With the Christmas holidays over and the cold weather starting to settle in, many of us experience the winter blahs. Many youth ministries find that January till March Break is one of the hardest stretches. How do you navigate the winter blahs? It’s important to have some kind of catalyst to help catapult your ministry through these weeks. While a youth ministry shouldn’t be solely dependent on events, having experiences
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
Every retreat weekend brings a combination of challenges and celebrations. This weekend was no exception. But those challenges did not become insurmountable obstacles. Rather, they became a rallying point for many to dig deeper into who God is. The key to God's message this weekend was the framing of the message of salvation. Essentially, it isn't something to just grasp for ourselves, but understanding that his salvation for us must
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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
Tube run at Muskoka Woods Another season of winter retreats have come and gone. This last weekend saw almost 400 students and leaders gather at Muskoka Woods in cold temperatures and lots of snow. God moved in ways that could never be programmed. Many students publicly demonstrated their desire to follow Jesus. We even had stories of how one student shared about Jesus to another while walking up
At Blizzard 1 this past weekend, when people asked me (Alvin) how I felt the weekend was going, my response was, "Too smoothly." Yes, there were some minute glitches here and there, but generally speaking, things went according to plan. All our churches arrived by 10:00pm. All the waivers were signed properly (I can't remember if that's ever happened in the last 38 Avalanches and Blizzards). We were on schedule.
