It’s been a while since my last post. Summers are crazy!! At least in the life of a youth pastor. I love it though, teenagers are out of school which means more time with them doing things for the Kingdom of God. This post will serve the purpose of letting you know whats been going on this summer and few things God has shown me along the way. For the sake of your time I will give you my Top 3 for the summer in no particular order!
1. Servolution. – See previous post
2. YFN – (Youth For the Nations) - YFN is an incredible summer camp that our youth ministry is a part of every year, and every year God blows me away with what he does in the lives of our teenagers. I get the privilege to pastor some of the most amazing teenagers on the planet and it is so full filling to see them grow in their Faith and maturity in the Lord. YFN is a huge propelling tool that helps us along the way! This summer we were able to experience God’s healing power right before our eyes. All kinds of teenagers were healed of asthma, scoliosis, and so on. We saw so many of our teenagers get free of junk that was holding them back and also so many walls come down in their lives. It was amazing! I have been around church camps long enough to know its easy to hype things up but I 100% believe that God moved powerfully in our teenagers lives and that his Word cannot return void. My prayer is that what God did at Camp this year would be sustained by disciples and devotion to the things of the Lord
3. LA. Dream Center Missions – Not long after we returned from Camp we geared up and a group of 24 of us jumped on a plane to Los Angeles California to partner with the Dream Center. This was my second time there but once again God broke my heart for people and did amazing things through our team. I think its so easy to go through life doing your own thing that you forget about the lost and the hurting. I am thankful how the Lord works especially through missions trips. He does just as much work on you as he through you! At least that is how is always is for me. We were able to help the poor and hurting of LA in so many ways. Homeless Ministry, Hollywood Youth Outreach, Cleaning, Landscaping, Laundry, Skid Row Outreach, Foster Care Prevention, Donation Center and those are to just name a few. The most rewarding part of this trip from my perspective being the youth pastor, was seeing the students steps out in their spiritual gifts! We have recently been in a series called “The 411 on the Holy Spirit”. Its rewarding to see the fruit of your labor – as the bible calls it. One night as we were doing a homeless outreach I was paired up with one of our students and we were talking to a homeless man. The students I was paired up with began to give this man a word of knowledge that she felt the Lord was speaking to him. Shortly after that he accepted the Lord into his heart. After that day we didn’t see him. Weather he became a radical christian or not, that is between him and the Lord but the cool part to me was to see teenagers hearing the voice of the Lord and being obedient to share it. There were so many great stories that can be shared from that trip but I will save you the reading and let you watch it
Those were just a few of the incredible I was able to take part of this summer. I love my life and I love my church. Neither my life or my church is perfect but Gods grace makes up for our imperfections. We are all on this Journey called life one step at a time, and it is good. You loving life?
