The Central District fall youth conference, held Nov. 20-23 at Inspiration Hills in Inwood, Iowa, involved 130 participants—including 104 youth—from 10 churches.
Stuart Curry, pastor of Salem MB Church in Bridgewater, S.D., served as speaker on the theme, “Even if: Unshakeable joy when life shakes us” based on Habakkuk 3:17-18.
“Pastor Curry did a great job of being honest about struggles, straightforward about the truths of the gospel, and about how they relate to real life,” says Alex Janzen, a member of the youth committee and pastor of Community Bible Church in Mountain Lake, Minn., via email. “He stayed true to the theme of a God who we can hold on to even if life is hard and confusing.”
Conference activities
Students participated in service projects in Sioux Falls, including raking almonds at city parks, serving lunch at The Banquet rescue mission and volunteering at Union Gospel Mission.
Free-time activities included archery tag and a zipline, while evening activities involved group games led by youth leaders and an Amazing Race activity focusing on the seven Multiply missionaries receiving the conference offering.
Race activities included an Elephant Walk for the Chon Buri, Thailand, station, and cutting and eating durian at the Chiang Mai, Thailand, station.
An offering of $1,010 was collected.
The Tabor College worship team For His Glory led students in singing.
“Youth conference was great,” Janzen says. “We had a great location, Stuart spoke clearly and honestly about the life of faith in difficult circumstances, (and) we had a quality worship team from Tabor who were ready to get involved and minister to the high schoolers. Students seemed ready to have fun and ready to participate in group discussions. Several responded deeply to invitations during sessions.”
The Central District Youth Committee is considering ways to gain participation from its Congolese, Ethiopian and Latino churches in future years, Janzen says.
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Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor and joined the CL staff in 2017. Shafer is an award-winning writer, receiving multiple awards from the Kansas Press Association and Evangelical Press Association. A Tabor graduate with a degree in communications and religious studies, she and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
