Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, many church activities have been constrained. Youth ministries are not an exception. In order to figure out new ways to carry on youth ministries in a post-coronavirus world, the Youth Ministries department of the Korean Union Conference (KUC) called a meeting with the directors of local conferences from July 13-14, 2020, at Anmyondo Training Center, Korea.
One of the main topics was to develop outdoor activity programs for youth since outdoor activities have been found to be much safer than indoor activities in the COVID-19 situation. In collaboration with Children’s Ministries, a mountain-climbing program called “Gideon 300 Project” is ready to be launched.
This program is designed for Pathfinder clubs to climb 100 of the most beautiful mountains in Korea and to have a prayer meeting on a mountain top. If a Pathfinder club takes a picture at the top with anything that represents them as Pathfinders, such as uniforms, t-shirts, or banners, and posts the picture on an official network site run by the Conference’s Youth Ministries department, the club will be certified as participants of the Gideon 300 Project. Adventurer clubs, which target children ages 6 to 9, are encouraged to climb hills over 1,000 ft.
The Youth Ministries also designated several Adventist Institutions, such as campuses of Adventist schools, Sahmyook Medical Centers in Seoul and Busan, and the Sahmyook Food Factory, as heritage sites for Adventists. If a Pathfinder club visits these sites, they will also be given a certificate as participants of the Gideon 300 Project.
Another issue was how to expand Youth Ministries activities from offline to the Internet and social networks. The KUC Youth Ministries plans to promote small group activities using social network platforms or Zoom. Various video contents and applications for smartphones will be developed to support small group activities of young people.
A pathfinder camporee, one of the major events of the Youth Ministries, will be held by local conferences in the second half of the year 2020. Also, a nationwide Pathfinder Bible Expedition Competition was held on the Sabbath afternoon of September 26, 2020. Teams that pass the preliminaries held in each local conference will join the online competition, and the event will be live streamed on YouTube.
http://www.nsdadventist.org/news/news_1_read.html?no=1024