Well thank you to all of those who help contribute! You helped to make this a successful year. Arlington YD raised almost $5,000 and I personally raised $1800 for my own personal support. We were truly blessed.

And also, yes, I wanted to brag about myself and the many awards I won. I won the prize for highest score (775 strokes on 100 holes) and if you don’t believe me - note the picture and my amazing skills to whiff the ball (or maybe I’m a left-handed golfer with excellent form). I also won for most balls in the woods with a whopping 63. So yes, my dear friends, I made you proud. I’m always willing to make a fool of myself for a good cause.  It also tells me I don’t need to quit my day job, because the PGA won’t be knocking on my door anytime soon.

Thanks for all of your support!

Thank you all for your prayers leading up to our first service. It made a difference. They were felt.

We had 18 people attend and I was surprised that we had that many. We hadn’t advertised it because we wanted a trial weekend to cut out teeth on.  And it couldn’t have gone better. We had a few random adults there as well. I love seeing multi-generations praying together. There’s something that feels so right about it.  It was a simple service. Prayer, reflection, scripture, discussion and contemplation. I never grow weary of watching teenagers pursue the Lord through the ancient practices.

I’m excited to see how this thing progresses. Those that attend definitely caught the vision and I’m excited to see how this community will grow together as we purse the Lord.

Thank you again for your prayers!

Keep us in prayer this week. We are starting a new endeavor. This is one of those things that the Lord has begun about a year ago, slowly leading us up to this point. We are starting a new service for youth in our area. It’s something very different in approach. It will be something very simple. Nothing fancy. Our pursuit is simply contemplation, conversation and community.

This whole thing came about from a conversation with a student, over coffee, who wanted something to bring his atheist friends to, but knew they would not step foot in a church service.

So we’re not doing a church service. It’s more of an experiment. We’re facilitating a place where conversation happens and doubts and questions are welcome. But our goal is to establish a sacred space where youth can step outside of their loud busy worlds and come in to talk, contemplate and experience the Lord. It will have a more quiet, prayerful, meditative tone to it. Ventus begins this Saturday at 7pm.

The Labyrinth was one of our most significant spiritual practices we experienced this summer. While we were kayaking the Owyhee river and in the middle of nowhere, I grabbed a few leaders and we took an hour to construct this maze on the beach. I got the idea from a post over at Rethinking Youth Ministry.

Labyrinth is simply a tool to slow down and contemplate your journey with the Lord. As your walk in you think about the things within yourself that you want to give up or let go of. The path brings you toward the center where you spend time with the Lord. And as your journey back out, you think of the things you will take with you from your experience with God.

Our kids really grabbed on to the whole metaphor and had some pretty impactful experiences.

To build you own you can go here and here.