“Global Youth Day was created to tap into the creativity of our young people. We simply give them a theme for the year, and they run with it. They do many good things with it.”

“It’s through young people that God wants to finish the work. With such an army of workers as our youth, they need to know that God wants to mobilize them in force to finish the work that He’s given us, to proclaim the three angels’ messages into the world.”

“Global Youth Day is a day in which young people miss one sermon to become a sermon. In other words, you don’t go to your conventional church program or your divine service but simply take out that time to go and be the hands and feet of Jesus doing acts of kindness.”

In 2013, the General Conference Youth Ministries department launched a worldwide movement called Global Youth Day or GYD. This is a day for young people to go out into the community and serve in a similar way that Christ did.

“I think the church is more relevant as it meets the needs of the community. As you may know, this is the method of Jesus: He mingled with people, showed sympathy to them, ministered to their needs, won their confidence, and then He would say, Follow me. We have a special thrust in the mission of our church where we do these acts of kindness, and then we can be very intentional about telling them that it is Jesus who sponsors these acts of kindness.”

In 2018, the theme was a food and water drive. Adventist youth around the world gave food and water to the homeless, those in need, and others they encountered on the streets. Others went above and beyond the theme, coming up with more unique solutions.

“Not only were the youth giving out food and water, they went to the extent of even trying to find out how we can have clean water for people around the world. They blew our minds and went beyond expectation.”

“We’ve heard back from our own young people, how excited they are and how it was a life-changing experience for them going out there and ministering to people. They don’t want just to have Global Youth Day; they want to have a Global Youth Experience in their life. That is the goal of Global Youth Day, not just to have one day of the year when we do something nice in our community, but to also have a day they can taste and see that the Lord is good and get involved in mission and have it go throughout the whole year.”

As youth implement these values into their everyday lives, let’s pray that communities around the world notice their compassion and love. Past Global Youth Days have demonstrated our young people’s creativity and enthusiasm for helping others. Please pray for every young person involved in this event, that they continue to display the character of Jesus every day.

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