By: Greg Hook

Young men are being discipled in a culture that teaches and rewards people for gaining "followers" who do not actually follow you anywhere. This inevitably bleeds into our understanding of what  it means to follow Jesus. I think if we want to see pockets of authentic-faith, character-compelling, follow-worthy men arise, they are going to graduate from a different line.

By:  Rich Dargenio & Chris Kessick

Here is what we knew:
We knew the WORKING RELATIONSHIP between the committee chair and the area director was important. 
I am not sure we ever appreciated how key THE FRIENDSHIP between those two individuals would be.

We decided that in addition to training the hundreds of committee members annually, we would FOCUS on the dozens of committee chairs with an entirely separate summit. 

We want to go deeper in Christ as a mission. 
We wanted to give a renewed focus on the second half of the mission statement. 
We wanted to have significant depth in our own life in Christ. 
We wanted to lead our volunteers in a way where their experience of faith was transformative. 
These convictions led us to one question: 
“What will we offer our staff in response to this clearly stated need and desire?”

[LEARN HOW TO APPLY]

By: Ken Tankersley

When I add up all the summer assignments, fall weekend camps and countless summer experiences, I realized that I have been on a trip, at a camp, sleeping under the stars or on a bottom bunk for almost 5 years of my adult life. Literally that is “years of camping.” With so many trips over the last few decades, you would imagine that they are all a blur, however, it is not hard for me to identify my favorite type of trip. NOT favorite property, adolescent generation or graduating class, but my favorite style of camping.

By: Mike Chilcoat

Someone brought up that they had noticed waves of high school kids after dismissal hanging around the Wood Street Subway Station, which serves as a main transportation hub for mass transit in the city with subway cars and multiple bus stops. We became more curious about what contact work would look like post-dismissal at the station. After deciding to see for ourselves, we fought through traffic and eventually found some parking spots near Wood Street. Two of our staff members, Sly Williams and Olivia Horner, were able to join me.