I work for a youth ministry network - we facilitate churches working together to reach teenagers for Christ. We assume, hopefully correctly, that students are being discipled in their churches and so the emphasis of our network is on evangelism. We believe that there are two big things that church youth ministries need to do together -
1) equip, inspire, and challenge Christian teenagers to share their faith and 2) provide opportunities for them to do so. On that first objective, eight youth pastors from various churches in Greensburg, Pennsylvania sponsored a student evangelism conference back on Saturday, August 21st, 2010. They gave students a choice of six out of eight twenty minutes workshops on various aspects of evangelism. At our first planning meeting for this event, we went around the room and asked the question, "If you could talk to students about one aspect of evangelism in one word, what would that be?" The words that came up were service, love, culture, identity, confidence, dialogue, work, and party. And those themes became our workshops. Another fun part of the day was our two Q & A sessions with the youth pastors who were the workshop presenters. We got some great questions like "What is your great witnessing failure/success story?" "How do you witness to a Muslim?" "How do you talk with someone who has been hurt by a church?" We had students from five school districts come and we ended the day by commissioning them to be missionaries to their friends and schools. Once again, I was amazed to see what great things can happen when youth pastors bring what God has given them to the table. He takes a little and does a lot!
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WHO I AM
I'm a follower of Jesus, husband to my lovely wife Judy, father of Evangelina, Micah, Josiah, and Jeremiah, missionary to the northeast United States and advocate for all things youth ministry. WHAT I DO
I am the northeast regional coordinator for the National Network of Youth Ministries. I've worked for the last 24 years as the co-executive director of Teens For Christ, a ministry that equips teenagers to share their faith in their schools. I also served on staff at Cherry Tree Alliance Church for 15 years as youth pastor and family life pastor. My Websites
Youth Ministry Consultations Youth Ministry Networking 9 Month Mission Trip Speaking at camps, retreats, youth groups, etc. Archives
March 2022
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