In our Baptist tradition, we believe that each local church can discern the voice of God and where he is leading them. At the same time, we recognize that we can’t do everything ourselves. In youth ministry, there are moments when it’s best to gather as a local tribe for teaching, fellowship, and to listen for God’s promptings specific to that tribe.. However, there are times when it’s necessary to
Last April, we invited several youth pastors to a summit to learn from one another and to provide us with feedback about our ministry direction. Part of our day included discussing a series of best practices in six different areas (evangelism, biblical understanding, mentoring/small groups, community impact, leadership development and intergenerational interactions). Over the next few weeks, we’ll release some of the best practice suggestions from the group (with further
It's been less than 12 hours since all students, leaders and staff left Muskoka Woods. For 40 hours, we went from -25'C weather on Friday night to a "balmy" +2'C on Sunday. In fact, half the snow was sliding off the Music Hall. In that time, we've heard stories of many students seriously considering how God views them in light of what was shared. Chris Tompkins, our speaker, challenged "You're
One Baptistic value we hold is "association". While every church has its own autonomy and can individually discern where God is leading them, many congregations recognize they can't do everything by themselves. Even the formation of our area associations and CBOQ itself is based on this. Two specific examples of association are our CBOQ Youth retreats and Centre Court events. Retreats like Avalanche and Blizzard require a certain critical mass
Over the years, we've coordinated what we called an event internship where youth and young adults came to serve at Avalanche and Blizzard while honing their ministry skills. Over the last 12 months, we've redesigned that program into what we call "Slingshot". We recognize that today's young adult isn't always able to commit to a program long-term (some don't even know what they're doing the next hour). We also recognize
For 40 hours, 489 students and their leaders descended upon Muskoka Woods. At times, there was calm. At times, it felt like chaos. Even the weather got into the action with staying mostly clear on Saturday then white-out conditions on Sunday. What intrigued me with this retreat was, in spite of many glitches (from administrative miscues to property issues to a lost student who was found very quickly to our
