Theological Foundations Weekend is a three day event focused on church doctrine and teaching for youth in the Great Lakes Gulf Presbytery. This year TFW occurred from March 27th – 29th at the Southfield Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southfield, Michigan. The event began with several youth from Indiana carpooling together up to Southfield on Friday night. During the car ride, the youth participated in psalm singing, prayer, fellowship, and other uplifting activities. The focus was to pray for the different churches around the presbytery.
The next morning all of the youth met at the church for a day of lectures and fellowship with one another. Throughout the day on Saturday, March 28th, Mr. Jake Schwartz and Pastor Adam Kuehner spoke on different topics of church doctrine. Mr. Schwartz began the day by speaking on the importance of presbyterian church government. This talk focused on why Reformed Presbyterians hold to presbyterian church government from a Scripture-based view. After a short snack break, Pastor Kuehner spoke on the Mediatorial Kingship of Christ. He focused on how Christians should consider Christ to be King over the nations in an age where the world has moved on from recognizing Christ as Head over anything. The key focus of this talk was to encourage listeners to call to mind how different things would be today if we actually honored Christ as Lord.
After lunch, Pastor Kuehner spoke on Exclusive Psalmody. He spent a lot of time on the history of psalmody throughout the ages and illustrated that singing the psalms was the way God had instituted for man to worship Him. He encouraged the youth to love using the New Testament manual of praise given to them to use to honor the Lord! After another short snack break and some fellowship, Pastor Kuehner spoke on the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day as holy for the final talk. This was an excellent reminder to the youth of how the Sabbath is a foretaste of how they are going to spend eternity forever with Christ. The Sabbath is also a day of refreshment and rest in preparation for the week ahead.
After Pastor Kuehner completed his final talk, the group participated in a Question and Answer Session focused primarily on questions that stemmed from the talks. This was a fruitful time of discussion over which Pastor Kuehner, Mr. Schwartz, and Pastor Aaron Murray, the director of CYPU, discussed various topics for the benefit of the youth. After the talks had wrapped up for the day, the youth then took part in a game of RP Jeopardy. This Jeopardy game consisted of several categories focused on parts of the Reformed Presbyterian doctrine. The next morning youth worshipped at Southfield RP before departing for their respective homes. Theological Foundations Weekend 2026 was truly a blessed time of spiritual growth, fellowship, and fun for all involved.
Thanks to Aaron Archer for putting together this article. Aaron is a high school senior who currently attends Southside Reformed Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has served on the CYPU Leadership team for two years as the registration coordinator. He enjoys serving the other youth around the presbytery and helping plan events.
