“Oh my, that’s a whole lot of folks,” said the Rev. CeCe Armstrong, Co-Moderator of the 226th General Assembly (2024), peering out from the stage of Anderson Auditorium at the Montreat Conference Center for the second week of the Montreat Youth Conference. She saw 800 youths and their leaders filling up the pews.
Armstrong, who served as the preacher for the first and second weeks of the conference, expressed surprise to the Rev. Casey Wait, the featured keynoter during those sessions, noting the crowd was exponentially larger than the week before. Last year, the Montreat Youth Conference welcomed more than 3,600 people over its six sessions in June and July.
“Do you want to pray before we pray?” Wait offered, guiding Armstrong to turn away from the 800 high schoolers and have a private — but microphoned — moment of “Help us, O Lord.” The performance of insecurity and uncertainty demonstrated an invitation for conference-goers to just be themselves and trust in God’s presence. The message of welcome and acceptance had already been delivered by Wait, recreation leaders the Rev. Neeley Rentz Lane and Alejandro Salas Hernandez, and music leaders the Rev. Kim Mendoza and Isaac Moshay at Sunday night’s opening event.
As part of their introductions, each leader shared a short biographical journey, saying, “The path that led me here started here and took me through … .”
Wait, who hailed from Vermont and New York City, had never been to the Montreat Youth Conference before finding herself on stage with the expectation of delivering five keynote speeches on this year’s theme, “Light My Path.” She gave voice to all the ways she and others may be feeling like outsiders while offering an orientation to the Montreat grounds and the slang used to name different spaces.
The intention toward hospitality and inclusion ran over into “the Huck” (Huckleberry Café), where Montreat staff and the conference pastor were available to treat guests to coffee or a theological conversation. On Monday, Susie Watson Burns, director of church relations at Montreat, sat near the window overlooking Lake Susan, calling local garages for affordable quotes to fix the broken-down van used by a church from Alpharetta, Georgia.
For over a decade, Burns has been finding opportunities to introduce the Montreat Youth Conference to new congregations of all sizes and means. “I help congregations live into their baptismal vows,” she said, describing her behind-the-scenes work: finding ways to include churches who may have only one youth and one leader, securing housing or scholarships for youth of new worshiping communities or immigrant churches, or walking through accommodations and support for youth on the spectrum of neurodiversity.
Burns sees Montreat as the place where lay leaders, church staff and conference organizers can come together to help youth find an authentic faith foundation, enough to carry them through the changes of young adulthood and life. “They can’t just inherit the faith of their parents. They have to find their own faith,” she said.
Tanner Pickett, vice president for communications at Montreat Conference Center, described two elements of the youth conference that stand out to him: small groups comprised of youth from all the various church groups and “back-home groups,” where youth process in the church groups with whom they came. “The juxtaposition of those two experiences is fascinating,” said Pickett. Reflecting on his own experience as a youth at the conference, he said, “For me, the most meaningful experiences when I was here as a youth were my back-home friends that were coming with all these really intense experiences, that we were able to talk about them in a much different way and at much deeper level.”
Wait wove the idea of accepting oneself and thriving in diversity throughout her keynotes. She identified how her own journey included the twists and turns of being “neurospicy.” After receiving a diagnosis of ADHD in high school, Wait presented her lifelong journey to accept the gifts and challenges of how she has been “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
“I relate to the keynote speaker because she is like me,” said a rising sophomore from Tucker, Georgia, who appreciated Wait’s candid references to how her neurodiversity shaped her thoughts and presentation style.
Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
David Barnhart, Associate, Story Ministry, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Interim United Agency
Jenny Barr, Reference and Outreach Archivist, Presbyterian Historical Society, Interim Unified Agency
Let us pray:
God of justice, your Spirit continues to labor in this world, inspiring each of us to contribute to a common good that is bigger than any of us can see. Let us strive to support youth in their endeavors. In your holy name we pray. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment