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Holland Youth Director Looks at Ministry Here
CHICAGO, IL (September 5, 2001) - The Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) has earned a
reputation for providing quality youth ministry for teens, and other denominations are taking notice.
Els van der Ham toured ECC administrative offices during her recently concluded four-week stay in the United States. She also visited Pilgrim Pines Conference Center in
West Swanzey, New Hampshire, in order to gain more insights about Covenant youth ministries. She serves as director of children and youth ministries for the Free Evangelical Church in Holland, a member of the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (IFFEC). Based in Valp, she trains and mentors youth leaders and does consulting work for various churches, primarily working with young people ages 0-25.
At Pilgrim Pines, van der Ham watched how staff administrated two youth camps and came away impressed with how well programs were orchestrated. The Free Evangelical Church of Holland has 45 churches with a consolidated membership of 6,000 people. As a result, youth camps are much smaller in scope.
"Our national church is much smaller, so it's hard to take this and put it into our context," she said. "There were 150 kids at camp each of the two weeks and they had camps (of similar size) before and after. We feel fortunate when we have 150 kids for one weekend (each year)."
As van der Ham visited Covenant offices, she discussed the stark differences between churches within her denomination. She spent most of one day with the Department of Christian Formation, visiting with Marti Burger, director of Youth and Family Ministries.
"There is a mix of conservative and liberal, and that's a difficult mix," van der Ham said. "In the liberal churches, the young people don't go to church - they go to youth group. And (in the Free Evangelical denomination), there are six to 10 churches that I'd say are evangelical and the youth there are developing in a different way. In the evangelical church, they're more focused on their relationship with Jesus Christ. In the liberal church, they'll mostly focus on social issues. That's why I don't make (create) my own materials. I use materials from other churches."
Generally, van der Ham spends one day per week researching and making contacts with congregations. She travels two evenings per week training church staff on a variety of Christian education issues. She believes that connecting the older and younger generations is a vital part of what she does.
Course development and visits to other denominations are also important for van der Ham as she learns about the spirituality of youth in her culture. She has found some practical ways to use her youth ministry education as well. She and husband, Ton, have shared themselves with other youth and young adults by combining resources with others in their neighborhood. They live in an apartment complex with a group of other adults, serving as mentors to youth and young adults in their area.
Were there any surprises for van der Ham? She said the politeness and respectfulness of youth at the camps made the experience even more pleasant than she had anticipated. She was inspired by how smoothly camps were run. "It was a privilege to do something like this and I'm really inspired by the teenagers and counselors at Camp Squanto. And
seeing America was great - it's so big."
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