As an ecclesial fellow I have a slightly different experience from the rest of my Fellows class. My job is with the church’s student ministry and I work full time rather than part time. Prior to becoming a Trinity Fellow I worked in the corporate world for two and half years. As much as I enjoyed client facing opportunities, pencil skirts, and quick turn around pitches for new business, Trinity Fellows has given me the opportunity to explore my passion for youth ministry as a vocation. Here we have over 100 students attending youth group and a plethora of quality leaders. My role is to pursue and equip leaders and students the best I can. Seeing Jesus move in these students’ lives is a gift, and being behind the scenes has been a pleasure.
A lovely perk of this internship is that each year the student ministry team ventures to Nashville for a Youth Leader Training Conference through Reformed Youth Ministries. This is a five-day conference focused on cultivating community with youth leaders around a shared philosophy of ministry.
You may be wondering: what on earth would you do for 5 entire days? Well, quite a bit! The schedule was jammed packed with reflection, teaching, and relationship building. I shared meals with youth ministry staff from all over (California, Texas, Maryland, Missouri, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee…the list goes on) where we encouraged one another with successes, failures, and dreams for the families within our churches. I was part of a prayer group in which we prayed for each other’s ministries, churches, students, struggles, and for Jesus in the midst of it. This training was a time to recalibrate, cast vision, share stories, connect, learn, and reflect.
Ultimately, after a week of youth ministry training I am walking away very encouraged and with a lot to meditate with. I am thankful to the Fellows for giving me the opportunity to build a foundation for my theology and my approach to youth ministry. In five days, I am refreshed and excited to see how to take all I’ve learned and incorporate it into our youth program!
“Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice. ” Philippians 4:4
-- Kathy Giese (Fellows '15)