Skate Update

So here's the skinny on how God answered this prayer request.

Some of the youth workers, including myself met with the leaders of both the English and Spanish congregations of our church last tuesday. Evelyn did most of the talking, as she is directly responsible for the skate ministry. She shared how the Lord had put it on her heart to provide a safe place for the youth to skate as well as provide opportunities for them to hear the Gospel. Joe, a skater from the neighborhood also attended and shared how he had accepted the Lord and had the opportunity to share the Gospel with many friends as a result of the skate ministry. When it was my turn to speak I shared that I believed the issue was that we need a balance between pursuing opportunities for evangelism, opportunities that the Lord has literally brought to our front door and yet still being good stewards of what we have been given as a church. There is no doubt that there have been some problems with trash, tagging, and vandalism as a result of the skaters being in front of the church constantly. Yet we should never see the youth, or any potential trouble makers for that matter, as a problem to elliminate but rather as an opportunity to evangelize and disciple. That being said, there must be standards and people to enforce those standards. I proposed that we set up regular scheduled times for skating that will be supervised but the superviser will not be there to merely enforce rules but to reach out the youth primarily. For the time being, the leadership went with that idea. They are still thinking and praying about what to do when the new tile is put on the steps.

Overall, the meeting went extremely well. The leadership were assured that the youth staff does in fact have a plan and cares about keeping the facility in tack. The youth staff also went away with the feeling that the leadership does care about the youth ministry and wants to pursue evangelism.

thanks for all of you who were praying!

by His grace
for His glory
jrf