YOU are the Church: Live the Reality

Stay Involved

As a high school senior, I was both excited and apprehensive. You see, it often feels that after high school, our life in the church is over until we're 35, married and have kids. The truth is, I didn't want to accept this. The church had become a major part of my life and I felt the call to remain active and a proponent for changing the world as a young adult through the community of the church... During the summer of 2004, at the General Assembly and at Triennium, I asked and asked about ministries, organizations, conferences and other opportunities available to young adults. What I found was that there are opportunities out there, they're just tucked away in the corner, so we don't know about them. (Nathan Ballentine)

The following are just a few of the opportunities discovered by the Enthusiastic Movement:

• Austin College ACtivators
• College Ministry
• Montreat Collegiate Conference
• New Wilmington Missionary Conference
• PC(USA) Young Adult Ministry
• Presbyterian College Connection
• Presbyterian College Women
• Presbyterian Student Strategy Team
• Racial Ethnic Young Women Together
• Young Adult Interns
• Young Adult Volunteers

Serve

• Cook and Serve a meal in local homeless shelter (or other local transient ministry/outreach)
• Volunteer to house-clean in a women and childrens' shelter
• Volunteer in a teen-pregnancy crisis center
• Get trained and serve on a rape-crisis hotline
• Work in a public school as a teacher asistent (once, twice, thrice a week...)
• Coordinate a non-profit child care with the help of a local church

A Message from Rick Ufford-Chase, Moderator 216th GA

Jesus spent most of his time with people who were on the margins of their society. They were rejected, put down, poor, diseased, possessed, unclean - you know the list. Today those folks are refugees and migrants, homeless folks, factory workers on the global assembly line, fieldworkers in the global food supply chain, people who work hard every day but can't make enough even to feed their kids or keep them in school.

The trick, for those of us born to affluence or privilege because of our race, class, nationality, gender, or orientation [we] have hard work to do. Our work is to renounce our privilege and to choose to be with the poorest of the poor. If we manage to build a life in which we have no contact with people who are on the margins, I believe we cause pain to our God.

To hear more from Rick, Click here