New Early Acceptance Application Process
The CYMT has created an early acceptance process that will begin this fall. Students wishing to be considered for early acceptance to the program must have completed the application process by November 30 including all references, forms, and fees. Students interviews will take place December 7-18. Students will be informed if they have been accepted, deferred to the Spring deadline, or not accepted by January 6. Students interested in early placement at a church in January or May will be given that opportunity if partner churches are available at those times if not students will be placed in August.
Executive Director Note June 09
I continue to be amazed at God’s work in and through the Center for Youth Ministry Training. We will welcome 15 new students this fall, our largest incoming class! We will be working with 23 students and churches this fall. Our new partnership with Memphis Theological Seminary continues to strengthen the academic credit of our program that has attracted this new class. Again, our students are coming from all over the country and will be serving churches in the Middle and West Tennessee areas. I hope you will keep this newsletter and pray for them and their churches often.
CYMT has been awarded the second two years of our Lilly Grant, which will provide $530,000 in funds to further develop our program and help us launch another campus in 2010. Our “Imagine...the Future” event in April raised almost $80,000 in support for our annual and endowment funds. We continue to be blessed by those who give of their time and resources to make CYMT a reality.
This spring, we launched four websites that are committed to resourcing youth ministers (YMtoday.com, YMbookstore.com, YMclassifieds.com, and YMconnect.com). Will Penner, our resource director, and Julia Wilburn, our new web marketing director, are working to make resources readily available to youth ministers.
Our coaching staff continues to grow as we expand our reach into the West Tennessee and North Mississippi areas. We now have seven coaches working with Lesleigh Carmichael, our director of coaching, to empower our students and churches to reach youth with the good news of Jesus Christ.
On August 2, we will commission our second class of students for the work of youth ministry. We hope you will make plans to attend. We have much to be thankful for at the CYMT. Your prayers and gifts keep the mission of the CYMT alive. Brentwood United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church continue to strengthen and bless our ministry. Please pray for our board, staff, students, and churches as we continue this important ministry.
Serving Christ,
Rev. Dietrich “Deech” Kirk,
Executive Director
An Interview with CYMT Student, Kate Adcock
1. Tell us about your experience with CYMT so far.
While I have felt called to youth ministry for a few years, I quickly realized that there were a lot of skills that I needed to learn before I would be effective in that position. CYMT has helped me develop many of these skills, as well as providing an invaluable community of peers who offer friendship, fellowship, and the knowledge that ministry is not something any of us does alone.
2. What’s happening at your church since you arrived? I was fortunate to begin at Connell Memorial UMC during an exciting time of new enthusiasm. When I arrived, there were many youth-aged people attending the church, but the number of those who were active in youth activities had dwindled to a very small amount. However, because of the support and dedication of a key group of leaders within the church, more and more youth are becoming active. We also have begun a building project to expand the youth facilities and will be starting a new junior high bible study within the month.
3. How do you think you have grown since you first came to CYMT and Connell Memorial United Methodist Church over a year ago? I have grown a tremendous amount, both personally and professionally, since I first started at CYMT and Connell. I have learned more about my own gifts and am learning how to apply those to my ministry at Connell. I am becoming more confident in my leadership skills and am learning how to better plan things well in advance.
4. As you look back on the first year with Connell Memorial UMC, what are the things that make your heart smile the most, and where have you seen God at work in the youth ministry at Connell Memorial UMC? I have loved the opportunity to get to know so many of the youth in a variety of ways. Whether through worship and prayer, service to others, or play, I love watching bonds between the youth grow and the personal relationships with God deepen. We recently returned from our mission trip to the Cumberland Mountains, and the opportunity to hear several of the youth say that they experienced God in a new way that week was amazing. Knowing that I get to be even a very small part of the faith journeys that each of these youth are on is incredibly humbling and exciting at the same time.
Lilly Grant continues to fund CYMT Program
The Center for Youth Ministry Training is excited to announce the Lilly Foundations decision to fund our Lilly Laboratory for Youth Ministry grant for two more years. This grant will provide $530,000 in support to further develop the CYMT program, continue to provide resources through YMtoday.com, continue the Youth Ministry Think Tank that we began in 2008, and to help us develop a second campus. We are grateful to the continued support and faith of the Lilly Foundation.
CYMT launches 3 Youth Ministry Websites
In May, the CYMT launched 3 new websites to resource, equip, and educate youth ministers. YMtoday.com has been developed to connect youth workers with the plethra of youth ministry resources available to them as well as to provide thought provoking theological and practical insights for working with youth. YMbookstore.com was developed in partnership with Cool Springs Press to provide a place where youth workers could find all of the available print resources. YMclassifieds.com has been developed to connect youth workers with the thousands of companies available to help them resoure their youth ministries.
CYMT Partners with Memphis Theological Seminary
The Center for Youth Ministry Training’s Board of Directors is excited to announce a collaborative partnership with Memphis Theological Seminary. Our partnership with MTS will help us more effectively accomplish the CYMT’s vision of training youth ministers. CYMT receives three primary benefits from this new relationship.
The first benefit is academic credit. Our students currently can earn 12 hours credit from Vanderbilt. Through MTS our students will earn 32 hours of credit for the exact same work because MTS will give credit for our students’ youth ministry course work, internships, and core seminary work. This credit raises the academic credibility of our Certificate in Youth Ministry program. We also benefit from this relationship as our students will be two-thirds of the way towards completing a Master of Arts degree when they complete the certificate program. MTS is creating an opportunity for our students to complete the degree by adding a third year to the CYMT program.
Secondly, this relationship will allow CYMT to expand its region as we create an innovative educational model. We have been focused on the greater Nashville area in our first three years due to the travel restrictions of our students. CYMT and MTS are creating a retreat-based curriculum that will allow students to only have to travel to Nashville or Memphis every six weeks for a 3-day intensive retreat. During the in-between weeks, students will meet in cluster groups in their areas. This model will allow CYMT to expand its reach to a 2-3 hour radius of Nashville. We anticipate working with churches next year in Memphis, Jackson, Northern Alabama, and potentially southern Kentucky.
Finally, this relationship raises CYMT’s reputation and credibility in academic circles and in the eyes of potential students. We will now, through our relationship with MTS, begin to develop one of the strongest youth ministry educational programs in the country. We plan to develop a Master of Arts in Youth Ministry that would begin in 2010. We also plan to work with MTS to potentially hire an associate professor of youth ministry in the near future. We will be able to market our program to future students who are seeking a job and a top-notch youth ministry education.
Executive Director Note January 09
As the Center for Youth Ministry Training moves into 2009, I must take a moment to pause and remember all of the incredible things we have accomplished in 2008. We received our first national grant that has expanded our staff from 2 to 10! This increase has allowed us to expand and improve our capacity to do ministry.
We hosted a national youth ministry think tank where we led the way in exploring how to best educate and train youth workers. We commissioned our inaugural class of students as youth ministers in the Body of Christ. Our third class of students has arrived, and we currently have 13 students serving in partner churches where young people’s lives are being touched by the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our partner churches continue to see growth in their youth programs both numerically and spiritually as CYMT mentors guide both our students and the leaders in those congregations.
We have developed a youth ministry library that will be available to our students and the Nashville area youth ministers. Finally, we have created a partnership with Memphis Theological Seminary that will increase the credibility of our program and allow our students to earn a Master of Arts degree in conjunction with our certificate.
As we look to 2009, we see a year full of new and exciting components to our ministry. We will launch several national youth ministry websites in January targeted at resourcing, educating, and equipping youth ministers. YMtoday.com is the primary website, and we are confident that it will quickly become the premier youth ministry site.
We will begin to identify potential locations for second campuses in other regions of the country. Our partnership with Memphis Theological Seminary will allow us to expand our Nashville campus to include the Memphis and West Tennessee areas.
We have much to be thankful for at the CYMT. In these difficult economic times, we are grateful for your continued support of our ministry. Your prayers and gifts keep the mission of the CYMT alive. Brentwood United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church Nashville continue to strengthen and bless our ministry. Please pray for our board, staff, students, and churches as we continue this important ministry.
Serving Christ,
Rev. Dietrich “Deech” Kirk, Executive Director
Executive Director Note June 08
As the Center for Youth Ministry Training approaches the end of its second year, I am overwhelmed by my emotions. We are commissioning our inaugural group of students to be youth ministers in the body of Christ this August. We would like to invite all of you to that service on August 3, 2008. I feel a great sense of pride in how the CYMT has helped them develop their gifts for ministry. I also am overcome with gratitude for this class of students who came to the CYMT on faith. The role that they have played in teaching us as we have taught them will make a difference in all future students of the CYMT.
We are proud to say that ministry with youth will be a part of all of their futures. I continued to be humbled by how God has provided for our ministry needs. Our “Imagine the Future” event last May has provided a foundation for financial stability and growth. Your support has provided the funding we have needed to sustain our budget over the past year and for years to come. We are more than half way to raising our goal of $1.5 million dollars that we need to sustain our current program into the future.
Through God’s providence, we have received a $404,000 grant from the Lilly Foundation for the next two years with the potential for another $450,000 for the two years after that to enhance and expand our program. This grant has provided us time and opportunity to do more than we would have ever imagined at this point in our development. The grant has given us three times as many staff hours to accomplish our vision as we had when we started our program.
The CYMT has eight staff members now, all but one are part time, but we are excited about how these positions have expanded our capacity for ministry. I am also excited about how God is continuing to use the Center for Youth Ministry Training to impact churches. From Loretto United Methodist Church that only had one youth coming to their church when CYMT began working with them, to Lebanon First United Methodist Church that has grown to more than 50 youth participating in their ministry in only 6 months, the CYMT is developing youth ministers and churches that are impacting the lives of youth. I am thankful for the support of each of you individually, both in your prayers and gifts.
I also want to thank Brentwood United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Nashville for their continued support and encouragement.
We hope that this newsletter gives you a taste of how God is at work in and through the CYMT.
Please pray for our board, staff, students, and churches as we continue this important work.
Serving Christ,
Rev. Dietrich “Deech” Kirk
Executive Director
Lilly Foundation Grant Gives CYMT Room to Grow – June 08
The Center for Youth Ministry Training is excited to announce that they have been awarded a grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment in the amount of $404,000. The grant will fund the first two years of a four year project entitled The Lilly Laboratory for Youth Ministry. The grant will also support the Center for Youth Ministry Training’s continued work of developing youth ministers who are both theological practitioners and practical theologians.
Several of the components of the project include developing youth ministry training curriculum and coaching manuals for youth directors and churches; developing a national youth ministry think tank; developing a national youth ministry website and resources; and launching a second CYMT campus. Seminaries and Divinity Schools will benefit from the grant research, which will provide insights into how to reach the broader youth ministry community and how to better train their students as practitioners. In addition, the professional youth workers, volunteers, and youth in 63 churches will immediately benefit from theologically grounded youth ministries.
Deech Kirk, Executive Director of the Center for Youth Ministry Training, says of receiving the grant, “We are grateful for Lilly Endowment’s gift that provides time and opportunity to further our capacity to train and equip youth ministers.”