Youth 2023: Bold. Being Ourselves. Living Differently

January 19, 2023 | by Admin

As you know YOUTH 2023 will be in Daytona Beach, Florida from July 25-28, 2023. As you don’t know (until you finish reading this post!) we’ve got an amazing theme for the event to help us build out the worship messages and the opportunities for you to grow.

Over three days in late February of 2022, our Design Team met onsite at the Hilton Oceanfront Resort to pray over the space, meet each other in-person for the first time, and create some plans for YOUTH 2023. Among those hours, our team spent time working through many different possibilities for an event theme. So many questions and thoughts were bounced around as we explored, discussed, and prayed:

How will we facilitate many possibilities to experience God?
How could we hear about what God is already doing in the lives of youth?
How do we understand ourselves and our actions considering God’s unfiltered and unfolding story?
What does it mean for us to gather again for the first time in four years? Has COVID-19 changed how we behave with each other?
How can we come alongside youth who are figuring out their identity, their sense of belonging, and their purpose to offer support and challenges to grow?
How are bravery and authenticity measured in today’s world?
What does today’s church and world need to hear from youth?

As you can imagine, the discussion was rich, the answers as diverse and powerful as the Design Team itself, and slowly a theme we could all buy into began to emerge.

A regular piece of advice we receive is to “just be yourself” – but what if you don’t know who you are just yet? It takes a certain amount of courage to admit you’re still figuring that out, and honestly, it’s a question that even adults come back to. God’s answer to us as we figure ourselves out is pretty bold, “You are a member of the family, and you are loved.”

The way that the world expects people to act and the way that God asks people to act can be radically different. We’re asked to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly – to demonstrate our love for God and care for our neighbor. Bold move to ask us to act differently than most of the world and look for ways to bring people together in a world where division seems easier than unity.

Read more and register!