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Intersect Community - Summer 07 Newsletter
Article
Summer 07 Newsletter
Greetings!
Thanks for reading our Summer 2007 Newsletter! We’ve had an exciting past school year and are eagerly anticipating the summer and our upcoming year. We’re honored to share with you the latest of our intersect happenings and invite you to contact us should you desire to know more about what we’re doing and how you can be involved. Thanks for your ongoing encouragement, support, and interest!
GRTS: Where Youth Ministry Must Go
In March, Steve participated with Kara Powell (Fuller Theological Seminary) and Mark Oestreicher (Youth Specialties) in a conference put on by Grand Rapids Theological Seminary (GRTS) called “Talking Points.” The topic of the conference was, “Where Youth Ministry Must Go.” Close to 300 pastors, youth pastors, and youth workers came together for this day-long event. For MP3’s on Steve’s, Kara’s, and Mark’s presentations, go to GRTS’s Talking Points Website .
Intersect in India and China
We’re grateful to be exploring how to best connect with and serve the burgeoning growth of missional leaders in India and China. Several months ago, we jointly sponsored the Missional Church Centers Summit in Chandigarh, India. We’re working with Lifesteps and Chandigarh Bible College in North India to make training available to emerging leaders in 250 key cities across Northwest India. We have more meetings scheduled this Fall to further develop our ongoing work together.
In addition, we have an emerging partnership developing with a multi-faceted organization whose focus in part, is equipping churches to deal with the growing AIDS crisis in China. As always, our focus is upon how we can serve the educational needs of these missional leaders. As much as we’re able, we’ll keep you posted on how this unfolds.
EXPLORE “Preview” Seminar
One of the initiatives we launched this Spring was through an Explore seminar in Boston. Our Boston contact hosted youth pastors from the New England with the hope of launching a year-long learning cohort that takes the participants through the Intersect material. We had a great response to the training and the day generated a lot of interest in the year-long cohort. See the next section regarding what is developing.
What we learned through this process is that many youth pastors need a “taste and see” experience before investing themselves in a year-long commitment. We hope to offer more “preview Explores” in the future to generate awareness for our cohorts.
EXTEND - Student Training
Extend is our student ministry training for youth groups seeking to connect their students to the Story of God. Extend material mirrors our Explore training so that youth pastors can connect their values with their student training.
Central Wesleyan Church
Steve and Dan were invited to take the students of Central Wesleyan Church in Holland, Michigan through the EXTEND material. They taught the material over the course of three consecutive Sunday afternoons to students from the high school ministry under Jared Ayers. We had a great opportunity to experiment teaching EXTEND over consecutive weeks. Many of the students involved were headed to Poland to serve with local churches. Our training served as some of their preparation.
Black Rock Congregational Church
On July 5-8, Steve heads to a camp in Pennsylvania to work with Jason Taylor from Black Rock Congregational Church in Connecticut. The retreat seeks to work with some of their core students as they wrestle with how to missionally connect with God and love their community at home. Jason was at our Explore preview seminar in Boston and we’re excited to join him with the training and guiding of his students.
EMERGE - Learning Cohorts
Southeast Asia
“Learning in Ministry. Learning in Community.” It’s our mantra, and exactly what we’ve been doing in our Southeast Asia cohort. We’re half way through our 18 month commitment together so we’ve already developed some great friendships and we’ve enjoyed comparing notes from our ongoing ministry experiences.
There are 28 youth workers in this SE Asia cohort. This group has chosen to keep moving the location of our meetings in order to tap into various environments conducive to what we’re learning together. Our first meeting was in Malaysia, the next one was in Singapore, and the next one (October 8-10, 2007) will be in Indonesia.
New England
Our preview EXPLORE in Boston has generated enough interest in a New England Cohort to launch our first gathering August 20-22, 2007. Participants will meet for 3-day sessions in August, January, and May, and will be working through Intersect’s EXPLORE material, reading supporting material, and interact online between sessions.
Graduate Credit
The other exciting news is that Grand Rapids Theological Seminary is endorsing our cohort, offering three credits of graduate credit for our course at no extra charge to the participant. This is an incredible opportunity for people in ministry who desire to get a taste of graduate education, and get credit for the experience.
We are talking with leaders in other locations in the states. Contact us if you know of others who might be interested in the New England Cohort opportunity, or who would like to launch a cohort in their region.
Liberia
Through our partnership with GRTS, we are planning to launch a cohort with 30 Liberian pastors this Fall. GRTS is working with a local seminary in Liberia to help provide graduate degrees in ministry to these pastors. In turn, they, with the support of Intersect, will travel monthly to rural regions in Liberia to train other Liberian pastors. Intersect’s focus with this EMERGE cohort will be assisting these pastors to take materials from their graduate courses and adapt them for use with pastors who have not had the chance to pursue any formal education. In many cases, these pastors may be entirely dependent upon oral communication. Together with GRTS, we are hoping to change this.
FALL 2007
Youth Specialties Seminars
Dave and Steve will be teaching at two of the National Youth Workers Conventions this Fall at the San Diego and St. Louis venues. We’d love to see you there!
Global Youth Workers Conference
Dave will be speaking at the Global Youth Workers Conference in Quito, Ecuador, October 11-14, 2007. This conference targets North American youth workers to challenge them to think about how they can more fully engage in global youth ministry. We encourage you to check it out.
Serving with Eyes Wide Open
Dave’s book, Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence, received Outreach Magazine’s global mission resource of the year award. If you want to think further about making short-term missions more effective, check out Dave’s book .
Update on Jim Y
Continue to pray for our friend and board member Jim Yates, who is adjusting to life as a quadraplegic. Jim and his wife Barb have brought our textbook understanding of faithfulness to life! We’re so honored to have them as part of the Intersect community.
Thanks, Dan!
Dan Spors came to GRTS three years ago to pursue his MDiv at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. This past spring he completed his degree and is pursuing a youth pastor position. GRTS requires all MDiv students to serve four semesters in a local ministry under the guidance of a mentor. We have had the privilege of having Dan our resident with Intersect over the past two years.
Dan has become very familiar with Intersect’s training as he has helped us develop our materials into reproducible format, trained the material, and accompanied us at youth group, retreats, and youth ministry conventions.
We’re sending him off this summer anticipating his investment in a church’s youth ministry shortly. While we will feel the loss of Dan’s presence, we excited about his future and the influence he will have in his future ministry. Thank you, Dan! We love you!
If you desire to stay connected with Dan, you can reach him at dan.spors@gmail.com .
Give to Intersect
We’re so grateful for faithful friends who consistently partner with us financially to serve leaders in places as diverse as Boston to Liberia. If you’d like to partner with what we’re doing through a one-time or regular gift, you may do so by either printing and completing the form on our donation page , or online through PayPal (to use the PayPal method, go to our site’s donation page and click the button labeled “Make a Donation”).
Thank-you for your generosity in supporting our vision!