Working at CIY provides some pretty amazing opportunites.  One of those, is the ability to catch brief moments amidst a summer that is passing at an incredible rate (or a year passing by at that rate), and to slow down for an instant to take in the power of God working in the lives of thousands of teenagers.  Honestly, this isn’t unique to CIY employees, but is available to anyone attending MOVE or Know Sweat or Believe or SuperStart! or any other sort of Christian program.  But we get to witness it repeatedly throughout the summer with new kids, with new bands and speakers, in new places.  And it never loses its power.  God is awesome!  He is alive and moving through this generation.  What an honor to be a part of that and witness it taking place in the hearts and minds of youths across America.

So I encourage you to slow down if for just a few brief moments when you start to feel God move around you.  Step back from the music and lights and singing and just take it all in.  Watch and listen to the people around you worshipping the Almighty.  Or who knows, maybe you aren’t at a worship session, but just experiencing God’s beauty in nature, or His goodness with family and friends.  Whatever scenario you are in, be sure to take a few moments and feel the glory and the goodness of God.

Time keeps marching on for all of us.  But God is constant.  And just as he is constant, Christ In Youth is always working to provide opportunities for today’s youth to meet and experience Him.  At MOVE, overseas, during a week of service, anywhere we can.

Thank you for your support.

1st, summer is our busy season.  MOVE is rocking and rolling across the country and that is where we see the majority of our attendees unifying in mass.

2nd, Know Sweat is doing great Kingdom work in various major metropolitan areas throughout the US.  Not only are we bringing kids to do Kingdom work through service projects, but this is also a nice piece for news stations and newspapers to cover because it’s today’s youth serving others selflessly.  Quite the feel-good piece.

And 3rd, we are making a concerted effort to let the media know about what CIY events are going on, when, and where by sending out press releases and media advisories.  We are also making phone calls and pitching stories to encourage the media to cover the events.

I bring this up because I want it to be clear that we are not pitching CIY stories to media to glorify CIY or to try and capture some level of local fame.  The point of these public relations efforts is to better amplify the message of Christ In Youth to the world.  The media has a much better means of broadcasting to the public the message and the good works that the teenagers and preteens attending Christ In Youth events.

Imagine all the un-churched people that are seeing or reading the stories about hundreds of jr. high and high school students coming from across the country to love and serve strangers by doing home repair and clean-up.  Or the thousands of high school students spending part of the their summer doing something about the water crisis in Zambia and raising support and awareness for an issue that is halfway across the globe!

The students that are attending CIY events are being inspired to do amazing things for the Kingdom of God, and we are happy to help broadcast that message, not only to our friends and community of churches through CIY, but also through the secular media to reach thousands and millions of people who have never heard of CIY and don’t know Jesus.

We are going to try to continue to get the stories of Christ In Youth and the stories of the Kingdom work that our students are doing, that YOUR students are doing, out there to the masses.  Pray that we continue to find success in letting people know that today’s youth is being moved by God to do great things.  Pray that these stories are being seen and read by people and making them think twice about their perceptions of Christians and how we show Jesus’ love to a broken world.

Here’s a few examples of stories covered:

Know Sweat in Cincinnati

MOVE in Holland, MI

Know Sweat in Knoxville, TN

1. I forget my Bible at home.

2. I remember to bring my Bible, but I never read it.

I don’t entirely know why, but I have the hardest time keeping up with God’s Word and continuing my devos when I’m on the road.  It doesn’t matter if I’m traveling for work with CIY, personal travel, if I’m in a hotel, camping, staying with a friend, no matter how I break my routine, it is sadly uncommon that I re-adjust to fit in some alone time with the Word of God.

It’s not that I don’t want to read the Bible, but whenever I think about it, it seems that something else comes up, or someone else comes in the room and I get distracted.  Sometimes I tell myself that I’m just too busy to deal with it at the moment.

Does anyone else seem to have this problem when they travel?  If you have recognized this issue in your life, what are some ways that you have combated it?  What’s the best way to continue your daily devotions, even when your daily routine is anything but routine?

I bring the issue up now because it’s the summer time and a lot of people are traveling.  Certainly a lot of people are traveling for Christ In Y0uth during these months.  Hopefully others and myself will remember to fit in the time to be alone with God and to commune with Him and read His Word as we are going all over the world this summer.  It would be a shame if as we were spreading the message of God’s love to the world, we forgot to recharge ourselves with that same message.

May is an exciting time at CIY and also a nervous time.  It’s exciting because it means that we are so close to spreading the message of Jesus Christ to thousands of teenagers across the country.  And it’s exciting because all the things that we have been doing for the past 10 months are coming together and about to see fruition.  But that’s also why May can be a little scary.  Many of our plans are coming together, but some of our plans and projects are not quite completed, so sometimes it can be a race against the clock to get them done before the trucks roll out for the summer.

That being said, we are ready to transition into the excitement and busyness of the summer months.  For programs like Engage, MOVE, and Know Sweat, they are the months that the programs live for.  So if you have a moment, please pray for our teams as they make final preparations in the next week or two.  Pray that we can successfully get all our tasks and projects done and pray that we may be granted safe travel as teams go all over the country.

We can’t wait to see you all in the coming months.  It’s going to be a great summer!  We are positive that God is going to use the summer of 2010 to further amplify the call of Christ on student lives.

I’m incredibly guilty of praying prayers to a Santa Claus God.  You know what I mean.  Many of my prayers have been basically things that I want or think that I need.  Theses aren’t always selfish, in fact, many times these are requests for other people that I know need help too.  But they are basically requests of “God, please give me this or that.”

That’s not the only thing I pray about.  I definitely pray for forgiveness of my sins and discuss what’s going on in my life, but the more I thought about it, saying thank you God (and really meaning it) were not nearly as common.

With that in mind, I decided that I would exclusively pray prayers of thanksgiving for a week.  Everything that I prayed about would be a prayer of thanks.  At first, I thought this would be a little challenging and get redundant quick, but after doing this for a few days, I found that it wasn’t hard at all to say thanks to God.  Even when I was worried about something in my life or needing help/guidance, it turns out that I can creatively say thank you, while still praying about my concerns, fears, and hopes.

Here’s a quick summary of just some of the things that sprang to my mind that I am thankful to God for:

Thank you for this day and the sunshine and the rain and the wind.  Thank you for allowing me to wake up and breathe and just have the gift of life yet again, another day here on this beautiful earth.

Thank you for placing me here in the United States and allowing me to grow up with so many nice things.

Thanks for keeping me safe and healthy, and always providing food that I have never truly gone hungry.

Thanks for the skills and talents that you have imparted on me to use in this world, not only to enjoy life, but also to make a living.

Thanks for providing me with a job that I enjoy, particularly in a time where many people have been unemployed.

Thank you for sending Jesus down here to die for my sins.  I know that I may never fully understand this act and probably never fully appreciate it.  But thank you for loving me so much that even though I am a continual sinner and seemingly spit in your face, you chose to die for me.

Thank you for the the countless blessings that you have showered upon me.  Again, I have done nothing to deserve them.  If anything, I have done much to NOT deserve them, but you have repeatedly watched over me and taken care of me through life from my job, to my relationships, to providing luxury things that I just would like to have.  Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for my friends and family, those people that have stood by me shoulder-to-shoulder, through thick and thin.  They know my screw-ups and my immaturities, and yet, they still love me.  Thanks for placing them in my life.

Thank you for hearing this prayer.  And even more so, thank you for caring.  Thank you for caring what I have to say, what I care about, and what my hopes are.  You are incredibly good, God.  And for that, I can never say thanks enough.

There’s countless other things that I have said a thank you for.  I encourage you to take a week or so and focus your prayers on thanks.  With a little creativity of vernacular, you will find that you can easily praise God while still communicating with Him about everything that’s going on in your life and the lives of the people you love.  I hope that you, like me, will find it not only refreshing to your prayer life, but also just a beautiful way of letting God know that He is good.

It was a fun day of not only raising some money for Rapha House and their ministries, but also staying physically fit and enjoying a good run in some beautiful Spring weather.  10 staffers and wives participated in the day’s festivities, raising $150 through the cost of registration.  Rapha House raised more than $2,500 during the event, which brought in more than 100 runners of varying age and skill level.

All in all, I’d say the day was a success.  CIY Exexcutive Director Andy Hansen even medaled in his age bracket.

CIY Executive Director Andy Hansen got 3rd in his division

Other CIY Staff participants were:

Chase Allcott of MOVE

Eric Epperson of MOVE

Ben Platt of MOVE

Matt Foreman of SuperStart!

Aaron Smith of SuperStart!

But here at Christ In Youth, we’ve lived on for the past 42 years by staying true to our original mission: telling America’s youth about the love of Jesus Christ.

We are excited about what 2010 will bring.  As I type this we are 16 days from our first event of the new year (SuperStart! and Believe begin the Spring tours January 29th) and one missions team is already engaging the world for Christ in Cambodia.  2009 saw some impressive growths in many of the CIY programs and we are expecting some similar trends this year.

MOVE 2010 is locking down and preparing for another amazing summer of life-change.  It’s hard to believe that it has already been six months since our last MOVE event.  We continue to hear stories of teenagers becoming Kingdom workers be sharing the love of Jesus with their communities through fundraisers, feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, and raising awareness for good causes.  Students have raised funds to give clean water to people in Africa, to pull children out of the slave trade in Asia, and to provide America youths with the means to attend MOVE this year.

As we begin to embark on another year of amplifying Christ’s call on student lives to become Kingdom workers, please keep us in your prayers.  Pray for safety in travel and guidance both on the road and while at home as we plan and create the content for our trips and events.  It’s takes 55 employees working year round to operate Christ In Youth, and the prayers of many more to keep us growing and blessed.

Jesus: The Missing History

Now, I know that Discovery doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to portraying the history and truth behind the Scriptures, but this one was already at my house and it intrigued me, especially since it is the Christmas season.

However, true to its reputation, Discovery Channel could not put together a Biblically-based documentary without pushing a clearly skeptical agenda.  To be fair, they did have to cover a lot of ground in what equated to about 45 minutes, but the “evidence” brought forth when questioning the historicity of the Bible was sketchy at best.  It felt as if they were moving at a quick pace and only put together clips from interviews that would support the purpose of making people doubt the Bible and the Christian faith.

Now I believe that it is great pursuit to better understand the Bible and the life and history of Jesus.  To explore what his life might have been like as a child or go the actual places His ministry was believe to existed while He was still here on earth.  I even consider myself somewhat further on the path of knowledge than the everyday man concerning the history of Jesus ( I took a few classes in college that covered many of these same issues and did a far better job than this national documentary).  And with that little knowledge, even I could see through this veil that Discovery was throwing up to distract less informed people.

For instance, there was a segment about what Jesus’ childhood was like and where he lived.  I was amazed that they spent 15 minutes dissecting if Jesus was part of an Essene community as a young boy in hopes of determining where he lived.  I could have pointed them to Matthew 2:13 where the Scriptures talk about the flight to Egypt.  It seemed like the documentary was trying to create red herrings to trip up people from getting to the history and story of Jesus.

Later, the host covered a section about the Gnostic gospels, sometimes known as the Gospel of Thomas.  Well, if you know anything about the Gospel of Thomas you know that it varies greatly from the other canon gospels and was rejected by Christian scholars.  Most scholars don’t consider the apostle Thomas as the author.  All that being said, our host spent a considerable amount of time debating how this could shake up the whole Christian faith and it really bothered him how Thomas considered canon like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  That maybe the 4 New Testament gospels are covering something up that was said in the Gospel of Thomas.

Like I said, the whole film seemed like one veil after another was being thrown up to try to confuse non-critical thinker and Christians.  The simple answer is that Thomas is a stand-alone document that is considered heretical because it is radically different and has no supporting documents or evidence to back up its writings.

Ok, so that’s a long way of getting to my point.  There’s a lot of voices out there that are trying to belittle the Bible, to belittle Christianity and question it’s validity.  Voices claiming that Christian is absurd and that Christians are narrow-minded nuts that don’t listen to reason and don’t evaluate the evidence.  You and I know that that’s just not true.  One doesn’t really need to look to far to find historical evidence of Christ in history (see the writings of Josephus) or in archeology.

Here at Christ In Youth, we are trying to do the same things that you are trying to do.  We are trying to make sure the truth about Christ, about the Scriptures, about God is reaching today’s youth.  We are trying to combat a world that wants people to think that believing in Jesus is ridiculous and that modern science and research are proving it to be just an archaic set of traditions.

That’s false.  I hope that you are continuing to pray as we are that the truth of the message of Christ reaches teenage hearts and minds, despite what they are seeing on TV or in movies.  Despite what they might be taught in science classes, the power of the blood of Christ has stood the test of time and will stand until the end of days.  Pray for these students that they may continue to be bold and stand up for truth.  Pray that we may continue forth and witness to them and reach them to amplify the call of Christ on these student lives.

Well, that being said, it was of course a busy year here at CIY.  From January through December, we are go, go go!  SuperStart! and Believe are touring live January through April.  MOVE and Know Sweat are traveling all over the country June through August.  And CIY Missions is flying across the globe January through August.  And those are just the events that we have kids at.  Dozens of CIY staff members are constantly traveling away from home during the rest of the year as well to find venue locations, market our events, visit pastors and band leaders, and participate in youth ministry discussions happening throughout America.

Needless to say, we are traveling many, many days during the course of a year.  Many staff members spend more than few nights away from home and away from family.  It can be very tiring and taxing, but we do it because we believe that God continues to do amazing things through the ministries of Christ In Youth, and we want to continually create better programs in hopes that more kids and teenagers will come to know the love of Christ and amplify his call on their lives.

So thank you.  I want to thank you for your prayers for safety and success.  We really do appreciate the countless unheard prayers that people pray for our staff and events.  Thank you for your donations to keep the ministries of Christ In Youth alive and well as we take the message of Jesus to a generation that desperately needs to hear it.  I cannot say it enough, but thank you.  CIY exists because of the prayers, donations, and time given by countless thousands of people who have been impacted by what we do.

Thanks, and have a very, merry Christmas season.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA