Youth Encounter

Just released…

Audio Adrenaline will be joining us in Nashville for EDGE! July 2006! Make sure to send in your Early Bird forms today or do it online now! The Early Bird Deadline is June 17, 2005.

2005-2006 Event Season Begins!
This Year's Theme: Stand on the Rock
Jennifer Miller

We have wrapped up the 2004-2005 Event Season, and while it’s true that the Events themselves don’t actually start until November, for the Event Division, the 2005-2006 Event Season is well underway! The hotels are booked, the speakers and musicians are being contracted, the details are being planned. We are looking forward to another great season.

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Making All Things New
The Future of Ministry at Youth Encounter
Kate Tripoli

Dana Peterson has been doing youth ministry since disco was in (the first time). He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Divinity from Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary. He has served as a solo, associate, and senior pastor, and as a youth director. His parish experience includes suburban, urban neighborhood, rural and small city congregations. Dana really likes hanging out with teens and talking with them about their faith and the issues in their lives. He's married and has three sons--one married, one in graduate school, one in college and a daughter in middle school. For fun, he loves downhill skiing; he plays his car stereo too loud and plays bass in Loose Cannons, an “old guy” rock band. He loves to laugh and is wanted by the humor police in 37 states. Dana serves as Executive Vice President of Youth Encounter and is one of the most outspoken proponents of Youth Encounter’s call to lead the way in the evolution of missional youth ministry programming.

How long have you been involved with Youth Encounter?

DP: I’ve been around Youth Encounter since 1978, when I first brought kids to a Minneapolis Congress, and I’ve been working at Youth Encounter for four years now. I went from Events Vice President to Programming Vice President to Executive Vice President. As Executive Vice President, I have direct responsibility for all our programming. One of my duties is to make sure that every area of the company is always on task for doing ministry.

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Is God Calling You?
A Recruitment Update
Jeff Rowdon

Psalm 150:3-6 (adapted for the purposes of this article!)

Praise the Lord with the sounding of the bass guitar,
Praise him with the clash of the drums,
Praise him with the strum of the guitar,
Praise him with sweet vocal stylings,
Praise him with the Roland XP10
and Yamaha keyboards,
Praise him with the buttons
and knobs of a soundboard,
Praise him in English,
German, Danish, or French
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.

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Thank You From Youth Encounter
A Word of Gratitude to Our Partners in Ministry
Brett Koopman

THANK YOU! More than 9,000 individuals, congregations and foundations have supported Youth Encounter’s ministry this year! This support has enabled Youth Encounter to share ministry with more than 260,000 people in twelve countries around the world through our various programs. We will complete our 2004-2005 fiscal year on June 30. If you would like to join our family of donors this year, please click www.youthencounter.org/about_ye/contribute.asp to learn how.

Moving Youth Ministry from Product to Process
A Message from Youth Leadership
Tiger McLuen

Scott’s eyes said it all. They had the vacant, pained look of a defeated man—a man who’d lost his zeal and focus. His face was sullen and worn out. Scott was grappling with a hard fact: his life was not measuring up to his expectations. No, he wasn’t about to lose his youth ministry job or his family. He would not become a statistic, but in his heart he’d fallen short.

John Ortberg, in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted, writes honestly about the process of following Jesus: “I am disappointed with myself. I am disappointed not so much with particular things I have done as with aspects of who I have become. I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be…I am disappointed that I still love God so little and sin so much.” In this rare bit of Christian honesty, Ortberg is getting at the root of Scott’s pain. Our pursuit of Christ is not so much geared toward producing a shiny new product as it is toward a process called transformation.

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A Productive Night for the Kingdom of God
Read Excerpts from Watermark's Online Journal
Watermark

Watermark shares an acoustic song at a program in Denmark.

It was a late night last night. We were out doing street ministry till 4 a.m.--it was a blast! First we started out at a mission house with an amazing dinner, then we had some time to get to know the others we were doing ministry with. We were working with the Indremission cafe bus, which travels around Denmark in a bus, serving coffee and going out on the streets to bring people into the bus and try to spark conversations about faith, Jesus, etc. The guy who ran the cafe bus talked a bit about evangelism and how to prepare for some of the questions we might be asked. Neils, one of the cafe bus workers, was kind enough to translate for me. After the preparation for going out, we led worship for a half hour with the crew, which was very cool; the Spirit was moving there, I could tell! We had some coffee and set out to do night ministry at around 10:15 p.m.

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The Really Important Things Are Never On the Schedule
Read Excerpts from Kindred's Online Journal
Kindred

Can you find Kindred hidden in this student audience?

And now the story of the longest Easter ever. I awoke at 5:30 to attend the sunrise prayer service in the small, poor, beautiful town of Ibagué in the Colombian mountains. The service was nice. Jenny, Em T and I attended and prayed in Spanish and in turn were prayed for—beautiful. If you wondered, South Americans think the Easter Bunny is hilarious and don't quite understand the egg hunt concept. Anyway, next came the official Easter Sunday (Pascua, en Español) service in which Kindred did pretty much everything, including five more songs we learned the night before.

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I Was Able to Connect With More People Than I Expected
Read Excerpts from Captive Free North Central's Online Journal
Captive Free North Central

I was making the schedule today, and I saw that the end of the week is the beginning of May! I can't believe it. This year has gone by SO FAST!!! When I think back on things, we have done a lot, but it just seems like things are flying by. Our Event portion of our year is over, and that brings to a close many incredible memories, like meeting so many AWESOME kids at the door of the hotel on Friday night who dance like crazy at the celebrations, listen intently to the speakers, rock it out on the dance floor, worship at campfire and have great conversations at family times before saying goodbye on Sunday morning. The Events are crazy busy but such an incredible time. I will truly miss being there on the weekends.

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Meet Second Adam
"We Want to Get Excited About God's Plan"
Kate Tripoli

L-R: Stephen, Liam (seated), and Josh. What is Stephen looking at, anyway?

Second Adam, a Twin Cities band belonging to the Churchnoise.com artist community, has been going through a refining process in the last couple of years; shifts in membership, different touring opportunities, and growth of families have all brought changes in the life of the band. However, the vision of founding members Stephen Tietjen and Josh Tays has never been moved: to be a relational rock and roll band, delivering the message of the Gospel through great rock music and loving interactions with youth everywhere.

Who are you?

ST: My name is Stephen Tietjen; I'm the lead vocalist, I play lead guitar, and I'm the band's primary songwriter. I also handle all the money and sales, and I'm in charge of planning all our concert sets. I was on Captive Free North Central 2000-2001.

LC: I'm Liam Conley. I'm the band's drummer, and I do all of our bookings. I was on Captive Free North Central 2003-2004.

JT: I'm Josh Tays. I play bass and jump off of stuff, plus I'm in charge of marketing/design, engineering, and managing our website, which was created by Tracy Apps. I was also on Captive Free North Central 2000-2001 with Stephen, and I was on Captive Free North East 2001-2002.

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VBS Resources and Team CDs
Check Out the Online Store Today!
Ryan Veil

Don’t forget to check out www.youthencounter.org and click on “store” to get all of your Captive Free gear and International Team T-shirts! All 13 of Youth Encounter’s teams recorded their own CDs this year. E-mail sales@youthencounter.org to find out how you can get yours today!

Have a VBS coming up? Our Sing-Along resources are the best of their kind and make for excellent VBS tools. Use them to help you lead VBS music, and buy in bulk to save money and give them to your VBS participants! They’ll love it. E-mail sales@youthencounter.org or call 800-659-6884 x8489 to find out how.

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