Youth have a mission. That’s a simple enough statement, but it’s something we tend to forget. As the youth pastors Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster have written, “God has utmost confidence in young people’s ability to change the world, not to mention the church, and not only invites them but expects them to do so” (The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry [Nashville: Upper Room, 1998], p. 64). For evidence of this we need look no further than the Bible:

• Witness God’s reassuring command to a young Jeremiah: “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you . . .” (Jeremiah 1.7).
• Or witness God’s astonishing call to a teenager named Mary: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus . . .” (Luke 1.30-31).

Chances are, few of us have experienced the sorts of clear and direct calls from God that Jeremiah and Mary received—and so we must discern what it is that God is calling us to do and who it is that God is calling each of us to be.

Dean and Foster continue, “Christian faith . . . strives for a life of discernment. Faithfulness grows in the presence of people who practice discerning the One voice among the many and who by ‘attending’ to Jesus Christ find themselves transformed and marked as his followers” (The Godbearing Life, p. 15).

It is the aim of the youth ministries of Trinity Presbyterian Church to foster this growth and discernment among the senior high and middle school youth of the church and to help them discover their mission—who it is that God is calling them to be.

Visit (and join) the Trinity Youth Facebook Group.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21086289951