Youth Conference. According to my internet search, a youth conference is a large-scale event held for a few days, and often hosted by Christian organizations. Based on my experience for the past five years, it is a small-scale event, held for at least four days in a church building, hosted by a generous congregation and presbytery.

One amazing and encouraging characteristic of the Pacific Coast Presbytery (PacPres) is its diversity of people and backgrounds. The youth conference is no different. This year we had people from California (Fresno, Los Angeles, and Brea), Arizona (Phoenix), Kansas, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The conference includes four lectures from a pastor in the RPCNA. This year, Jonathan Haney (Manhattan, Kan.) spoke on “Abraham’s Children.” The main focus was on God’s promises and how we can be justified only through faith in the God of these promises.

Pastor Haney started out with God’s promises to Abraham, a man of promise. He pointed out that justification is based solely on God. He initiates it, He makes the promises, and He confirms His promises. We are justified only because God is gracious to us!

The second talk focused on Isaac, a child of promise. God had promised Abraham a son through his wife, Sarah. Abraham had to have a living faith and show fruits of faith. We saw that God tests Abraham’s faith and tells him to sacrifice the child of promise. Abraham trusts that God will provide, and God is faithful. He gives a substitute, a ram. But this ram is not the end of the promises.

Jesus is the Seed of promise. All of God’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ! He is the Author, the beginning, and the Perfector, the ending, of our faith. When God made the covenant with Abraham, He walked between the animals that had been torn in two, signifying that if the covenant would be broken, this would happen to Him. But we broke the covenant. We should have been cut in two. But again, God is gracious.

Justification leads to a real change of identity. We become part of the Church, the children of promise. Pastor Haney called us first to remember who we are. By faith, we are sons of Abraham, heirs of the promise. Second, we must remember why we are who we are. It is only through the work of God (Eph. 2:8-9); so when you boast, boast in the Lord and His work. Last, we are to remember for what end we are who we are. Your justification is so that you may glorify God, as you become more and more like Christ.

Not only were we fed with God’s Word, but we also enjoyed delicious food and fellowship with members of the Los Angeles, Calif., RPC. The first evening we had a bonfire with songs and s’mores. On Monday we spent a few hours at the beach around Santa Monica. It was chilly, but one or two jumped in the water anyway. On two nights, a big group played “Murder in the Dark.” In this staple of the youth conference, the youth run around in a pitch-black building while one or two “mafia” members try to “kill” people without getting caught. Amazingly enough, we all survived the weekend.

I look back on Dec. 26-29 with thankfulness. It was not a large-scale event. We were not trending on Facebook (although my newsfeed was quite full with it). However, the gospel was proclaimed to 28 young people from the PacPres, the RPCNA, and even outside the denomination.

Please pray for the PacPres and for our youth. Pray that God would keep using this conference to His glory and the building of His kingdom and rejoice with us for the work that is happening in our presbytery, denomination, and beyond.

Mirthe Ophoff | Los Angeles, Calif., RPC