Conference Youth Report
2010

Student ministry is more than just an age-level program that caters to the needs of teenagers, plays loud music and consumes copious amounts of pizza. It is more than goateed youth pastors who wear flip flops year around and “hang” with their “peeps” at concerts, sporting events, all-night video game parties and weekly small groups. Certainly it is more than a few summer camps. Ministry to junior high and senior high students is about leading them towards an authentic relationship with Jesus that will change their life. To this end, your youth pastors, volunteers, parents and sponsors give their lives. They need your prayers, support, encouragement, help, giving, faithfulness, and pizza coupons. They need churches that believe that their young people are the church of right now and not the church of tomorrow. They need pastors who will give them freedom in form while leading them towards an unchanging Savior. They need resources, good coffee, accessible wi-fi, willing volunteers, and church vans that run. They need you to believe in them, students and ministry to youth. Please consider specific ways in which you can best support your youth workers right now.

This last year the Board of Student Ministries has met to plan camps, encourage one another and be a resource to each other. As a team, we are functioning well—each person taking an active role in the camps as well as dreaming about what the future looks like. This fall we hope to bring many of our youth workers to Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Convention for renewal and training. This has always been a great time for us to dream, spend time together and to learn. Please consider how you can encourage your youth worker to attend and how you can financially support this trip.

We have been enjoying a great partnership with Eagle Cove Camp at Triangle Lake in Blachly, Oregon for 3 years now. Brad Bowder and his partners have not only provided a great place for us to use for junior and senior high camp but they truly share our heart to see students come to know Jesus and walk with Him. Another important function of our camps is that it is conduit for leadership development—both student leadership and our younger leaders in the conference. This is why we need to maintain our unique approach to camps and resource it as best as we are able. As we grow, we need investors and/or capital to help develop the camp and put some of our dreams into reality. Please pray that God would continue to bless our camps with students who fall in love with Jesus and follow Him with everything. Also, pray that God will bless us financially so that we can best serve our students.

A few final challenges…

---

Current Youth Camping Ministries dates...