Bulletin Inserts

• Pentecost Offering
• Listen—The Spirit is Calling
• “Marching In” to renew the spirit
• Uniting in Covenant with Children

The Holy Spirit is the Great Teacher, the transformational force that invests our lives with a deeper meaning. As we receive the Pentecost Offering on May 31, 2009, we offer up our own resources for children at risk, youth, and young adult volunteers.

Through the Pentecost Offering

• The Pentecost Offering supports a new generation of church leadership through the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program. Rob Fohr and Christine Coy met at the YAV Discernment Event in 2005. Then Rob left to serve a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Christine, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The two were married in August 2008. Christine is currently enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and Rob works for the General Assembly Mission Council in the office of Theological Education and Seminary Relations.
• Since 1998, congregations like yours have raised over $5 million for ministries with children at risk in their own communities. Church of the New Covenant Presbyterian in Doraville, Georgia, supported a program called “Calculators for Scholars” that seeks to provide calculators to all juniors at the local high school, which serves many students from immigrant and low-income families.
• You are helping to equip and nurture the parents of Presbyterian youth. Because of gifts to the Pentecost Offering, 20 new online studies became available through The Thoughtful Christian series. The studies offer biblical study, relevant issue review, health and wholeness information, as well as current trends and research.

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Can you hear it? Be still and listen closely. Can you sense the movement of the Spirit? Can you hear the call of the Spirit?

Allison McCullough heard the Spirit calling her to work with a coalition for the homeless in Hollywood, California, and leading her to attend every child’s birthday party in her new neighborhood.

Shelvis and Nancy Smith-Mather heard the Spirit calling them to Kenya to accompany people seeking peace and reconciliation amid post-election violence in a deeply divided land.

Rachel Bauman heard the Spirit calling her to help individuals and families complete their tax forms in Miami, Florida.

Hanna Kim heard the Spirit calling her to Xela, Guatemala, to work with a church as it began a ministry with the elderly and to take guitar lessons from her host father.

Alex Marino followed the Spirit’s call to New Orleans, Louisiana, to take part in the ongoing efforts to restore communities in the lingering aftermath of Katrina.

Each of these young adults listened intently and responded faithfully when the Spirit called them to serve. They were willing to live and learn beyond their comfort zones. Each year, dozens of young adults join the Young Adult Volunteer Program (YAV) through Presbyterian World Mission for a yearlong commitment to Spirit-led service and ministry. For many, that one year as a YAV will shape a lifetime of listening and responding to the Spirit’s call to follow Christ in every aspect of life. And, by their example, they will engage others to do the same.

Listen. Can you hear the Spirit’s call?

Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) are challenged by the sacrifices of community living, simple lifestyle, and devotion to prayer and service, nationally and internationally. The application deadline is January 20 for service beginning in August/September of that same year. For further information and site descriptions, see the Web site or call (888) 728-7228, ext. 5024.

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The Presbyterian Youth Workers’ Association (PYWA) exists for all of the dedicated adults who work with the young people of our denomination. Many of these amazing folks are part time or volunteer workers. They rarely have the opportunity — or the funds — to attend events where they will be able to connect with other youth workers, discover new resources, explore better practices, or simply refresh their souls and renew their spirits.

Last November, a portion of the Pentecost Offering funds were used to help some of these part-time, small church, no-budget, overwhelmed youth workers to attend the PYWA event, “Marching In,” in New Orleans, Louisiana. It provided them with a much needed opportunity to build professional relationships and re-stoke their fire and passion for youth ministry. Sandra Bligen-Frazer from Zion Olivet Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was one of those youth workers. She says, “The PYWA event was an uplifting experience because it gave me an opportunity to network and share with other youth workers.”

Healthy adult leaders help create healthy youth ministries. Healthy youth ministries help create healthy churches. And it doesn’t stop there. “Without the support of the national office,” Sandra continued, “I would not have had the opportunity to attend this memorable and resourceful event. As a result of my attendance, our youth group will be planning our first mission project outside South Carolina.”

The PYWA event in New Orleans, “Marching In,” which was supported by Pentecost Offering funds, also provided youth workers with the opportunity to help with the ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf region. Hansen Wendlandt, a youth pastor from St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Boulder, Colorado, recounts, “The images and stories we have seen and heard over the past few years did not prepare me for how much work remains to be done. Far from hopeless or worn out, the people in New Orleans were deeply and sincerely thankful.

“Taking my youth group there would be great, but it was so refreshing for me to be able just to work without any leadership responsibility. That reminded me so clearly of what we youth workers are supposed to know about mission trips — that service can do as much for the heart of the servant as it can for the beneficiaries.”

Your generous donations to the Pentecost Offering have had an impact on Sandra and Hansen. They in turn have helped to expand the lives and faith of the young people in their congregations. The more we can build up Presbyterian youth workers, the more they can build up the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)!

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“We covenant to act so that this vision may be made real for all children, now and in times to come.”

This call to action is the closing line of A Vision for Children and the Church, adopted by the 205th General Assembly (1993). The vision statement was a call to “take seriously our baptismal vow to nurture all children committed to our care; to bring good news to all those places where children are in need”; and to create spaces “where adults and children alike share in ministry."

Fifteen years later, the basic things that allow for human health and wholeness continue to be a distant dream for too many children, here and around the globe.

A new network, Presbyterians in Covenant with Children, promises to nurture and support those who continue to want to make our baptismal covenant vows for children a reality.

The mission statement is clear and comprehensive:

Presbyterians in Covenant with Children unites Presbyterian ongregations and groups in intentional ministries of justice and compassion with and for children in our congregations, communities, nation, and world through worship, education, service, and advocacy.

Creating a Covenant
How can you become a part of Presbyterians in Covenant with Children? After engaging in a simple discernment study, your congregation or group can create its own covenant. List what you are already doing with and for children and what further actions you would like to take. The steps for forming this covenant are laid out in an introductory booklet available from the Office of Child Advocacy or online.

Thanks to your generous gifts to the Pentecost Offering, the Office of Child Advocacy is able to provide resources and a Web site to connect congregations and groups doing great things with, and for, children. Together, we can take meaningful steps to ensure that our hopes and dreams for all children can be realized, “now and in times to come.”

Download Uniting in Covenant with Children
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