’ and have said that the only people who are ‘called’ are called into ministry. But God has been calling all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons.”

In plenary session and later in small groups, Buchanan helped participants to answer the questions, “Who is God calling me to be” and “How can I use my gifts to get there,” by first identifying her five requirements to discern calling. All undergirded by strong Biblical examples, those five attributes are:

• a sense of adventure;
• a sense of determination;
• a sense of openness to community;
• a sense of movement; and
• a sense of grace. 

Using Frederick Buechner’s well-known quotation as a springboard ― “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” ― the youth and adults took time to catalog their gifts, the needs of the world and the church, and where they all meet.

“The journey of answering God’s call is hard,” Buchanan said in conclusion. “God calls us to do whatever God has in mind. The question is not if you are called, but will you discern your calling.”

McEachran said he appreciated going through the exercises and coming away with a process he could use for himself and also take back to Northminster’s youth council. “I’m not sure that I have a more definite idea of who God is calling me to be,” he said, “but I now have a way to go about figuring it out.”

Participants in Friday night’s pre-event received copies of the vocational small group process to use in leadership with other groups as they help others in their vocational quests.

Providing resources and a framework in which Christian vocation can be more clearly understood and discerned is a goal of the Office of Christian Vocation, a joint ministry of the General Assembly Council and the Office of the General Assembly.

“Christian vocation in the PC(USA) is really not an event or a program, it is a movement,” said Martha Miller, associate for Christian vocation. “A large part of that movement is cultivating a culture of call in our congregations in which each of us knows that we are called and that our whole life is a response to that call.

Tim McEachran (right) and his congregation’s director of Christian education, Chandler Guess, share a discernment exercise at the inaugural Pathways event at Montreat.

“That movement is clear in the design of Pathways,” she continued, “as youth and adult participants first join together to explore vocational and call issues and then continue that thought process into the next day by exploring their own calls to leadership in the church whether as a young person or as an adult in ministry with young people.”

The daylong program for youth offers workshops on Bible study skills, recreology ― the theology of play ― and spiritual practices, all designed to energize and inspire young leaders so that they in turn can help ignite new energy in the church.

"Our churches are packed with young people who already feel a sense of urgency about their lives and their faith in Jesus Christ,” said Gina Yeager-Buckley, associate for ministries with youth. “They want to do good things in the world, be known as wise people, help those around them, be better friends, and be faithful disciples.”

Noting that youth, like any leaders, also need time “away” for study, prayer, and inspiration, Yeager-Buckley sees Pathways as helping to create that space. 

“The Pathways events are one way we can begin to identify, gather and train these young people,” she said, “and the added benefit is that the church experiences revitalization in the process! We uncover these new leaders and we experience new ways of spreading the gospel. We begin to cultivate young leaders who have a fierce passion for creativity and quality, and these leaders, both youth and adult, take these ideas back home, to deposit them into their own communities."

Saturday’s adult track workshops focused on the themes, “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Look Inside the Teenage Brain” and “Mission Trips that Matter,” while the plenary topic, "Nurturing the God-Hungry Imagination: The Role of Story in Youth Ministry," engaged adult participants for much of the day. In all, some 50 attendees took advantage of the daylong offering. 

Amy Vaughn, co-director for the Institute for Youth Ministry (IYM) at Princeton Theological Seminary, which has primary responsibility for the adult programmatic offerings, said, "We are delighted to be partnering with the PC(USA) on the Pathways events. This partnership provides a great opportunity for congregations to offer leadership development for both their youth and adults.”

Citing research done by the IYM showing that congregations need and want training for their adult volunteers in youth ministry, Vaughn added, “Pathways provides just such quality theological and practical training for leaders in an accessible one-day format."

The five additional Saturday Pathways events will be held on March 28 in Austin, TX, April 25 in Sunnyvale, CA, September 12 in Omaha, NE, September 26 in Seattle and October 17 in Bloomington, IL.

The nearby location and convenient one-day format factored into Donny Raborn’s decision to attend Pathways. Raborn, the part-time youth director and an elder at Sugaw Creek Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC, said that because he was not raised Presbyterian and is not formally educated, the church’s pastor and the chair of its Christian education committee often urge him to get further training.