Discovery youth
weekends

By Greg Williams

Pastor, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and Dillon, South Carolina

One of the important strategic tools for youth ministry is to facilitate gatherings of youths where the mission for youth ministry can be pursued. One such opportunity that we see emerging is Discovery Weekends.

What is a Discovery Weekend? Simply put, it is a vehicle to provide strategic evangelistic ministry for our youths. These weekends are relationally based and offer quality recreational activities, but make no mistake, their primary purpose is to make Jesus known!

Why Discovery Weekends? The first step of our youth ministry mission is to create an environment in which youths are brought into the presence of Jesus Christ. Coming to a facility where creation can be enjoyed, and where a large group of youths are gathered for an extended stay sets the stage for some wonderful things to happen.

Then, we insert a gifted preacher of the gospel and a youth-friendly worship leader. This combination of factors has proved to be successful and is worth duplicating in all our U.S. districts.

Our youth ministry mission progresses further into discipleship and leadership training, ultimately launching our youths into ministry. This is the vision, but it begins with discovery, the discovery of Jesus Christ as personal Savior. We have to concentrate on doing this first step well or we will never get to steps two and three.

As part of the newly formed youth ministry advisory team, I am available to assist the various districts in the coordination of Discovery Weekends. As requests come in, I will develop a master calendar that will appear on the SEP website, and coordinate guest speakers and worship leaders who can come to share the gospel in a compelling way. Thousands of young people are out there who need to discover Jesus. Let's get started!

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2000