SR • January 2016
23
One of the values which has guided our Conference
for generations is the raising and training of children.
The responsibility we have as biological families and
families of believers is to share the blessings of the
Gospel with those who are younger than we are.
These familial relationships (both biological and
congregational) are among the strongest parts of
our tradition as Seventh Day Baptists.
And in the strength of those convictions, SDBs have
been very innovative in their approaches to Christian
Education. From the frontier schools to universities to
missionary academies, SDBs have varied approaches
to match the cultural circumstances we have found
ourselves in. One of the more innovative approaches we
have employed as a people, and with great success, is
our camping ministries. Associational and regional
camps, combined with our Pre-Conference retreats
for youth and young adults, have long provided our
denomination a wealth of committed, relationally
connected young leaders who have formed the back-
bone of our next generation. Scanning the pages of
the General Conference minutes, it is not hard to
track the lines of leadership development through our
camping programs.
For that reason, those who love Christian Education
among Seventh Day Baptists have cringed at the
consistently lower attendance at our Pre-Conference
retreats for the last decade. To be sure, there has been
a core of very dedicated young people and parents
who religiously add Pre-Con to their yearly schedule
and come. But attendance has steadily declined to
the point where serious questions had to be asked
about the future of our Pre-Conference retreat. Acting
on a question from General Council, the Christian
Education Committee (CEC) spent time in prayer and
in brainstorming a future for our pre-Conference and
Conference ministries for young people which dealt
with the primary challenges: low attendance, high cost,
scheduling conflicts, and lots of unstructured time
during the General Conference sessions.
Surprisingly for those present, what emerged was not
a strategy to change or prop up Pre-Con, but rather a
robust vision for a new program to respond to cultural
factors which have impacted our retreats. This new
program is in the form of a leadership training confer-
ence for our youth during our General Conference
meetings, running concurrently with our sessions. The
program will focus on training for ministry in Seventh
Day Baptist youth, making use of all of the resources
(sites, staff, etc.) at our General Conference sessions.
We believe this represents an exciting opportunity for
growth in our programs for youth. Young Adults will
be taking control of their events at Conference and
focusing their efforts there rather than having a dedi-
cated Pre-Con retreat. All of these changes are aimed
at increasing attendance and equipping for ministry
at General Conference.
Having arrived at this new vision for Conference
youth leadership development, we took the proposal
to General Conference and asked for feedback from
three interest committees: Christian Education, Young
Adult, and Youth. All three, after asking their questions
and carefully considering the proposal, agreed to try
the new vision, and even expressed some excitement
for the possibilities in the new program. Both the youth
and young adults gave meaningful suggestions to
improve the proposal. That proposal is now being
worked on by a committee and will yield a new pro-
gram at General Conference in Houghton, NY, in
2016. We encourage you to watch the
Recorder
and
the Conference website for more information about
this new program. Meanwhile, if you have further
questions, please contact us for more information or
talk to representatives from your church who attended
General Conference this past year!
SR
Training Our
Youth
For Generations To Come
Christian Education Council
Rev. Nicholas J. Kersten
Director of Education and History
— Rev. Nicholas J. Kersten
Director of Education & History
office: (608) 752-5055
cell: (608) 201-4850
SDB Website:
