FMYC Will Help Teens Discover Their Calling

by Jeff Finley

The Free Methodist Youth Conference returns this summer with a “Marked” focus that will help teens explore, sense and understand God’s calling and become leaders in the church.

FMYC 2022 will be held June 27–July 1 on the campus of Colorado State University. In a Light + Life interview, Director Zach Fleming said the conference’s theme reflects “the reality that we all have a call on our life. We are all in some way marked.”

The FMYC 2022 team found inspiration in Scripture: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

“That’s where the theme comes from — this idea that if you’re in Christ, there’s a call on your life,” Fleming said. “You’ve been marked.”

FMYC — originally called IYC (International Youth Conference) — has been uniting Free Methodist teens every few years since 1981, and the conference reflects a denominational tradition of national youth gatherings dating back to the 1930s.

“The number of people who have sensed calling on their life at IYC and FMYC is significant, and we want to honor that tradition and be a part of that tradition and provide space for God to speak,” Fleming said.

Teens Leading Now

This year’s evening speaker will be longtime youth leader Brock Morgan, Youth Specialties’ former director of youth worker training.

“He’s been a voice that’s been really prevalent in youth ministry circles for years — specifically as it relates to challenging teens to be leaders now,” said Fleming, who added that FMYC organizers want to avoid the mistake of some congregations who send the message to teens: “We’re going to put you on a shelf until you’re older, and then when you’re older, you can really lead.”

“We don’t think that’s Jesus’ heart, and it’s certainly not our heart,” Fleming said. “We know Brock is a voice who’s spoken against that mentality and spoken to: What does it look like to empower a generation now?”

Fleming said FMYC leaders sought Morgan as a speaker because “we know Brock. We’ve heard Brock. He’s somebody whose theology lines up very well with who we are as a denomination.”

FMYC will consider who Jesus is and who teens are.

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“We are marked and called, and so we send you out to the world with that calling.”

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“When we understand who Jesus is, we can understand who we are,” Fleming said. “Essentially, the whole week is about our identity and how we’re marked, but the morning focus is on who God is — attributes of God. The evening is: ‘If God is this thing we talked about in the morning, what does that mean for who I am?’”

He said the “Marked” theme connects to calling as teens are taught “about how God is omniscient; God is moving, and so because of that, we are on mission. The week culminates with this sending message of ‘We are marked and called, and so we send you out to the world with that calling.’”

Worship will be led by Everyheart, a Spring Arbor, Michigan-based movement that hosts weekly gatherings on Michigan college campuses and also a summer worship tour with the aim “to see every heart met and transformed by the love of Jesus.”

Rather than going with a famous worship band, Fleming said, FMYC organizers chose Everyheart because they know its members to be “simply passionate about leading others in worship, and they’re passionate about there being a service component to their work.” Everyheart looks for ways to serve in each community it visits on tour, and Fleming said the group will lead one of the breakout options “so students can wrestle with: What does it mean for worship to be a lifestyle?”

FMYC will also include a concert featuring Holly Starr who performs pop and worship music. According to an interview with a newspaper in her home state of Washington, Starr said her musical start came when she “got involved in the youth band at the Free Methodist Church” in Quincy. She has since had two hit singles on Christian radio and millions of views of her YouTube videos.

Fleming said that Starr was highly recommended by Free Methodist youth leaders who’ve worked with her, and FMYC organizers chose substance over celebrity status when selecting speakers and musicians for this year’s conference.

“We’ve really leaned into our FM roots,” he said.

A Move of the Spirit

The last FMYC in 2017 included a moment that affirmed the calling of many teens.

“It wasn’t preplanned. There was a move of the Spirit, and our speaker during a session just said, ‘I’m really sensing in this space that there are a number of girls especially that are feeling called to ministry. I want you to know you’re in a group and a space and a faith tradition that affirms that and believes in that,” Fleming said. “There was a pretty significant response from the girls in the room, and he said, ‘I’d like to have lunch with you ladies.’”

Free Methodist bishops joined the lunch and spoke encouragement to the girls who sensed God calling them to ministry.

“It was this really powerful moment,” Fleming said. “This is at the heart of the Free Methodist movement, and I love seeing this continue.”

Called to Serve Teens

Fleming discovered his own calling after becoming a Christian at 20. He wasn’t part of a youth group as a teen, but he said that after his conversion, he “immediately was drawn toward serving teens and seeing them grow in their relationship with Jesus or come to know Jesus.”

He linked his “passion for investing in teenagers and speaking a future into their lives for acknowledging calling” with “what I wonder my teenage years would have been like if I had someone speaking those sorts of things into my life.”

He served for 15 years as the pastor of student ministries at the McPherson Free Methodist Church, and he now serves as the campus pastor at Central Christian College of Kansas and as the director of FM:Infuse, the national youth ministry effort of the Free Methodist Church USA. 

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“When you invest in FMYC, you’re investing in future leaders.”

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“The best part of my job has been seeing calling in students and watching them wrestle through that and affirming that in them,” he said. “I had people do that for me. It was just much later. When I was in college, I sensed a call to youth ministry, but what really cemented it was other people coming alongside of me and affirming that.”

Fleming emphasized that it’s not too late to register for FMYC and help teens discover their God-given leadership potential.

“My heart is that churches would understand that when you invest in FMYC, you’re investing in future leaders,” Fleming said. “You’re investing in the church now, and you’re investing in the church in the years and the decades to come.”

Click here to register for FMYC 2022. Click here for additional information.+