Church leadership opportunities are a teenager’s dream come true

LOUISVILLE — Grace Blackstock knew that she wasn’t dreaming.

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Yet when the 18-year-old Denver native was tapped to help plan the 2025 Presbyterian Youth Triennium (PYT) — themed, not coincidentally, “As If We Were Dreaming” — she practically had to pinch herself.

“The production team is really great,” she said of the cohort of volunteers who, alongside national staff members in the PC(USA)’s Office of Presbyterian Youth and Triennium, bring their passion for youth ministry to make the highly anticipated event happen.

Held every three years, Triennium is a gathering that draws more than 3,000 high-school-age youth, youth leaders and young adults from the U.S. and internationally. Sponsored by the PC(USA) in partnership with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, the 2025 event will be held July 28–31 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Although Blackstock has held numerous leadership roles as an active member of Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver Presbytery as well as in her high school’s theater program and student government, the senior honors student and aspiring church leader said that she found the PYT production team’s process to be both exciting and new.

“When we all met last year, we talked about having a dream range of 10 of our craziest ideas and throwing them all out there,” said Blackstock, who has played an important role in helping to design the Triennium worship experience as a member of the Worship Ministry Team.

“It was really nice to be able to have my voice heard, no matter what my idea was, as we started to make decisions about which ideas would be realistic and what would be best for the conference,” she added. “I’ve never experienced that type of planning before. I really enjoyed it because it’s a good way to not shut people down and give ideas room to grow without necessarily promising anything.”

Encouraging young leaders like Blackstock to share their unique gifts with the church and the world is what the Pentecost Offering, one of the PC(USA)’s four Special Offerings, is all about.

For more than 25 years, the Pentecost Offering has not only been empowering young people by providing financial support to the Office of Presbyterian Youth and Triennium, but the Offering also helps to fund the Young Adult Volunteer Program and the Educate a Child, Transform the World national initiative.

Forty percent of the Pentecost Offering is retained by individual congregations for local ministries in their communities, while the remaining 60% is used to support children at risk, and youth and young adults through ministries of the Interim Unified Agency.

Although the Pentecost Offering may be taken anytime, most congregations receive it on Pentecost Sunday, which this year falls on June 8.

“Young leaders are a gift who are all too often seen more as ‘developing leaders,’ which is a shame because many, if not most young Presbyterians, have deeply rooted ideas about how to offer hospitality, service, spiritual practice and witness,” said Gina Yeager-Buckley, manager of the Office of Presbyterian Youth and Triennium. “Our younger Triennium production team members, like Grace, and our volunteers have the ability to shake up what has been done in order to do what is needed now; what will have the deepest impact for ‘the young soul.’”

And because Blackstock’s life-changing experience on the production team made her curious about — and hungry for — additional volunteer leadership opportunities in the PC(USA), she spent two weeks last summer as an intern, dividing her time between the national offices in Louisville and the Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C.

It was the latter placement that may prove instrumental in shaping her future vocational path.

“After spending time with the Office of Public Witness, seeing the magic of Capitol Hill and all the tiny little pieces that help put together a somewhat functioning government, I was initially going to apply to college as ‘undecided,’ but then opted for political science and public policy,” Blackstock said. “The work that I saw with the OPW to influence policy to align with the beliefs of the PC(USA) and seeing the way that they could advocate was really cool.”

In speaking with Blackstock following her experience in D.C., Yeager-Buckley said she was deeply moved by how the young leader described having taken part in a public demonstration.

“Because showing up is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus Christ,” said Yeager-Buckley, “Grace made me realize, once again, that leadership is formed by participation, by observation paired with physical exertion and passion. One of the most beautiful aspects of my job, our jobs, as youth ministry leaders, is being a witness to the moments when leadership development shifts to leadership decision.”

Blackstock is also uniquely positioned to learn about even more prospective leadership opportunities in the PC(USA) since her mother, Beth Carlisle, is Denver Presbytery’s communications manager, and her father, the Rev. Steve Blackstock, is a PC(USA) teaching elder.

“Being a Young Adult Advisory Delegate [at General Assembly] would be awesome,” she said. “Any way that I can reach out and connect with the PC(USA) is good. I want to get youth more involved in the church.”

Most importantly, because Blackstock knows that the Pentecost Offering is there to help her realize not only her own dreams but also her dreams for the future of the PC(USA), she is bold to invite the church’s support.

“Please give generously to the Pentecost Offering because it’s important that young people like me are given the resources we need to thrive within the church,” she said. “Making a gift to the Pentecost Offering is a significant way to help with these efforts.”

Or, as Yeager-Buckley added, “a way to put our money where our faith is most deeply rooted.”

Gifts to the Pentecost Offering support the Office of Presbyterian Youth and Triennium in planning and leading the Presbyterian Youth Triennium.