The Michigan Conference is hosting a Young Adult Discernment Lab on September 18 for those who want to support young people as they discern their call to vocation.
Many young people today express a loss of connection to one another, mentors, faith, and community. They share a sense of wanting to make a difference, feeling overwhelmed by issues in the world they inherited, and lack support to know their purpose.
Do you love young people and want to learn how to walk alongside them as they explore their call to vocation? If so, join the online Young Adult Discernment Lab hosted by the Michigan Conference. Lisa Batten, Connectional Ministries Team member, and Rev. Kerwin Webb, National Coordinator of Justice and Mission Engagement for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, will facilitate.
During this workshop, which will be held on Wednesday, September 18, from 4 to 8:30 pm Eastern (including a meal break), participants will co-learn with others seeking to create a culture of call for young people. Workshop attendees will be eligible for a mini grant to help them put into practice what they’ve learned in their ministry settings.
Register now to join a growing movement that helps churches and faith communities provide space for young people to listen deeply to God’s call on their lives. Once you have registered, the Zoom link will be emailed to you. A $15 fee covers the resources needed for the workshop.
In 2023, the Michigan Conference Board of Young People’s Ministries held listening sessions with people aged 16-28 to hear what young people need today. Themes of connecting, peer and mentor relationships, and spirituality were raised repeatedly. In response to these listening sessions, the board is launching several initiatives for young people and for those who want to work with young people. This Young Adult Discernment Lab is just one of those new initiatives.
Facilitators Rev. Kerwin Webb and Lisa Batten will share discernment practices they’ve learned from the Forum for Theological Exploration. These practices include creating, belonging, being present, and imagining. The event will also draw on the teachings of Dr. Patrick B. Reyes and Parker Palmer and their work with persons discerning a call to vocation.
Workshop attendees will be encouraged to take what they’ve learned back to their own ministry settings and design an opportunity for discernment with young people. Mini grants will be made available to participants to support a young people’s discernment event, small group, cohort, or retreat.
But you might ask, what if I don’t work with young people? What if there are no young people in my church and community? The workshop will address how to reach young people you may not know yet!
You might also wonder what “vocation” means. Here are two clarifying quotes:
Vocation is “the quest of inquiry to figure out who our neighbor is and what it is our neighbor needs from us to thrive. It’s not a journey where you need to go on a quest to find some vocation that’s hidden out there in the future from you. It’s an invitation into the right here and the right now. That vocation is something that saves us from the nowhere plants us firmly right here with one another in this moment of time to do this good work that we’ve been given to do today. And we get to do that together and I think that’s pretty great.” — Dr. Patrick B. Reyes
“Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” — Parker Palmer
Last Updated on June 26, 2024