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Young leaders engage each other and conference

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“What is emerging adulthood?” and “How do we deal with it?” were questions raised on the floor of Renewing Identity and Mission sessions. An answer to the second was provided by CCMBC’s leadership development department.

To encourage twentysomethings to attend Celebration 2010, it offered travel bursaries to “young leaders” and waived the registration fee to attend the Wednesday to Saturday plenaries, binational reporting, and Gathering sessions. The Canadian board of faith and life covered registration for the
RIM sessions.

To qualify, a post-high school adult under age 28 had to be a member at an MB church or enrolled in an MB academic institution, and be recommended by an MB pastor/leader or professor. Ten Canadians and three Americans attended the “young leaders track” facilitated by Canadian conference leadership development staff person Cam Priebe. At the MBBS-ACTS campus in Langley, B.C., Priebe hosted two extracurricular sessions for the young leaders outside of regular convention activities Wednesday (1–7 p.m.) and Friday (3:30–7 p.m.), providing a meal,  leadership building exercises, and a forum to debrief the experience.

The goals of the young leader track, says Priebe, are to create opportunity for meaningful involvement for these first-time delegates, to provide workshops for self-assessment, and to connect young leaders with the work and workers of the conference. A highlight was “watching them dive in to the full opportunity of networking…and just in general, being curious about what they could learn
from others.”

“Many of us were at a similar life stage,” said Kevin O’Coin, associate pastor at The Meeting Place, Winnipeg, and participant in the young leaders track, “but that was often where the similarities stopped, creating great opportunities to engage with and be inspired by one another.”

Karla Braun

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