Geoff Starr
Geoff Starr
The youth and young adults ministries at the Georgia-Cumberland Conference combined forces in September 2025, to create a dual training event for church leaders. In years past, young adult ministries’ Mobilize event and youth ministry’s Engage event were separate trainings geared toward their respective demographics. This year, however, the two directors realized that they both serve similar purposes to church leaders who often work with both age groups. They decided that they could better serve church youth and young adult ministry leaders if they combined the events into one.
“Our greater mission is to prepare our young people to be active participants in the church.” said Jonathan Montes, youth ministries director. “So we want to train those who are leading our youth and young adults to be effective in projecting that message.”
“We’d love to see the Church get excited about youth and young adult ministries.” said Geoff Starr, young adult ministries director. “We really need to work together. It’s really family ministry training — families working with all ages to prepare people for Jesus’ coming.”
The hope of the Mobilize/Engage event is to spark excitement in youth and young adult leaders, so that they’ll take that excitement back to their churches. The main theme for the main sessions was “Growing Young.” It’s the hope that this mindset will begin a shift in mindset and culture within churches.
“If one person comes to a training and they’re excited, and their church says, ‘no, we’re not doing any of that,’ it can be discouraging. We want the church to be on fire for it and go through the process of shifting and realizing that we can invest in our young people.”
“What we want them to take away is we want them to feel encouraged,” said Montes. “We want them to know they’re not alone, and we want them to be rejuvenated in their ministry for youth and young adults.
Georgia-Cumberland | November 2025
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