The Montreat Conference Center is one of the largest conference centers affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The name “Montreat” came from shortening the name “Mountain Retreat.” Montreat gives youth and young adults the means to affirm their calling to be and to shape the church of today and tomorrow. Miriam Ross, our Jr. High Youth Director, is part of the Planning Team for A Missing Peace, Montreat Youth Conference.
Montreat Youth Conference
The first conference in Montreat was held in 1897 with almost 400 participants. Presently, over 5,000 youth attend one of the six Youth Conferences held annually. The youth conference theme for this year is A Missing Peace. The selection process for the Planning Team takes two years. It consists of 18 adults and 12 youth divided into 3 separate groups. Each Planning Team spends two and a half weeks at Montreat and leads two separate weeks of the Youth Conference. The teams have specific roles working with either Worship, Keynote, Recreation, Registration, or Small Groups.
Miriam’s Role
Miriam began working on the 2017 Theta Planning Team in October of 2015. In 2016, she flew to Montreat to help pick the theme for the summer and began working on her individual role. Miriam’s main role is to plan worship; meaning that she leads, writes and prepares worship for each evening Sunday through Friday in conjunction with preachers and music leaders. She leads week III and week IV.
Miriam has attended the Montreat Conference as a youth, work crew, back home leader, and small group leader for a total of 10 summers from 2001-2016. There is where she met Andrew, her husband when she was in high school on their trip with the Presbytery of South Louisiana. Now they are married and have three small children.
TPC is very supportive of Miriam’s leadership role here with the Youth Ministry and at Montreat Conference Center. We celebrate her well-deserved planning role at Montreat. So, if you see Miriam, make sure to congratulate her and ask her about her experience planning various worship services for thousands of high school students for two weeks. And did we say her family was there too?
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