Texas Conference Votes New Young Adult Director
Tamara Michalenko Terry
Justin Yang begins his new position as the young adult director for the Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists on December 1, 2019. Wanting to provide an intentional focus on young adults, the Texas Conference Executive Committee voted this newly created department on September 12, 2019.
Yang is a second generation Seventh-day Adventist minister with more than 20 years of experience (that started in high school) in Korea, China, India, Philippines, Thailand, Laos and the United States. He served as a youth leader, teacher, chaplain, missionary, pastor and ministries director in various mission fields around the world.
In 2017, Yang received the Growing Young cohort/certification from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, as part of his ongoing doctoral work. His bachelor’s degree was completed at Sahmyook University in Seoul, South Korea, in 2007. He completed his Master of Divinity degree in 2009 from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
“Growing Young commitments found in the book by the same name,” Yang said, “encourages churches and organizations to develop, empower, appoint and journey with the young adult leadership within the local context which causes the entire church to grow younger together and restore vitality and the passion it needs for the cause of Christ.”
Prior to joining the Texas Conference, Yang was the senior pastor for the Atlanta Korean Seventh-day Adventist Church in Duluth, Georgia, as well as refugee ministries coordinator for the Georgia-Cumberland Conference in Calhoun, Georgia. It was at the Atlanta Korean church that Yang was able to put the Growing Young commitments into practice. “That transformed the local church culture,” Yang added. “It compelled the church to courageously delegate leadership to the next generation.”
“We want to embrace our young adults in the Texas Conference and encourage them to actively participate in their local churches,” Carlos J. Craig, Texas Conference president, shared. “We appreciate Pastor Yang’s expertise to help our churches work together with our young adults. There are many positions young adults can hold within the church such as elders, deacons, deaconesses, Sabbath school teachers, worship leaders, board members, Adventurer and Pathfinder leaders, just to name a few.”
During 2020, Yang will visit churches throughout the Texas Conference. He will begin with the ones that have already embraced the Growing Young commitments.
Thank you for making him, his wife, Iris, son, Enoch (age 6), and daughter, Stella (age 2), feel welcome in the Texas Conference family.
We appreciated your talk today at a Fort Worth First baccalaureate for our graduates. It was a talk worth both hearing and remembering for years or at least until Jesus comes or whichever one comes first.