The Duke Youth Academy is a journey for young people to live abundantly in Christ and to think deeply about being Christian. Will you embrace the journey?

Gather with youth from around the nation this summer in a pilgrimage toward Christ's abundant life. Spend two weeks immersed in the rhythms of the church's traditional time and focus on what being Christian means for you and your world. How do Christians speak? How do Christians react? How do Christians think about the future? How do Christians practice their faith?

Duke Youth Academy is a pilgrimage to live into your baptism. You will study with faculty, discussing concepts and concerns of being a Christian. You will meet young people committed to their faith and spend time in covenant groups imagining your Christian vocation. You will pray, play, worship, create and serve in the name of Jesus Christ.

Duke Youth Academy Daily Schedule

We attempt to pattern our life at the Duke Youth Academy on a monastic pattern: studying in the mornings, working with our hands/bodies in the afternoons, and worshipping and reflecting in the evenings. Below is an example of the DYA daily schedule:

Life at the Duke Youth Academy will likely be different than anything you have experienced thus far, though parts of it will be similar to youth groups, camps, and retreats in which you may have participated in the past. We intend for the two weeks of DYA to be formational in many ways: we hope to influence the way you think about the day-to-day aspects of being Christian while we help you grapple with broader theological ideas; we do all of this in the context of an intentionally Christian community. We bring you out of the context of your high school, church community, and extracurricular activities and gather you with the one purpose of discovering the calling of our baptisms. In doing so, we study, play, pray, worship, and serve together in the name of Jesus Christ while learning how to live abundantly and think deeply about being Christian.

The two weeks on campus will be rigorous in schedule and in mind, as well as sometimes in body. We try to allow each student and staff member to get adequate amounts of sleep each night, and encourage each participant to eat nutritious and balanced meals to sustain you throughout the program. We also encourage students and staff to discover ways to rest and enjoy Sabbath time, even in the midst of their busy schedules. Even so, most students and staff will be exhausted by the end of the two weeks. Their minds, spirits and emotions will have worked very hard during the program, and their bodies will call for rest, which we encourage!