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ARCHIVE
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Issue 6, Volume 5, March 2007
March 28, 2007
Vol. 5
Issue 6
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Issue 5, Volume 5, February 2007
February 20, 2007
Vol. 5
Issue 5
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Volume 5, Issue 4, January 2007
January 23, 2007
Vol. 5
Issue 4
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Issue 3, Volume 5, December 2006
December 6, 2006
Vol. 5
Issue 3
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Issue 2, Volume 5, November 2006
November 27, 2006
Vol. 5
Issue 2
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Issue 1, Volume 5, October 2006
October 25, 2006
Vol. 5
Issue 1
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[MORE]
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Christus Victor Distribution Center Needs Your Help!
Food Supplies Running Short in the Gulf
Susie Anderson
The
distribution center that is run by Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean
Springs, MS is facing a crisis.
They are running out of food for families in the area. They are still serving over
120 families on a daily basis and are dangerously short of many basic food
supplies. They may have to close but
hope that it will be temporary.
You can
help
by donating money or Wal-Mart gift cards. Any gift would be appreciated. Donations
to Katrina relief are tax deductible. Make checks out to Christus Victor Lutheran
Church--Katrina Fund. Contributions will be used to purchase food which will
directly benefit those displaced by the storm.
Thank
you for your financial and prayer support of their continued ministry!
Mail To:
Christus Victor Church
Attention: Amy Bearson
2755 Bienville Blvd
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
To
learn more about Youth Encounter’s partnership with Christus Victor, please
visit http://www.youthencounter.org/globalworkcrews/katrina.asp.
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Opportunites for Service Abound at Youth Encounter!
Openings for Ages 16 and Up Now Available
Gary Korpi
Youth Encounter is now
offering a wider variety of opportunities for service than ever before. These
include:
12-month
International music ministry teams (age 21+)
12-month
National music ministry teams (age 18+)
12-month
Community ministry team (age 18+)
3-month
summer VBS teams (age 16+)
3-month
summer, fall, winter, and spring Gulf Coast service teams (age 21+)
1-month
Global Work Crews (age 15+ for regular volunteers, age 21+ for leaders)
1-week
Team Katrina Work Crews (age 16+)
3- to 12-month Associate Staff (age 18+)
Participation in these
ministry opportunities will not only provide the chance to do great ministry,
but it will also transform the lives of those who serve. However, none of this
will happen without your help!
Who do you know that would benefit from one of
these experiences? Please send
us their contact information (home address, phone number, e-mail address) and,
if possible, talk to them yourself.
Where can you make these opportunities known? Your home church? Nearby churches? A college
campus? A camp? Would you be willing to put up a poster? Talk to a pastor, youth
leader, or music leader? Would you talk to a group of youth or young
adults?
We need your help! Please contact Jeff Rowdon at jeff@youthencounter.org or at 800-659-6884
ext. 8483.
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Three New Reasons to Come to EDGE!
Two Great Bands, One Awesome Comedy Night
Danielle Tietjen
Just when you thought
things couldn’t get better, we went and did it again! The National Event
Department is excited to bring the dynamic sounds of Foolish Things and Jacob’s Road as
worship and concert bands to EDGE! in
Nashville this summer. Foolish Things comes to us from Colorado with a rock
sound echoing that of Switchfoot and U2. And if you’ve heard the name Jacob’s
Road before, it is because Youth Encounter has enjoyed this new ministry band
so much this year, we thought we would pull them from their Nashville home and
give us a rock concert on opening night that will set the standard for the rest
of the week! EDGE! will also now go out with a laugh provided by Happy Fun Time! Yes folks, you heard us
right. HFT will be providing sidesplitting laughter with their witty improv
comedy that high school students and adults alike will still be laughing at on the
ride home the next day.
The National Event
Department feels so blessed to have such a high quality of performers and
program staff involved in our first year. We strive to have our program
available to churches of all sizes. If you are interested in sending down a
test group to see what this Event is all about, please contact Dani at danielle@youthencounter.org to
find out more about our TEST GROUP PACKAGE or if you have any questions
regarding our program.
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Calling All Team Alumni!
Get Involved Today
Jeff Rowdon
As many of you have probably
heard, a dear friend of Youth Encounter, Robin Bragge, passed away last month.
In response to her passing, a team alum wrote this on a discussion forum on the Youth
Encounter website:
“Greetings and God's blessings to all of my fellow
alumni. Though the reasons are sad, it's nice to see traffic up on this forum.
I'd like to take advantage of that and let everyone contemplate the following
issue. I think it's a topic Robin would approve of.
In a nutshell, I feel that we as alumni are
underutilized by Youth Encounter. We have a year (sometimes more than a year)
of experience that would be helpful to the organization, to current team
members, and most of all, to youth in many churches across the U.S.
Obviously, we as alumni have different
responsibilities since team. I have a wonderful wife and two of the best little
children in the world (Mackenzie is five, Dashel is three). I'm not going on
team full-time anytime soon! Many of us have roles we play at our own churches,
as well. But I do have the occasional weekend. I sometimes have a week of
vacation I'd be willing to use for Youth Encounter. I might even be willing to
write a check along with the time I have to give!
[CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY]
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Past and Present
How Events Continue to Shape Lives
Jennifer Noyes
Can
you believe that Youth Encounter has been offering weekend retreats for youth
for almost forty years? What an incredible fact! Praise the Lord!
MY
PAST:
My
first Quake was held in Chicago. I was in seventh grade, and I had a mouthful
of braces and more than my share of big hair. (My step-mom once told me that I
carried a bottle of hairspray with me at all times to make sure my bangs stayed
in place, but I certainly don’t believe her!) Anyway, I remember getting my
picture taken with Captive Free and just being in awe of how good they were and
how much they lived for Jesus. And to think that they would come off the stage
and hang out with me in my Family Time. Oh man. I felt cool.
[CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY]
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The All-Or-Nothing Nature of Our Faith
Read Excerpts from Captive Free East Lakes' Online Journal
Captive Free East Lakes
We are in Wyandotte, MI at Trinity Lutheran Church and
School, getting ready for another 30-Hour Famine. We set up our gear and put on
our Family Night Program. Then we got ready for our Famine. We had devotions
and played a game called TRIBE. (It deals with the Masai tribe). This was led
by two college kids named Kelley and Mary who did a wonderful job putting it
all together for the weekend. East Lakes had a great time watching the high
schoolers dress up the tribe leader and try to survive. It was funny to watch
them, but also a gruesome thing that people live like this everyday trying to
make it in the world. I can't wait to do another Famine. I really enjoy
watching kids grow.
[CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY]
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I Pray For a Servant Heart
Read Excerpts from Cross Fire's Online Journal
Cross Fire
Mawu ape nawu de uh oh
ame nu veh veh, lo lon, pleh nu blanyi po po ta. Amen. (Ewe)
God, thank you for your grace, love, and mercy. Amen.
(English)
I'm sitting beside an oil lamp in the night. There isn't any
electricity or running water here. I've never seen the stars shine so brightly.
Our shelter has a grass roof and is propped up by five wooden beams stuck into
the earth. There is a seven year old boy looking over my left shoulder. I've
decided that he only speaks Ewe and hand gesture.
I just returned from the bathroom. I had to walk a mile and
a half to the chief's house, headlamp on, my pull out roll of Charmin in hand,
accompanied by two of the village women who wouldn't let me leave alone. Upon
my arrival the chief shook my hand and welcomed me. His family and the two
women stood outside the door silently as I accomplished what I needed to. The
hole had been used moments previous to my arrival, and the waste level was half
a meter from the floor's surface. I watched as the termites carried off the toilet
paper. I opened the door and there stood my guards smiling at me. They brought
a bowl of water and poured it over my hands, then dried them off with a cloth.
I started to leave, and the chief's wife stopped me and removed a piece of
toilet paper that had stuck to my sandal, and then adjusted my skirt for me. I
sheepishly thanked her in Ewe, "Ape na wu." We said goodbye to the
chief and his family and returned to our camp.
[CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY]
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More Than Guitar Playing
What Your Kids Really Need in a Leader
Tiger McLuen
The call is like hundreds I
have received over the years. Often it is the voice of a desperate search
committee member, full of good intentions, seeking just the right individual to
lead a successful youth ministry. It also is the voice of a person who is almost
certain to fail.
Youth ministry is
undergoing significant changes in the U.S. and abroad, but churches continue to
look for youth ministry leaders as if it were the 1970s. “We want someone young
and cool so that kids can relate to them,” they claim. They imagine a college-aged
student who plays guitar, breathes basketball, oozes optimism, loves the Lord
and adores kids. But this person, too, is almost certain to fail.
Today, youth ministry
leaders need so much more than good intentions and a youthful outlook. They
need relevant education, better training, exceptional maturity, sharper
ministry skills, and greater spiritual depth. For the sake of the kingdom,
young people and churches need top-notch youth ministry leaders.
[CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY]
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Spoke Folk Update!
Check Out All Our News
Eric Arundel
Hello from the world of Spoke
Folk!
First off, we’d like to thank
Youth Encounter for the opportunity to use this format to share our ministry
with you! Thank you for the continued support!
Spoke Folk is a bicycle
ministry for high school and college aged folks. We travel from church to
church and become a close-knit family by the time tour is over. Please
feel free to join us this summer! Spoke Folk has now been on its own as an
organization now for six months, and God has been daily blessing us.
We’re doing very well and look forward to the future in the hand of our Savior!
We had our first winter Spoke
Folk in the history of this ministry. It was so great! We traveled
all through the San Diego area of California. Despite one bad day, we had
great weather for most of the trip and touched many lives as we
traveled! Because of the success of this tour, we will continue to have
Spoke Folk winter tours in the future. This next winter we’ll be in
Florida! Keep an eye out on the website for the exact date. We hope you
can join us!
[CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY]
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Youth Encounter Joins SHOP4ZERO Internet Mall
Give to Youth Encounter While You Shop and Get Money Back!
Brett Koopman
As a part of our growth
campaign, Youth Encounter has initiated a unique fundraising project. The
program is SHOP4ZERO, a growing Internet mall that contributes to non-profit
organizations as it gives cash to its members for their online shopping and
services.
As we further our ministry of
proclaiming Christ and changing the lives of youth worldwide, we are so pleased
about this tremendous opportunity. You, our faithful supporters, are now able
to contribute toward Youth Encounter while at the same time earning a cash-back
bonus from all your normal shopping. This additional funding resource is
provided to Youth Encounter with no extra expense for you and at the lowest
prices on or off the Internet.
All you have to do is
register for free at www.youthencounter.shop4zero.org,
then please remember to always shop online through Youth Encounter's branded
Shop4Zero site. Every purchase you make
will contribute a percentage to Youth Encounter, helping us reach our goal of
more transformational encounters in the name of Jesus Christ.
Please join us in prayer and
support as we use this tool to increase the number of lives we touch in our
service to the King.
If you have any questions,
please contact Brett Koopman (800-659-6884 x8470, brett@youthencounter.org).
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