Teen Conference Forms Future Church Leaders

More than 60 teens, ages 14–16, representing the nine local Australian conferences, attended the seventh installment of CHOSEN, a national teen leaders conference held in Brisbane, on July 4–8.

The team was grateful that most attendees were able to make it, as many flights were disrupted due to the floods in Sydney. Flight cancellations caused two teens to return home.

CHOSEN encourages local pastors and church leaders to nominate teenagers with potential leadership qualities to attend the program, where they are mentored, inspired, and trained to become future leaders of the church.

“CHOSEN is such a powerful week for everyone involved,” said Pastor Jeff Parker, Youth Ministries director at the Australian Union Conference. “There is no doubt in my mind that the church will benefit with these teens leading it, both now in their local setting and in the future across the broader church.”

Pastor Parker added, “Watching the Holy Spirit work in the teens’ lives was very humbling. We all left with a sense of ‘WOW!’ That was such a powerful week!”

Some of the topics that were presented at this year’s event included connecting deeper with God, resilience, mental health, understanding your uniqueness, and leadership development. The program also included powerful morning worships and inspiring sermons at night, which incorporated the Northpine Adventist School Chapel Band.

The program focuses on team building, networking, mentoring, and having fun.

“It was so good. Words can’t describe how good it was,” stated Danika Arrutchz, one of the attendees, from the Aitkenvale Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Northern Australian Conference. “I liked how it was focused on young people to bring out our leadership characteristics.”

Arrutchz added, “When my pastor first approached me about CHOSEN, I was worried because I thought I wasn’t a good candidate, but I am grateful he chose me because CHOSEN is a good way for teenagers to find their leadership potential, to work on it, and build up these qualities.”

CHOSEN was first held in 2008 and has seen many teenagers from the earlier conferences become leaders in the church. Two of these leaders returned to this year’s program as mentors, one of which was Pastor Eden Ashcroft, young adult coordinator in Youth Ministries at the Greater Sydney Conference. Pastor Ashcroft attended the conference in 2012 when she was 14 years old.

When asked to go to CHOSEN as a teenager, Pastor Ashcroft had only recently started attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church and was the only person in her family to attend. She didn’t have many Adventist friends or know much about the church.

“CHOSEN was an awesome experience. It was the first time I was exposed to the wider Adventist Church, and I made lots of friends,” she explained. “It was life-changing, making connections and meeting leaders in the church.”

Ashcroft added, “The conference was where I first felt the call to ministry and knew I wanted to be a pastor. I had never been to Big Camps or Summer Camps before CHOSEN, so it opened the door to what was out there and that there were other people my age who wanted to serve God, too.”

According to Ashcroft, going back to the conference in 2022 as a mentor was an amazing experience where she was able to watch the next group of young leaders.

“A lot of the teens ask themselves what they are doing at the conference, but there was a reason each of them was chosen. It’s great to see the change over the week as the teens start to understand that they are able to be leaders. They might think they cannot do it, but they are encouraged that even though they are young, they still have a lot to offer God.”

CHOSEN will be held again in 2023, and then every two years after that. The Australian Union Conference would like to encourage pastors to nominate teenagers in their churches to be part of this life-changing experience.