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
While the Toronto Raptors didn't win (it's tough playing the Western Conference), the post-game program was well received. Over eighty students had a chance to do lay-ups on the court. Eight of them had a chance to win a big prize (a signed basketball from DeMar DeRozan) going up against Matt and Alvin. The more profound moments came in the testimonies. Landry Fields shared the impact of Jesus in his
We've heard of "outreach events" before. Usually, they refer to some kind of outing for students to invite friends. In some cases, outreach events include a very specific "salvation" message and a call to respond (i.e. altar call). However, there are times when a pre-evangelistic event (which is part of outreach) may be a better first point of engagement. Centre Court is a pre-evangelistic event. For our Centre Court event
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
Last Friday, over 760 students and leaders from 26 churches came to witness the Toronto Raptors beat the Sacramento Kings. The bigger highlight came after the game where everyone came to courtside for some giveaways (who doesn't like free stuff), some on-court contests, and testimonies by John Salmons (shooting guard for the Raptors) and two students from First Baptist Church in Toronto, all hosted by Herbie Kuhn, voice of the
