Norman Grindley/Acting Photography Editor
Pastor Percival Palmer at the commissioning service to the office of general secretary of the Students Christian Fellowship and Scripture Union, which was held last Sunday at Fellowship Tabernacle church, in St Andrew.

Mark Dawes, Religion Editor

Armed with a strong sense of divine call to disciple young people, Pastor Percival Palmer last month became the new general secretary of the Students Christian Fellowship and Scripture Union (SCF-SU).

Palmer succeeds the Rev. Dr. Stephenson Samuels, who demitted office and is pursuing other ministry options with his denomination, the New Testament Church of God.

Prior to his appointment, Palmer was one of the assistant pastors working on staff at Fellowship Tabernacle church, which is led by senior pastor, Rev Merrick Al Miller. When he became general secretary, he stepped down as an assistant pastor but remains an elder in the church.

No stranger to working among young people, Pastor Palmer is widely known within local church circles for his work in sports evangelism. In particular, he has been associated with the work of the para-church organization, Whole Life Ministries, which seeks to promote arts and sports within the Christian community.

Start in school

Palmer, 42, attributes much of his own spiritual growth and maturity to the ministry of the SCF-SU, which operates the Inter Schools Christian Fellowship (ISCF) in high schools, and the University and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) at the tertiary level.

While a student at Calabar High School, Palmer served on the committee of the ISCF chapter there and was, at one point, its president. After he graduated from Calabar, he read for a degree at the University of the West Indies, Mona and ,while there, maintained his involvement in the students Christian movement there.

He stressed that the SCF-SU has "always been close to my heart because it has contributed much to my spiritual formation and maturity".

The new general secretary paid tribute to the work of his predecessors, Dr Las Newman, Michael Nicholson and Rev Dr Stephenson Samuels, while acknowledging that there is still more work that needs to be done to get the organisation on a higher plane in ministry engagement and financially sustainability.

Top priority

A top priority he has set himself is to visit with the heads of denominations to brief them on the vision of the SCF-SU and to solicit their assistance in securing volunteers to work with the nations youth. He also wants a greater financial commitment from these denominations towards the ministry of SCF-SU.

The SCF-SU is big on partnering with Christian youth organisations, churches and the private sector, towards effecting moral and spiritual transformation of the nations youth.

He is upbeat about the prospect of partnering with others, as a lot of people, who are in top leadership positions in churches and para-church organisations, are people who he has worked with in the past and a lot of them are his friends.

Transformation is a word he uses regularly when he articulates a vision of a spiritually empowered youth.

According to him: "If we can get five per cent of the students in high schools to be involved in ISCF, we can change that school."

The new general secretary said his organisation hopes to become involved in a big way with primary schools, as there have been calls from various quarters to urgently address the spiritual climate of students at that level. He said SCF-SU would be working with the Jamaica Child Evangelism Fellowship towards that end.

Partnering with churches

SCF-SU, Palmer said, "is the face of the Church in the schools".

For that reason, he believes churches should rally around the organisation as it is well poised to reach young people.

SCF-SU, he said, is presently involved in 23 tertiary institutions and about 200 high schools. But, the organisation has a full-time staff of eight and so it is not able to properly supervise Christian ministry in the nations educational institutions.

The need is even more urgent, he said, as post-modernism is negatively affecting a lot of the nations students and this is evidenced by many, who evince no sense of purpose.

Palmer is big on promoting Bible study in schools in such a way that it becomes practical and meaningful to present realities. He is also keen on promoting prayer and mentorship.

Mentorship critical

In this respect, he said he would be working hard to interest those who have benefitted from SCF-SU to offer mentorship to the present generation of high school and tertiary students. Mentorship, he said, is a critical strategy to achieve national and spiritual transformation.

Fasting and prayer, he said, will usher in revival in the land. He said history has shown that spiritual revival in a community often begins with young people.

"There is too much hype and when people are called to deal with the realities that are there, they fall away because they have not been prepared for war. How do we prepare young people for war? Through discipleship, through Bible study, helping them to learn certain disciplines and also through fellowship, prayer and fasting. We need to move young people from the hype zone to the war zone," he said.

Another reason SCF-SU deserves support, he said, is its commitment to leadership development. The para-church organisation has regular leadership development activities, which include camps and one-day seminars.

Palmer is himself a trainer for EQUIP, the John C. Maxwell leadership institute. He is also on the board of a newly formed leadership organisation, called The Centre for Leadership, which is headed by Pastor Errol Bolt of the Kencot Christian Church in Kingston.

Palmer hopes to improve the calibre of leadership training offered to students, who come under the influence of ISCF and UCCF.

Speaking out

In welcoming him to his new position, the international parent body, the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship, told him that the global students movement needs to become more prophetic. That means, Palmer explained, that Christian students in Jamaica and elsewhere needs to speak out on things happening in the world.

By prophetic, it is meant that we need, as a movement, to hear what God is saying and speak to the situation and do things that will allow for the Kingdom of God to be realised in peoples reality.

One way to achieve that end, Palmer said, is to promote ethical absolutes vis a vis relativism.

He said, too, that: "We need to give our young people an image and perspective of God that is bigger than themselves. We have placed God in a box."

Overseas linkages

The vision of the new general secretary, however, is not confined to Jamaican shores. He has committed himself to promoting cross-cultural evangelism and missions among students in local high schools, colleges and universities.

This, he said, formed part of the original ethos of this organisation, which is celebrating 60 years of ministry in this country. Furthermore, Jamaica, he observed, is no longer a mission field per se. It must instead, he said, become a missions force. Jamaica, he maintained, should lead the Caribbean in sending people out to the mission field to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Palmer, who has been a born-again Christian since age nine, is married to wife Michele and they have three children daughter Daneil, 10, and sons Matthew, 8, and Jont, 2.

Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com.