Hope in the Next Generation

Soon after I became a Christian at age 16 God gave a clear vision for my life, "To raise up a chosen generation" and "...to see the Church in victory."  Lyrics from the song "Let Your Glory Fall".

My other love in CEF is the privilege of being the youth director and seeing young people begin to fulfill the purposes of God in their lives.  Every year I am always excited to see where the CYIA serving with us will come from.  One year there were 16 different languages spoken among our CYIA.  

After serving a summer with us many young people can be heard saying things like, "God used me.", "Now I know how to share about Jesus with my friends."  "God is amazing."  

I thought I'd take a minute to share with you something one of CYIA recently shared.  She is coming back for her third year and will be joining me on our Camp Good News Base team this summer.  I am looking forward to serving with her.

"Everything that I have learned in my spiritual walk over the past year can probably be described in one sentence.  God is enough.  For so long I have been looking for other things to fill areas of my life that only God can fill and continually it left me feeling empty and discontent.  I was talking to my older brother and he told me to think about that statement, God is enough.  After praying about it for a while I realized that I wasn't allowing God to be enough for me.  I wanted God and to be living anywhere but ***, or I wanted God and a boyfriend.  I wasn't allowing God to be enough on His own...I was looking everywhere around me for the one thing that would make me feel complete, when the whole time I was missing out on the great joy I can have in God!  This is still a work in progress for sure, but I can definitely see the difference that God has been making in m life!"

Imagine what the future would look like if the next generation grew up with this kind of maturity in Christ.

Please pray that many young people would serve with us this summer.

Quality vs. Quantity

If you're a Tim Horton's fanatic you'll notice the new sizes they've implemented.  Imagine my wife's surprise when she ordered her usual "large earl grey tea".  It seems Tim's is moving in line with its American counterparts in size, but thankfully their new quantity isn't compromising it's quality.

Too often in ministry we measure success with quantity.  How big is the church?  How many young people showed up the event?  How many gets "got saved"?  We tend to fall for the "bigger is better" idea, in large because it is something we can measure.  When you're working with lives quality can be very hard to measure, especially when working with kids.

With large numbers of kids attending events it's easy to deceive ourselves into believing that we've been successful, so I've had to be very careful with how I go about doing ministry.

To maximize the potential for quality in urban ministry we try to maintain high counsellor-child ratios.

This past weekend we had a "Winter Weekend" with the kids who attended "Music & Drama Camp" this past summer.  Most of the kids are in Foster care, Children's Aid, or enrolled in Big Brothers & Sisters.  We have kids come who are high functioning autistic, have ADD, low self esteem, and other social and behaviour issues.

I had seven counsellors come out for the weekend and only ten kids show up.  However, it ended up being an amazing weekend of ministry to these kids.  They were all so starved for attention that our high number of counsellors enabled us to give them all the attention they wanted.

We played games, took them on a hike, had an outdoor campfire and did some tobogganing.  The kids AND counsellors had a great time of laughter, love and ministry.  The kids already asked about signing up for the summer.

In talking with some of the parents there is a real want and need for a Slingshot in Brantford for these kids.  As the kids left I felt so burdened for them and their parents.  Please pray that God would find a way to make the Slingshot in Brantford work.  We had one in December but have faced some challenges.  An incredible opportunity is before us to reach some very broken children and families.

Up Ahead in 2012

I hope everyone's New Year is off to a great start!

As we begin a New Year our urban ministries will be hitting the ground running.  Here's a short list of events coming up that could really use your prayers.

January 14: Slingshot Yorkdale
Pray for it to be well attended and that we could effectively reach the kids

January 20-21: Winter Weekend with Western Ontario kids
Many of the kids who attend are in Children's aid, foster care, or enrolled in the Big Brothers and Sisters program in their community.  Pray that many kids would attend and that we'd be able to love them as God would want us to.  Since we only ask the children to pay $10/each for the weekend (often they can't even afford that), we still need about $250 in finances to break even on the weekend.  Pray for God's provision or if you would like to give please let me know.

January 28: Slingshot Rexdale
Pray that many kids will attend and that we could effectively reach the kids

February 10-12: Boys Winter Weekend
The boys from Camp Good News are invited to a weekend called "Real Men Cry".  Pray for many to attend and a great weekend.

February 17-19: Girls Winter Weekend
The girls from Camp Good News are invited to a weekend just for girls.  Pray for many to attend and effective ministry.

March 12-16: Camp Good News Winter Rush
Unfortunately we can't accommodate as many kids as we'd like so it's on a first come first serve basis.  Please pray that God would bring the children He wants there.  It is a week long overnight camp.

Of course there are other events in between such as Good News clubs, "mentor outings" and visitations.  If you would like to be involved in some capacity I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks so much for praying!