I remember helping to plan high TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION By Trip McGill
school retreats for First Presbytery with Rev. Bob Wallace as our leader. He lis- tened to every person’s idea and put it on the board as we planned the theme. Once we had all spoken, he found the common theme from our ideas and then showed us how to choose appropriate scripture to support the theme which we had come up with together. What a gift to learn how to plan!
I even remember when (now Horizon)
was the YPCU Conference (Young Peo- ple’s Christian Union). There were youth - eling the organization of our Synod), and Bonclarken. The gift of organization! After working as a counselor for two years after college, Ann Brice gave me an opportunity to be the Assistant Direc- tor of Camp Joy in recruiting counselors and supervising them at a very young age of 24. I learned most everything I know about camp from Miss Ann.
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an ex- ample for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. I Timothy 4:12
W
hat does training the next generation mean? How do we train our young people? Should we train our young people? Is it biblical for youth to share in leadership in the church?
Training the next generation is an incredible responsibility of the church. We have an obligation to help our young people become strong leaders in the church. Youth in our churches who are growing in their faith and believe in Christ need to have ways to learn leadership skills.
I am so thankful that I was born into the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Being an ARP and growing up in Boyce Memorial ARP Church in Kings Mountain, NC, with Dr Charles E. Edwards as my pastor was a gift to me. My church along with Dr. Edwards, allowed me to be the organist and adult and youth choir director when I was in the tenth grade. Dr. Edwards required me to come to the church after school on Wednesdays to plan the hymns for the upcoming services. I learned from Dr. Edwards how to serve church families who had lost loved ones by visiting them and helping to plan the music for funeral and memorial services. During the years I was growing up, the ARP Synod had youth representatives on
each board and committee. Because of my church music interests, I was asked to serve as the Youth Representative on Synod’s Worship Committee. Mrs. J. Calvin (Corky) Koonts was on the committee at the time. Mrs. Koonts helped me to learn how to put to- gether the Bonclarken Music Conference budget when I was in the tenth grade and I’ve been putting this budget together ever since then. This led to me attending the music conference as a youth and to this day have never missed a conference in 55 years. Being the Co-Conference Director of the Music Conference is one of the greatest joys of my life, especially in serving our church denomination. At Erskine College, I was given the responsibility of driving vans of students to
churches, taking the college car and college credit card, and visiting ARP Churches on
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What do these stages of my life have to do with training the next generation? Trust! It’s as simple as that…trust. Did I make mistakes? Yes, I still make mistakes as we all do. By being trusted with some important tasks of the church, I learned many leadership skills and how to work with people. Today, we must give our youth oppor- tunities for leadership in the local church and at our conferences and camps. Along with Lynn Grimsley, it is my honor to work with Bonclarken Camps and the Bonclarken Music Conference.
At the
Music Conference and especially Camp Bonclarken, we use a ton of young peo- ple in major leadership positions. Our youth are incredible. They are strong in their faith, they are prayer warriors and they are in the right spot to learn in lead- ing with guidance. Our youth are in front of the camps and conferences in reading scripture, praying out loud, preparing and delivering devotions, and all of the duties as camp counselors. Many of our youth are student lead- ers who attend planning meetings, brain- storm, come up with camp themes, coor- dinate the scripture, and plan an eventful theme night for camp. Our student lead- ers make most of the daily announce- ments, lead theme night, ask campers to say the blessing at each meal, and lead
The Associate Reformed Presbyterian
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