19 young leaders graduate from SERVE Course
Nineteen young people have just celebrated their graduation from the SERVE Young Leaders’ Training Course.
Parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters came for a meal and graduation ceremony in Drumbeg Parish Centre on 21 November. In an evening bursting with potential, the young people, all aged between 15 and 18, took the lead in worship, reading, praying and sharing.
Rector of Drumbeg, Revd Willie Nixon, presented the graduation certificates and encouraged the young people to ‘Just Do It!’ – to use the gifts they had discovered on the course, to stay humble and to lead alongside others.
The Class of ‘17 is the first group to complete the course which was written and led by Tim Burns, Down and Dromore’s Youth Development Officer. It’s an eight session discipleship course with four core elements: dinner together; a spiritual discipline ‘taster’; a chapter review of ‘Storylines’ by Mike Pilavachi and Andy Croft and finally, teaching and discussion guided by the SERVE material.
The course wasn’t without its challenges, especially when the participants went along to the Kilbroney Blast Weekend as leader/campers or ‘Lampers.’ But nerves were overcome, new friends made and new experiences banked for the future.
SERVE came from a vision to develop the young people who were coming through the Kilbroney Adventure Camps and in general to develop young leaders across the diocese. Tim has plans to develop SERVE 2 but first there’s the opportunity to serve on the DDYC Mission Trip to Albany Diocese.
Applications are open now. Please contact tim@downanddromore.org for more details.