Presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to youth so that they can accept Him as their Saviour and live for Him in the world.
Enabling Christian youth to grow in their understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ through their study of the Scriptures.
Helping young people gain an awareness of the love of God and how they may love and serve others in His name.
Encouraging the commitment and devotion of young people to their Lord through worship and a devotional life.
Assisting Christian youth achieve spiritual and intellectual maturity in social and moral decisions through ministry of worship, study, recreation, service, and evangelistic outreach to the community.
Providing young people with the opportunity of Christian fellowship within the body of Christ free from any racial or social prejudice.
To do this PY exists at three levels - the local church, regional and state level.
Local Level
PY operates at the local church level in the form of the church's youth group. Often these groups meet on a regular basis but some churches don't have a youth group due to the small number of young people that they have.
If a church does not have a youth group this does not mean that the young people in the church do not play a role in PY. They do, that's where the other two levels come in. These groups often meet for Bible studies and social events including movie nights, bowling, ice skating etc. Members of these groups also often play a major role in other ministry teams in their local church.
Regional Level
PY at a regional level runs in a number of ways. Two "formal" regional level PY groups are currently operating - one in Central Queensland and one in South-East Queensland. The aim of these groups is to bring young people and youth groups from the churches in their region together.
Central Queensland PY brings all the young people together for an annual camp, held at Easter time.
South-East Queensland PY brings all the young people in the region together for activities during the year, leadership training and an annual camp, also held at Easter.
In other areas young people spend time together at events organised by other church organisations, including Scripture Union, and at PCE (Presbyterian Christian Education) Camps, including Fun & Adventure South-East Queensland, Fun & Adventure North Queensland, Schoolies Week, Canoe Camp and others.
State level
Okay, so now that we've covered PY at local and regional levels we can answer the question "What is PYQ?". At a state level PY doesn't operate like the regional or local PY groups. Unfortunately, Queensland is too large to try and get people together regularly for events, camps, leadership meetings etc. However, there are a number of ideas being put into place to serve the young people of the Presbyterian Church as a whole.
Firstly, there is this website. We are trying to place as much information on this site as possible - information about youth groups, camps, resources etc - so that youth groups may be able to use this site as a resource base and, in a sense, people who see this information can be guided to a local youth group or regional PY activity.
Secondly, we produce the PYQ page in New Directions. The aim of this page is, ideally, to report on youth groups from each area in each issue and in doing this support local youth groups in their work, give them encouragement to keep perservering, and give them comfort that there are other groups out there who are in the same situation as them.
The third aspect of PYQ, so far, is the PY Network. Today's young people need to feel that they are important and that they are wanted somewhere. The aim of the network is to do exactly that. Ideally, when a young person moves, for uni or work etc, it provides an invitation to young people to attend a church before they start "church shopping".
There are a number of things that can be done within the banner of PYQ, to build on what we already have established and to encourage local and regional PY groups. Already there are some ideas floating around which will, hopefully, get off the ground early next year.
