The Observer-Reporter, Washington, Pa., Fri., February 2o, 1998, page unknown:
Youth for Christ marks 40 years of ministry to teens
It was 40 years ago this Sunday when an overflow crowd of teenagers, estimated at 800, came to the Washington and Jefferson College chapel to hear a speaker and some musicians and to see a Bible quizzing contest.
At the end of that evangelistic meeting, the Washington Observer records, many of those teens came forward to dedicate their lives to Jesus Christ. Many of them also got together to form Bible clubs in four high schools in Washington County.
The clubs were the foundation of the ministry of Youth for Christ. Four weeks later, YFC held its second rally, nearly filling the Washington High School auditorium.
D. Carey "Murf" Polan was on a five-man committee that planned those rallies. And that September, he became the first executive director of this area's chapter of Youth for Christ.
This weekend at the YFC national convention in San Antonio, Polan will be honored for 40 years of service to the organization. He will receive YFC's 40-year Ministry Service Award.
Polan is also busy planning YFC's annual banquet, which will be held at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, at the Holiday Inn, Meadow Lands. With the theme, "Celebrating 40 Years!" the banquet will include a performance by some of the former Campus Life Singers, a chorus of teen singers that was highly successful in the 1970s but was phased out in the late 1980s.
In fact, much about the ministries of Campus Life has grown and evolved since those beginnings. YFC eventually handed over its Bible quiz program to churches. And the weekly Bible clubs--which used to meet in schools at lunchtime and even had their pictures in the high school yearbooks--are now Campus Life clubs that meet in the evenings after school.
Although the annual Eastern Area Conference in Ocean City, N. J., has been a highlight for the YFC teenagers since the beginning, the county-wide rallies are no longer held. "We found that it was more productive for us to go to the kids than to have the kids come to us in a big event," Polan said. "You can get more kids out when you can do a smaller event in an area (such as Hickory, Claysville or Canonsburg) because the kids don't have to travel so far. We also have a more relational ministry than we do with a big rally because if a kid doesn't come forward at a rally we never had the opportunity to talk to him."
Early on, however, YFC expanded its ministries into Greene County and the Mon Valley, and eventually it began holding assemblies in many of the area high schools and staging high-tech multi-media presentations. Those presentations continue, with YFC leading assemblies in 22 area high schools and middle schools over two weeks last fall, showing the program to a total of more than 15,000 local teen-agers.
The local chapter expanded its influence again in 1985, [sic] one of its leaders, Don Nixon, began a YFC chapter in the South Hills, Metro Pittsburgh YFC.
Through the years, Polan has led club meetings and staff training, spoken in churches and acted as pastor liaison, transported carload after carload of teen-agers an even stuffed envelopes and cleaned the office. But his purpose and the purpose of the organization have not wavered.
"The purpose of all this activity has been to influence as many kids as possible to choose life instead of death and to do it with enough conviction to last a lifetime," Polan said.
Over the years, the group has helped out the community through service projects, cleaning up streets and collecting food for Meals on Wheels. And for the past four years it has sponsored "See You at the Pole," a prayer gathering of high school students held around each school's flagpole before classes begin on the third Wednesday of each September.
In the 1970s, YFC began holding Burger Bashes, large events filled with fin activities for teens to invite their friends and learn about YFC. Although the events were discontinued, Polan said, YFC always has new ways of introducing young people to its program.
Since its beginning, this area's YFC chapter has touched, and in many cases significantly changed, the lives of tens of thousands of young people. Polan said he sees the ripple effect as he now ministers to the children and even some grandchildren of his former club teens.
Polan said YFC's methods have changed over the years to meet the changing needs of teen-agers. In recent years, for example, the organization began its Campus Life Junior Varsity program for sixth, seventh, and eighth-graders.
"We realized that we needed to get to the kids sooner," Polan said. That was necessary, he said, because children today are dealing with many of the same issues and problems that high school teens encountered just 10 years ago.
In addition, many of today's teen-agers come from unstable homes and have almost no church background. That's why club directors today cannot assume that the youths have a basic Bible understanding, as they could when YFC began, and so the club meetings are built around issues and discussion.
"The work continues with more urgency than ever," Polan said.
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Don Herschell is religion editor of the Observer-Reporter. His e-mail address is (email deleted for this web posting).
This article has 3 photos:
1. D. Carey "Murf" Polan on stage at first
rally...
Caption: D. Carey "Murf" Polan speaks to teen-agers at the first Youth
for Christ rally in Washington County. It was held in the Washington and Jefferson College chapel
40 years ago this Sunday.
2. A group of teens with rubber noses...
Caption: Campus Life clubs also have offered a great deal of wholesome fun
to teen-agers across the past four decades, whether it has been eating pizza or
hamburgers, stuffing cornflakes or marshmallows in their mouths, putting on
crazy false noses, above, or trying to blow up balloons with their noses,
right.
3. Picture of adult in profile, using his nose to
blow up a balloon.
No Caption, see # 2.
Sources:
The The Observer-Reporter newspaper, Washington PA newspaper, "After 45
years, 'Murf' Polan stepping down as YFC director." by Don Herschell,
Keeping the Faith Columnist. Saturday, June 28, 2003, page unknown.
The Observer-Reporter newspaper, Washington PA, "Ill wind changed local
man's life: Tornado 54 years ago started Youth For Christ leader on religious
course." Campbell, Christie. Washington, PA: The
Observer-Reporter, June 23, 2004.
The Charleroi Mail newspaper, Charleroi Pa., numerous articles.
Information from ex-Campers.
