At his ordination 12 years ago, the Rev. Byron Wade was already attuned to the problems facing his denomination -- the Presbyterian Church USA. He asked that the offering taken that day be devoted to the church youth group.

Now, Wade, pastor of Davie Street Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, has been recognized for his enthusiasm on behalf of young people. Last month, he was named the vice moderator of the 2.2 million member denomination, a kind of church ambassador who travels across the country to listen, encourage and strengthen the work of the church.

Wade will work alongside moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, a San Francisco pastor whose innovative congregation is a trendsetter in bringing the latest electronic communication enhancements to the church.

Not surprising, the two pastors are young themselves. Reyes-Chow is 39; Wade is 44. The two men -- both California natives -- represent an effort to inject energy and relevancy into a staid, declining church.

"This is a church built by boomers," said Reyes-Chow, the pastor of Mission Bay Community Church. "We haven't adapted well to the new generation."

From 2006 to 2007, the Presbyterian Church USA lost 57,572 members -- part of an ongoing decline that has affected every major mainline denomination for more than a generation. But the problems at the Presbyterian Church are not only numerical. The median age of its members is 58, and those gray hairs are dominating the pews.

"A lot of our kids grow up Presbyterian, but once they leave here, they don't come back," Wade said. "We need to figure out as a church how can we get the youth more involved. How can they have a place within the church?"

That's one of the chief issues Wade will be tuned to as he embarks on a two-year traveling post that will take him to Atlanta next month, to New Mexico in September, and to Chicago and Philadelphia in October. In what's left of July, he plans to start a blog, where he will share his thoughts and impressions.

Church members who held a reception for him last week say they couldn't be prouder of their pastor, even as they recognize they'll see a lot less of him in the coming two years. Wade is expected to be away as often as two Sundays a month.

"This is the closest any pastor of Davie Street Presbyterian has gotten to the top job," said Ophelia Noble, a member of the church for 45 years. "We're going to work together to make sure everything goes well in his absence."

Wade is the first Triangle-based Presbyterian to be named vice moderator since the reunion of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian church bodies in 1983. That Wade should be the first is a particular honor because his church is one of the smallest in the presbytery, or geographical region, that encompasses Eastern North Carolina. It is also the only predominantly African-American Presbyterian congregation in Raleigh.

The red-brick Gothic Revival church has a membership of 185, which Wade has grown from 119 since his arrival in 1996. During his tenure, he launched a more contemporary service on the fifth Sunday of the month, including, among other things, liturgical dance. He helped start a food pantry, opened the church halls to Alcoholics Anonymous, began videotaping the sermons for the homebound and, of course, strengthened the youth ministry. He has encouraged teens to serve as deacons and as liturgists -- reading the biblical passages and assisting him in other aspects of the service.

Wade himself began his religious life as a Roman Catholic in south-central Los Angeles. When he was 7, his great aunt, Frankie Moore, took him to her Presbyterian church, and the boy was won over by the glazed doughnuts and red punch served after the service. He then and there decided to become a Presbyterian.

Although prodded early on to become a pastor, Wade graduated from the University of Redlands with a degree in biology. For the first six years after college he worked as a research technician, first for Borax, then for Unocal, an oil company. He was out on a break getting a 55-gallon drum of surfactant -- or liquid soap -- when he heard a voice from God saying, "Go."

He was still attending Presbyterian seminary -- first in Atlanta, later in Richmond, Va. -- when Lethia Daniels, a longtime member of Davie Street, interviewed him at a church conference about coming to Raleigh.

"I saw in him something we could appreciate," Daniels said. "He was a clean-cut, forward-looking person."

Daniels said Wade hasn't disappointed. Since his arrival, he has revitalized every aspect of church life. He knows the home phone numbers of many of the church regulars by heart and makes frequent visits to hospitals and people's homes.

Now he's excited to be representing his church nationwide. Unlike past vice moderators, Wade is expected to have higher visibility. Reyes-Chow and Wade have small children and decided to distribute the workload more equitably so they don't neglect their parenting responsibilities.

But the opportunity to engage the denomination has Wade eager to go.

"We are the new wave, the new generation." said Wade. "It allows us to present the church in a new way."