Report of the Board of Youth & Young Adults
The Board of Youth and Young Adults is charged with the responsibility of glorifying God by ministering to teens, youth leaders and young adults. Our goals are to promote unity, provide training and to be a catalyst for networking between churches. To these ends we met as a whole board four times.
We were heavily involved with One Voice for the Saturday night youth concert, and we participated in the 2004 Fall Back program.
Our major event is Sno Glo which occurs in January over three weekends at Pinebrook Bible Conference. A very important aspect of these retreats is the presentation of the word of God. Another is to provide a time where young people and leaders can worship God together. Also we want the retreats to be a time of fun and fellowship.
Bible Fellowship churches are bound together by a strong belief in a theology found in the Articles of Faith. We are one when it comes to this. But there is great variety when it comes to our practice and methods. So we want to put on a retreat that over a several year span will fit with the practice and tastes of as many of our churches as possible.
We strive to make the message, worship times, recreation and fellowship meaningful. The message, for example, must be biblical and solid, but it is being presented to young people who must be tuned in and understanding what is being said. This isn’t always an easy thing to achieve. But we, as a board in general and our Events Committee in particular, wrestle with these things, and we are delighted with the way Sno Glo 2005 has turned out.
Sno Glo is an event that every year attracts a significant number of BFC churches and people. This year there were a total of 1,285 people at the three retreats representing 41 churches, 36 of them BFC churches.
Our Leadership Committee is planning a retreat for adult youth leaders at Pinebrook on April 8-9, 2005 and a day at Knoebels for our youth on April 30, 2005.
Recommendations
Whereas, the “Study Committee: Credentials & Multi-Staff Churches” (hereafter named “Study Committee”) proposal has been adopted at second reading, and
Whereas, this legislation states in 510-1 (1) that “There are three categories of nominees for election to boards and committee. They are ministers, elders, and laypersons,” and
Whereas, this legislation also states in 204-4, Pastoral Staff, that “The pastoral staff of a Particular Church is composed of, and limited to, those individuals who are serving as a minister in the BFC. For an individual to serve as a minister in the BFC, he must be ordained by or have had his previous ordination recognized by the BFC or he must be under the care of the Ministerial Candidate Committee”, and
Whereas, the Board of Youth and Young Adults (BYYA) from time to time will have men whom will be under the care of the Candidate Committee and will also be ministering in a church at the same time, and
Whereas, the BYYA desires to include such men (youth pastors, probationers) who would benefit youth and young adult ministry in the BFC through the use of their training and experience, therefore be it
Resolved, that we change the BYYA bylaws (F&O, 512-18) to read as follows:
512-18.2
(1) The Board will be composed of five ministers and four laypersons.
(2) They will be elected for a term of three years in classes as follows:
Class I two ministers, one layperson
Class II two ministers, one layperson
Class III one minister, two laypersons
and
Whereas, we have a man who was in the layperson category but has recently been licensed and continues under the care of the Ministerial Candidate Committee, therefore be it
Resolved, that by the rule of exception we put the change of by-laws into effect at the 122nd Annual Conference to be voted on for second reading at the 123rd Annual Conference.
[For composition of the Board of Youth and Young Adults, please see BFC Yearbook 2004, p. 16.]
Board of Youth and Young Adults, Clyde D. Bomgardner, Chairman; Jr., Ronald L. Kohl, Vice Chairman; John C. Vandegriff, Jr., Secretary; Billy J. Dunn, Treasurer; Andrew T. Crossgrove, Michael L. Easton, Susan G. Homsher, Denis J. Lawrence, Dorothy L. Ruch