The Filipino Youth Missions Conference 2013

A Vision for the Filipino Youth

By: Jojie Wong

It has long been acknowledged that the youth have a huge potential for missions, and history has proven this to be true with the student movements in the past, which has born much fruit in terms of laborers for foreign missions.

The evangelical church and mission leaders in the Philippines have long acknowledged this as well and in 1993, the first of five National Youth Missions Conference (NYMC) was held—producing many youth who are engaged in global harvest. The movement itself from which NYMC was born, called the National Youth Missions Movement (NYMM) came out with the following vision statement in 2005,

“Raising generations of Filipino youth develop for cross cultural missions.”

This vision to see a missions movement among the youth was re-sparked with PM3’s global goal—raising 200,000 tentmakers and career missionaries by 2010. NYMM was represented in the PM3 facilitation team and they were positioned as the youth counterpart focusing more on laying the foundations for missions involvement among local church and campus ministries.

The movement produced not just workers for the harvest field but also trainings, conferences, prayer resources for the unreached, exposure trips and other missions awareness activities through the years.

The NYMM has since been renamed Filipino Youth Mobilization Movement (FYMM), acknowledging that in the recent years with global migration and the OFW phenomenon,  Filipinos are not only found in the Philippines but are now widely scattered all over the world.

The FYMM recently hosted a consultation among youth leaders last December and is now hosting a bigger event focusing on the youth nationwide and hopefully even those overseas, through the Filipino Youth Missions Conference (FYMC) which will be held on April 8-11, 2013 in Cebu City.

The vision and theme of this conference is to see the youth engaged in the global harvest. 

Just to expand on the theme, what we would like to see is that the youth’s passion be channeled to what God is passionate about, which is really to see every tribe, tongue, nations, and peoples worship Him. And for this to happen, we want to cast the vision to the youth, disciple them well and equip them to be engaged with the global harvest in whatever way they are called by God to engage—whether it is to be goers, senders, givers, trainers or even mobilizers.

May the Lord give us the privilege and honor to be part of sparking a missions movement among the Filipino youth for His global glory!

The Filipino Youth Missions Movement Invitation

 

November 6, 2012

 

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

 

Dear ____________________________

 

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The Filipino Youth Missions Movement (FYMM), formerly known as National Youth Missions Movement (NYMM), is a national movement envisioning the engagement of Filipino youth in global mission.

 

With this purpose in mind, we will conduct a national summit for youth leaders entitled, "Igniting Filipino Youth Leaders for Global Harvest" on December 27 and 28, 2012, at the Sacred Heart Retreat and Seminar Center, Lagro, Quezon City.
This event aims to help youth leaders, in the context of their communities, (1) understand their role in global missions; (2) become advocates for global missions; (3) see themselves as catalysts for world missions; and (4) assess their current missions ministry according to FYMM's vision.

 

Our plenary speakers are Dr. David Lim, National Director, Philippine Missions Association (PMA) and Pastor BJ Sebastian, Youth Pastor, Greenhills Christian Fellowship-Ortigas. There will also be break-out sessions for group interaction and action planning.

    

In this light, we would like to invite your church/denomination/organization to send a youth leader to this summit. Regular registration fee is P1,200.00 but those who will register before December 3 will receive a discount. Early bird registration fee is P1,000.00 for delegates from Luzon and P700.00 for participants from Visayas and Mindanao. The registration covers meals, snacks, and lodging for two days and one night. We look forward to your positive response. You may reach us at the following contact details:

 

fymm2012@gmail.com, 09228894372 look for Herbert A. Nacion;

globalfilipinocenter@gmail.com, 632-7272972/ 632-6959323 look for Eunice Tapao;

missions.phil@gmail.com, 911-2491 look for Jev Mackay or Joel Syyap

.

 

Sincerely yours,                        Noted by:

 

 

MATTHEW RANDOLPH VELASQUEZ                DAVID S. LIM, Ph.D.

Leader's Summit 2012 Coordinator                National Director, PMA

The Crazy Idea of Building Up The Movement Once More - Part 1

It was last year that some NYMC'2k6 Core Leaders thought of pursuing another missions congress in Bacolod. A good discussion right after a mini-reunion at Ate Leah Aguirre's place stirred up the group to share what happened after the last congress.

We were all excited about the crazy idea and looking at how everyone have grown (spiritually & in size), we believe it's something worth to pray for and try doing after five years of the "dessert years".

2012 comes and the congress didn't happen. 

Everyone became busy and the excitement died down. I have to agree at one point that there were only a few of us who continued on praying and sought the Lord's direction for the congress. 

It was at that juncture that I prayed and sought the Lord's will for the congress and NYMM as a movement, it led me to say "YES" to help out plan for the congress and with whatever I can do for the movement. 

A long discussion with Ate Leah, Ate Joy and some other close friends led me to think about "missions stuff" once more after 3 years. I personally looked at the idea as a stepping stone for something deeper for the movement. 

Deeper, in a sense, that for the movement to reach the younger generation, a congress is not enough to deeply impact our cause. There has to be more than just workshops, plenary sessions and exposures. 

We have to do something solid, gradual and surefire. 

The think-tank meeting in PMA last April taught me a lot of things about mobilization. For one, mobilizing churches is both fun and challenging at the same time. And that there were only a handful of young recruits for the past few years.

The movement's focus should not only be to establish a strong connection of networks but also to fully support these networks by working together in training, supporting and mobilizing fellow youth for intentional crosss-cultural missions.

Also, it dawned on the group the reality that reviving the youth movement is something we can do if we want to but will also be a challenge specially that the movement has been silent for quite some time.

Lastly, a movement like NYMM would need to start somewhere and it needs to start with the youth.

The intention here is not just to raise up new missionaries but also push the youth to capture God's vision and pursue their destiny to the next level.

With this in mind, I'd like to invite and perhaps challenge you to think where you are right now with your personal walk with the Lord. I pray that God will also open your spiritual senses and join us as we once again establish a movement for the NOW Generation.

Let's try to build once again the Youth Missions Movement and work together in "raising generations of Filipino Youth for cross-cultural missions".

That is why National Youth Missions Movement was born, and I guess the same reason why even after how many years of silence, the reality of God's faithfulness to use the youth for HIS GLORY has remain true to this day.

Thank you for reading and be blessed!