Another season of retreats is complete. This weekend featured the Irish-Canadian Kevin McGlade from Sarnia and Life Support leading worship. Kevin tied together the stories of Adam and Eve, Zaccheus and the Prodigal Son, demonstrating God's initiative to seek us out and his invitation to us to join him. We praised God in extended worship. We even celebrated those who chose to say "yes" to Jesus for the first
What a Blizzard weekend it was! With just over 315 students and leaders on site, we were led into worship with Life Support (celebrating their 10+ years of ministry with us) and God spoke through Mona Scrivens.There were many circumstances surrounding this Blizzard. A variety of external factors could have easily distracted our team. By Friday morning, many of us had a sense that God would do something remarkable (and
Last weekend, we hosted our 19th Avalanche retreat (if you include the first jr. high retreat that happened at the same time as Blizzard in 2001). While the temperatures were very cold (possibly the coldest Avalanche we've had), God continued to move in mighty ways. The cold temperatures altered some of our plans. We managed to play our team competition game in the gym with over 550 students and leaders.
The season of Advent is here. For some, it’s a month-long celebration. For many, it’s a season of stress. For others, some deep pain is associated with this time of year. Renee Embree (Director of Youth and Family Ministries with the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada) recently blogged on “How to help parents have less 'crazy' this advent & Christmas season” (http://cbacyf.ca/oneneighbourhood/2018/11/22/how-to-help-parents-have-less-crazy-this-advent-amp-christmas-season). Here are some specific things to note: Discuss
This is part 3 of 3 in a reflection series on Renegotiating Faith. (See Part 1 and Part 2.) -------------- The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), the Fear of Not Being Amazing (FNBA), and the Fear Of Passionless Monotony (FOPM) press in on young adults ever more as they approach age 30, which, for many, marks the limit of emerging adulthood and a forced entry into adulthood. (p.12-13) Many Millennials
How do you care for your volunteers? They give their time, energy and other resources to minister to this next generation alongside you. How do you show your appreciation? Many times, volunteers do not feel valued because they aren’t receiving appreciation in ways that makes sense to them. One way is to understand their love language. While love languages are usually discussed in the context of marriage, its principles can
Last week, a group of CBOQ pastors (including some children, family and youth pastors) gathered at the Nottawasaga Inn and Resort for the Reignite Conference. This year featured Dwight Friesen, author of The New Parish, sharing his insights on the local church. We engaged in three days of discussions around the purpose of the local parish and how well we interact with our neighbourhood. There were three questions/ideas that stood
In youth ministry, many of us tend to focus on the content of teaching. Looking at a year-long calendar, many youth leaders try to pack in as much content and topics they can think of. Is that the best approach? For me (Alvin), I wonder if there is a significant shift in our youth ministry programming. Since the birth of the church, one of the primary drives was to share
How do you reach your community with the person and message of Jesus? After all, that’s the primary reason why the church exists: to go and make disciples of all nations. What are ways to do that? There are many ways a church can reach into a community. Here are a few considerations: Where does the neighbourhood gather? Some communities already have established times when people gather. It could
We continue looking at some observations Renegotiating Faith highlighted its report. (Click here for Part One.) Young adults who went straight into postsecondary studies fared worse on all our measures of religious persistence than those who had taken a gap year. (p.11) I (Alvin) remember that in high school the big push was to graduate and go straight on to university. A gap year was seen as a form of
