Cherish Your Young People

2017. május 30., kedd

Glynis Williams, of the PCC, has a message for the RCH in light of the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation – young people are vital to the life of the church. The PCC and RCH have a long standing relationship, and one that has recently focused on the youth of the church as last year a group of HRC youth attended the Canada Youth gathering last summer. These same young people are now helping to run Starpoint – the RCH’s biannual youth festival.

During the RCH’s Reformation Jubilee, members of the worldwide reformed church family recorded encouraging messages for the Hungarian church. To strengthen the global network of reformed churches, leaders from denominations around the world gathered to share inspirational words of wisdom with the RCH. Glynis Williams, of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC), was one such church official.

In her video message to the RCH she highlighted the importance of young people in the life of the church and noted the enthusiasm she had seen from RCH youth during her time at the Reformation Jubilee gathering.

The PCC, like the RCH, also puts a focus on its youth. This past summer, a youth delegation from the Hungarian Reformed Church, including members from Romania, Ukraine, and Hungary, participated in the Canada Youth International Visitor Program of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The group of eight youth spend one week touring Canada and learning about its history, followed by one week at the Canada Youth 2016 gathering. All the HRC delegates who went had also attended the RCH’s Starpoint Youth Festival in years past, so they were able to compare and contrast their experience in Canada with what they had been involved with in Hungary. HRC delegates who traveled to Canada were all connected to the Youth Office of their various Reformed churches and now, upon their return, are helping to plan for the RCH’s upcoming Starpoint event. Delegates who visited CY are now leading working groups who help to plan Starpoint, coordinating the programming for the festival, and helping as volunteers to set-up and run the event.

This ecumenical connection between the PCC and RCH has impacted the planning of this year’s Starpoint. In her message to the RCH, Glynis Williams touches on this idea that the church should help youth to see the past, but also look towards the future.

Glynis Williams

Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC)

“Cherish your young people, try and help them understand what faith in this context can mean, looking from the past but looking towards the future.”