C4SO has built a partnership with one of the best leadership formation opportunities for high school students in the nation, Asbury University’s Youth Becoming Leaders. A Lilly Endowment-funded institute, Youth Becoming Leaders (YBL) is a strategic way for C4SO’s NextGen Leadership Team to empower, encourage and form students in the diocese as well as bless local churches.
The YBL program invites high school sophomores, juniors and seniors to apply for a two-week intensive on the Asbury campus focusing on leadership identity, spiritual formation and project management. As part of the application process, each student proposes a local ministry project to implement in their church or community and chooses a local mentor to help them with their project when they return home. The student then spends the two-week intensive preparing to lead their project. Mentors travel to campus for the last day of the intensive, both to experience the program and receive mentorship training. YBL also provides 10 months of ongoing support as students complete their project.
“We’re always looking toward the future, seeking out the best partners to give our students powerful formation experiences,” says the Rev. Aaron Buttery, leader of C4SO’s NextGen Leadership Team. “If a student does YBL, it will shape their home student ministry for rest of the time they are there. The student will learn what it means to be on mission and what it means to be a leader. It will also inform their choice of college studies, prepare them to do more than sit in church, and model what it means to be spiritual leaders in their own communities now and tomorrow.”
Dr. Brian Hull, Asbury’s Associate Professor of Youth Ministry and leader of YBL, is excited to invite C4SO’s next generation of leaders to the Youth Becoming Leaders Institute in June 2020.
“Students will explore in community who God is calling them to be through Scripture, theology, service, tradition and experience,” he says. “They will be empowered to lead and enact change now, and to think critically and biblically about complex issues surrounding the world and the Church. At Asbury University, we believe that high school students can be great Christ-like leaders starting right now and we are excited to partner with C4SO in empowering youth to lead today!”
Churches can begin today to prepare their students to participate in YBL.
“I encourage every church to name a student to participate in this important formational opportunity,” Bishop Todd Hunter says. “Creating opportunities for students to be empowered and released into active leadership in their own communities is a huge win for the kingdom of God. I am delighted by the work Aaron Buttery and the NextGen Leadership Team is doing in our diocese to raise up the next generation of Anglican leaders.”
What: Youth Becoming Leaders Institute
When: June 8-19, 2020 Application deadline is March 15, 2020.
Where: Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky
Cost: $500 plus travel for the 12-day (room and board included) Institute. Mentors travel and attend for free at the expense of YBL.
Special C4SO Event: C4SO will be hosting an Anglican Cohort Day on June 7, 2020, at Asbury University for all Anglican students who are accepted into YBL.
Contact: Email Aaron Buttery with questions about how to begin preparing your students or about scholarship opportunities.