The School runs for three years. It’s like going to a Bible School for teenagers. You get to study about the Bible, how to lead bible studies, how to lead group dynamics, Preaching, the United Methodist Church polity and structure, Social Principles and Leadership among others! The teachers are usually the pastors, deaconesses and concerned lay persons in the conference or district.

Most of the time, SCYD is sponsored and organized by the Board of Discipleship of the Annual Conference. It usually runs between one to three weeks. During my time (which seems like ages ago!), it used to be three weeks. But due to time and financial constraints, the duration became two weeks and eventually to just one week.

The most memorable part of SCYD, at least for me, was the weekend appointment to local churches. We were sent to these churches as a team of young people. One of us became the preacher during the Sunday worship while others became children’s Sunday School teachers, ushers and liturgists among others. On the whole, it was pretty good training in church ministries for young people!

Here are some of the subjects dealt with during the SCYD:

Bible (Old and New Testament)
Preaching and Hermeneutics
Methodism 101 (Heritage, Structure and History)
Social Principles
Leadership
Youth and Youth Culture
Leading Bible Studies
Children’s Ministries
Group Dynamics
Interest Groups (guitar, piano, tambourine dance, arts and crafts)

As I said, SCYD was very instrumental in my leadership development. I learned a lot about the United Methodist Church through this school. I became actively involved in the life and mission of the church and I understood the history and the mission of the church.

SCYD is a good place to develop networks with youth leaders and workers-with-youth. Pastors, deaconesses and youth-loving lay persons go there to help the school. This school also becomes the venue for recruiting youth leaders and would-be pastors and deaconesses for the church.

SCYD also helps train youth to become lay speakers for the church. Those who complete three years of SCYD become licensed lay preachers who can go to any United Methodist Church to preach and share the word of God.

Yet, there are a number of things that can be refined for the SCYD.

Refine the curriculum. In this time and age of the Information Superhighway, it would be important to look at how we can engage the broader culture with the timeless message of the gospel. The curriculum can also be tied to the lay speaking curriculum of the church. This way, youth can become licensed lay preachers automatically upon completion of SCYD. If possible, the curriculum should be uniform across the Philippines United Methodist Church.

Network with other Annual conferences. The SCYD is very popular in almost all annual conferences in the Baguio Episcopal Area and in the Davao Episcopal Area. To my knowledge, only SouthWest Philippines Annual Conference organize the SCYD in the Manila Episcopal Area.

Come up with a textbook for the SCYD. This will certainly come in as an important resource for pastors, deaconesses and lay persons who are asked to become teachers in the SCYD. They won’t have to prepare every single topic they will teach for the subjects in the SCYD.

The SCYD is an amazing school for youth.

Does your annual conference organize this school?

Most workers with youth and young adults in the Philippines tend to approach their job via trial and error. There is a lack of training for youth workers. As such, they tend to rely on intuition in handling their own youth ministry. This is further complicated by the lack of formal training in youth ministry in Bible Schools and the Seminary. Unlike in the United States, most churches do not have youth pastors. As such, youth work usually falls on the shoulders of the church deaconesses and young pastors.

The goals of the Filipino Youth Ministry Forum are:

1. Explore the biblical, theological and practical bases for youth ministry.
2. Equip youth workers with knowledge and skills they can use in handling their own youth ministry.
3. Expound on the present plight of Filipino youth and how the church could respond to these trends and issues.
4. Initiate the workers with youth into a network so as to support each other as they conduct their youth ministries.

Date: November 26, 2009 (Thursday)
Venue: Harris Memorial College, Dolores, Taytay
Registration Fee: P150

Who Should Attend:

Deaconesses, Pastors and Lay Persons who are involved in Ministries with Youth and Young Adults
Youth and young adult leaders seeking to learn ways to engage in ministry with their peers
Anybody who’s interested

Program

7:30 – 8:30 Registration

8:30 – 9:00 Opening Devotion and Orientation

9:00 – 10:15 Plenary: The Task of the Youth Worker: A Biblical, Theological and Practical View
Rev. Homer Wesley O. Refuerzo

10:15 – 10:30 Break

10:30 – 11:30 Interactive Session

Creative and Effective Church Ministry with Youth
- Pastor Melvin Jay Guerrero

11:30 – 1:00 Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 Interactive Session 2

Ministry with Youth in the Campus
- Mr. Kevin Sanders, Campus Missionary

2:30 – 3:00 Break

3:00 – 4:30 Plenary: Filipino Youth and Young Adults: Towards a Filipino Framework of Youth Ministry
Mighty C. Rasing, Division on Ministries with Young People

4:30 – 5:00 Fellowship

The Forum will have two plenary sessions: the first one deals with the Biblical and theological bases of youth ministry as well as practical matters that youth ministers need to attend to. This session will set the tone of the Youth Ministry Forum.

The last plenary session will deal with the profile of Filipino youth and young adults and expound on the need for a Filipino framework of youth ministry. This plenary session will integrate the different sessions of the Forum and look at the possibility of arriving at a more integrated approach to Filipino youth ministry. It will also be a call to action for youth ministers to be more intentional and focus more on discipleship.

The Interactive Sessions present a number of contexts where young people may be found: in the Church, in the School, outside the school, and in their online worlds. This first installment of the Filipino Youth Ministry Forum deals with ministries with young people in the local church and campus settings. As this Forum grows, it will seek to address additional ministry settings with young people. With these sessions, the youth ministers will learn more about tools and strategies on how to engage Filipino young people in these different settings and contexts.

Target Results

This forum will become the seed towards the establishment of a Methodist youth worker movement in the Philippines. Such a movement will also be a means for Methodist youth ministries to engage other ministries and the world at large, providing a venue for the discussion of youth ministry strategies and tools in contemporary Philippine society. Such a movement can also empower ecumenical youth ministry and the sharing of resources, insights and stories with other young people’s ministries in other faith traditions.

This event will also enable the DMYP to be exposed and generate buzzwords about its ministries and how youth ministries and youth workers can avail of the resources and ministries of DMYP.

You can register online by visiting this link.

As American students head back to their schools, colleges and universities, College Union spearheaded the 40 Days of Prayer for Campus Ministry. This project will run from August 17 to September 25, 2009. Here’s the call to prayer from the website:

“We are calling the United Methodist Church to 40 Days of Prayer for our campus ministries from August 17th – September 25th, 2009. As millions of students pour back onto our nation’s campuses, we will pour out our hearts to God to move anew among our Wesley Foundations, United Methodist related colleges, and local church ministries. Over 700 people who heard their call to ministry through a United Methodist campus ministry have joined a Facebook group (United Methodist Campus Ministry – Raising Up Christian Leaders) to pray for our mission to this generation of college students, staff, and faculty. On behalf of the women and men who serve on our nation’s campuses – I invite you to join us in praying for God to do a new thing among our campus ministries this fall.”

This is an amazing prayer project. It’s an attempt to really seek the face of God and empower students and campus ministers for the ministry they handle. College Union offers a prayer guide, which can be downloaded here. The prayers are simple yet profound and encourage us to put ourselves before God.

I’m joining this 40 Days of Prayer for the sake of campus ministry in the United States as much as in the Philippines. It’s quite difficult for the Methodist campus ministry movement in the Philippines to take off and gain momentum. Perhaps by seeking the will of God, we will discover how to really reach out to college students all over the country.

If you’re a Methodist youth/young adult leader, minister, deaconess or a layperson, I invite you to join this Prayer project. God may simply let us in to a big surprise.

Here’s the information about SMACK Forum.

The SMACK Forum is a gathering of high school and college students for leadership training, spiritual development, fellowship and networking. It is envisioned to be a biennial event in between the convening of the National Youth Conference of the UMYFP.

SMACK Forum provides an opportunity for the students to learn skills, exposed to new ideas, voice their concerns and develop specific plans for enhancing and establishing campus ministries.

Theme: “Campus Ministry: Spiritual Formation, Relevant Scholarship, Strong Church”

Venue: Wesleyan University Philippines, Cabanatuan City
Date: May 20-23, 2009, Wednesday to Saturday

Who may participate in the SMACK Forum?

SMACK Forum is open to any United Methodist youth who are in the high school (given priority to Junior and Senior) and college levels. Delegates should be actively involved in campus ministry or has the leadership potential to start a ministry. Local churches, districts, annual conferences and campus ministries are encouraged to sponsor and send participants. Campus ministers (or potential campus ministers) are also encouraged to attend and coordinate the delegations.

A total of 200 participants are expected.

We are now busy preparing for the SMACK Forum and I expect it to take up most of my time in the coming 30-day period. Please do pray for us and for those who will participate in the Student Forum.