Mission Immersion
AYM offers broad based experiences where each group serves in several different settings in the Asheville area. Our hope is that youth who experience a variety of settings and a variety of work will eventually discover their God-given gifts and how they can use them. By experiencing God in the unexpected (on the edges and in the margins of the community), we hope they go home having made some decisions to use their gifts in their own community.
Your group might spend one morning making Mannapacks for Manna Food Bank’s children’s backpack program. Then you might spend the afternoon working at Steadfast House sorting clothes or painting rooms. Next might be a day of group building and games with children from Children First’s Project MARCH. Participants experience the broad spectrum of needs and possibilities out there and begin to know and internalize how they can make a difference in a variety of settings and live their lives in justice and generosity.
The thing that makes AYM just a little bit different from other mission/service providers is that we use the ARTS as the main tool in mission interpretation, debriefing, and Bible Study. By actively and creatively exploring faith and the experiences of a Mission Immersion, we hope young people come to new understandings. By coming at faith from a different angle, we hope faith is deepened!
In a Mission Immersion, participants will be asked many times to take time to worship, pray, and notice where they see God in their midst. We will worship and pray together from the first day through the last. Groups will experience opportunities for creative prayer, singing, corporate worship, silence, and a visit to Asheville’s Labyrinth.
- making art collages that define seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God
- developing a drama that tells the story of a scripture passage and how that scripture came to life through the Mission Immersion experience
- making art journals to record the week and what you have experienced
- creating candles that identify how each person is God’s light in the world and how their gifts reflect God’s presence in their lives
- using found objects to create a sculpture that represents Jesus’ presence in the margins and with the outcast
We make room in each Mission Immersion for you to enjoy some re-creation through recreation! We intentionally help our groups build community and get to know each other better through games and activities that get you moving, make you laugh, and safely challenge groups to grow. Then there is free time! Asheville is a mecca for all sorts of recreation: tubing, rafting, hiking, sliding, visiting the arts and crafts districts, picnics, biking, enjoying an amazing downtown, listening to music, doing art, just hanging out in the beauty of the mountains, eating at organic and/or vegetarian and/or ethnic and/or a lot of different really yummy restaurants! AYM will provide you information on FUN IN ASHEVILLE!
- Sundays: 7:30pm, Arrival and Orientation
- Monday-Thursday: Work Mon-Wed (with activities each evening) and Thursday Morning Walking Reflection
- Thursday (11am-rest of day): Free Time!
- Friday: Worship and Departure (by 10am)
- Friday Night: Arrival and Orientation
- Saturday: Work, Sowers, Dinner, AYM Program
- Sunday: Worship and Departure
Groups “camp indoors” at a local church and take showers daily at another location. Groceries are provided for all meals (groups set out breakfasts/lunches and groups cook dinners).
If you are attending Montreat Youth Conference, come spend a day or afternoon with Asheville Youth Mission and make service a part of your Youth Conference! Check out www.montreat.org/young/montreat-summer-mission-experience for more information!
AYM also offers a unique small group opportunity to Montreat Youth Conference participants. The M68 small group experience will include work in service agencies in the area, as well as time for debriefing, working on the connection of faith and call to mission, and exploring each young person’s own sense of call in the world. For more information and an application, check out Montreat.org/young/m68
Week (Sunday evening-Friday morning): $295 per person
4-day (Sunday evening-Wednesday morning): $245 per person
Weekend (Friday evening-Sunday morning): $110
Sunday Montreat Mission Experience (must register with Montreat Conference Center): $23 per person
Montreat M68 Small Group Fee: $200
Free Afternoon Montreat Mission Experience (must register with Montreat Conference Center): $12 per person
A Hope Day Center of Homeward Bound
Children First (Project MARCH, Emma Family Resource Center)
Western Carolina Rescue Ministry
Local Churches
Black Mountain Home for Children
