YOUTH WEEK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1942, Page 4

YOUTH WEEK

CAMPAIGN FOR CHRISTIAN ORDER OBSERVANCE THROUGHOUT DOMINION Within the next few. days a new badge will be appearing in increasing numbers on the streets and in the homes of New Zealand —not a badge of military service, but a simple paper badge with the device of a white cross outlined in red on a black background, and bearing the slogan “Christus Victor” (Christ Victorious). It will be worn by young people and it will be the outward sign that the wearer is participating in the nation-wide Youth Week organised by the National Council of Churches as part, of the current Campaign for Christian Order. Youth Week will run from Sunday, September 27, to Sunday, October 4, inclusive, and it will be the culmination of a great deal of planning and organisation by the various churches in the campaign, and particularly by their youth workers, youth groups, and allied bodies. Main emphasis is being placed on activities within the individual parishes and congregations, in the form of special youth services, meetings for study and witness, and the participation of young people in the conduct of church services. Where possible, united youth witness meetings and processions are being arranged. Special literature and badges are being distributed, and other avenues of publicity are being used. All these youth activities are being dovetailed with the period of simultaneous preaching from the pulpits of all churches taking part in the Campaign for Christian Order. Arrangements are also being made in many places to hold Children’s Weeks for younger people (especially Sunday School children), but the dates of these fixtures may vary from place to place. The purpose of Youth Week is to bring home to the youth of this country the nature of the challenge that confronts the whole Christian Church, and to develop the solidarity of Christian Youth in meeting it. A vital and integral part of the Campaign for Christian Order, Youth Week in New Zealand owes some of its inspiration and form to the Conference of Youth held in 1939 at Amsterdam, which was attended by 1800 delegates (more than one-third of whom were under 25 years of age) representing 70 nations. Both the slogan of the Amsterdam conference (“Christus Victor”) and its special hymn (“We Would be Building,” to the tune of Sibelius’s “Finlandia”) have been adopted for the present campaign in New Zealand.