CHRISTIAN YOUTH CONFERENCE

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28104, 20 October 1956, Page 6

CHRISTIAN YOUTH CONFERENCE

MORE THAN 1500 TO ATTEND Between December 27. 1956. and January 4, 1957, many hundreds of young New Zealanders will gather at Palmerston North. It is expected that there will be between 1500 and 2000 in the group, between the ages of 17 and 30 years. They will come at the invitation of the youth committee of the National Council of Churches, from every corner of New Zealand and from every communion within the council.

The separate denominations have cancelled their usual summer conferences to have this combined occasion for all their young people. Sir George MacLeod. D.D., of the lona Community in Scotland, and the Rev. Rex Mathias, of Australia, will be the main overseas speakers, with a supporting panel of lecturers from within New Zealand. The Rt. Rev. A. H. Johnston, Bishop of Dunedin, will be the senior chaplain, though each of the major churches will have chaplains present. “Such a conference is a new thing in New Zealand,” said the Rev. A. A. Brash, secretary of the National Council of Churches. “We are quite accustomed to meeting together and overcoming our denominational separation, but never in New Zealand history has an endeavour been made to overcome those barriers for so many people at the same time, as is envisaged in the proposed conference under the auspices of the youth committee of the council."