Welcome to IPC Pathways
A mentoring program at Immanuel Presbyterian Church that encourages “seekers” — youth and young adults at Immanuel and in underserved communities — to imagine their future.
What’s Involved
Pathways offers two types of conversations between Immanuel seekers and mentors…
1.) One-On-One Chats: One-time conversations over video or a cup of coffee, where seekers pick mentors from an online directory.
2.) Guide Teams: Each team has three members: a high school or college student, a young adult and an older adult — all Immanuelites. Guide teams have meetings to explore important questions together, using books, videos and other resources that the team selects from a menu of options. We call this program “Imagining Your Future.”
Interactive events & forums for high school students, college students, young adults and older adults to discuss the choices we face in life about school, work, volunteering and service, finances, life goals, and the spiritual issues, values and people influencing our decisions.
There are lots of books, articles, podcasts and videos — contributed by Immanuelites and others — that inspire us to explore important issues affecting the choices we make about our future. We organize these contributions into opinionated, annotated “Resource Maps” to help you pick what to watch and read.
The Pathways Internship Fund provides mentoring and financial support for high school students who can’t afford unpaid internships. Immanuel mentors help these students find and apply for internships and make their experiences a success.
Seekers imagine their future by trying different work experiences. Immanuelites support that by suggesting opportunities from their own workplaces or opportunities they’ve heard about — for job shadowing, internships, vacation jobs, gap year ideas, and volunteering.
Join IPC Pathways!
Become a Seeker
Register as a seeker to access all these unique opportunities to learn from fellow seekers and Immanuel mentors. In no time you’ll be requesting mentor conversations, joining a guide team, participating in forums and events, seeing opportunities to try different work experiences, reading and watching resources submitted by Immanuelites, and imagining your future!
Become a Mentor
Register as a mentor to share stories with seekers about your experiences and lessons learned at home, at work, in volunteering and in life. We need mentors from college-age to senior citizen. You choose how to contribute— a single conversation with seekers, ongoing conversations in a 3-person guide team, in a forum, suggestions for inspirational content, and/or mentoring a high school intern.
How Pathways Makes an Impact
Pathways Inreach
Pathways Outreach
Pathways Upreach
IPC Pathways Has Touched Many … 170 have signed up for conversations, 210 have attended forums, and over 100 video and reading resources have been contributed by mentors and seekers.
This Program is Supported By…
IPC Pathways—including this website, forums, and various resources— is supported by a nonprofit called The Harraseeket Foundation (“hair-a-SEEK-it”) as part of its mission to encourage community-based mentoring programs to help youth and young adults imagine their future. Harraseeket is proud to work closely with Immanuel’s staff, the Spirituality & Learning Committee, the Youth Ministry Committee and a number of Immanuel volunteers.
Donate to Help Support the Expansion of Pathways
Donations to The Harraseeket Foundation (a 501(c)(3) public charity) will help support the continued expansion of the Pathways program— including the seven programs mentioned above, and launching new Pathways communities!
Signposts: Stories from Immanuel Pathways
In Signpost #5 (July 9) we asked you “How have you developed a sense of purpose or direction?” We focused on purpose because that’s where many of you took us in response to the prompt in Signpost #2 (June 18), “I would consider myself successful if and when…”
We expected answers to involve some sort of action you took to discover purpose or direction — but that’s not how you responded.
In this Signpost we invite you to see the responses, share your reactions, and even discuss the topic further with another Immanuelite.
Interested in Pathways for Your Community?
If you are involved in a worship community or a nonprofit in the DC area other than Immanuel, and think a Pathways program might be of interest to that community, please share the page linked below and use the link to contact us!