Gearing up for DYA

Tomorrow the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation begins here on Duke's campus. This is my second year to work for DYA as one of the Ministry Coordinators (essentially an administrative position that helps to organize and resource one of DYA's program areas).

DYA's website describes it this way:

"The Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation is a two-week summer program for selected high school students to live in an intentional Christian community on the Duke University campus ... Days are patterned by worship through word and sacrament, reflection on scripture, study, service, play; practices ancient and modern that nourish the life of faith."

That's an accurate statement, but it doesn't do justice to the richness of the DYA experience. When the website overview goes on to say, "You will leave the academy challenged to consider your baptismal vocation, confident that God is shaping your future in radical and exciting ways," it's getting closer to the mark. To put it simply, I've never seen anything like what DYA offers to 16 and 17-year old youth.

As the outgrowth of Dr. Fred Edie's theological vision for youth ministry, DYA is centered around living an embodied Christian faith as part of a community of other young disciples of Jesus. That life is ordered around the symbols of book, bath, table, and time - with the book as Holy Scripture, the bath as Baptism, the table as Holy Communion, and time as the Patterning of Time in Christian Community. The high school students who come here each summer commit to living a semi-monastic life.

And get this: they love it.

I'm going to post a lot about DYA over the next couple of weeks. If you know of a youth who will be a rising junior or senior in high school at this time next year who might be interested in this experience, I'd encourage you to point him or her to what I post. In the meantime, here are some previous links you might find interesting:

A post from last year's Duke Youth Academy, which was my first as a member of the DYA staff. In the post I offer a little bit of an overview on the program based on my experience of it as a first-time staffer.

A book review of mine in the UM Reporter on Fred Edie's Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry. This is an excellent theology of youth ministry. A companion volume that will offer practical curriculum based off of Edie's vision is currently in the works.