Interesting CNN article on how American teenagers are embracing “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Translation: a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.
Kenda Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of “Almost Christian,” argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on a self-serving strain of “mutant” Christianity.
Here’s the DVD teaser for Camp Elevate 2010, Breakaway Outreach‘s summer adventure camp for at-risk youth and underprivileged children. The full DVD runs nearly an hour and a half capturing all the fun and excitement from camp with bonus features including bloopers/outtakes and photo slide shows!
We are gearing up for Breakaway’s summer adventure camp for children of inmates and other at-risk youth: July 12-16.
It’s been amazing to see how everything has come together for this year’s camping experience and the people God has brought on board to lead these kids into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
Please be in prayer for God to change many lives and that mentoring relationships will be birthed out of this momentous outreach opportunity!
Here are several specifics to pray for:
1) That every child would experience God’s presence in his or her life. Many of these children will hear the Gospel for the very first time through camp. Pray that they hear it with simplicity and clarity, and a willingness to respond to the life Jesus longs to give them (John 10:10).
2) For camp leaders to be instruments of grace, healing, and reconciliation. Many of these kids have suffered abuse, abandonment, and rejection of all sorts. Therefore, trust is not easy for them. Most of them have been hurt by an adult in some fashion. Pray for trust to be fostered between our adult leaders and the kids.
3) Pray for our bus drivers and safety in travel. We are so thankful for our partnering churches who will be transporting the kids to and from camp.
4) Pray for adult/youth relationships to be birthed during camp that will transfer into year-round mentoring relationships. Camp is not a hit-and-run with these kids. It’s only the beginning of what will become ongoing intervention in their lives.
5) For the families of these children. Most have either one or both parents incarcerated, leaving them under the care of a single parent, a grandma, or another guardian. The camping experience often opens the doors to reach out to these fragmented families with the love of God in tangible and holistic ways. Pray for open doors and receptivity on the part of the families of the kids.
Thank you for praying with us and partnering with Breakaway Outreach to help shape eternity one child at a time!
Returned from a great trip to Florida last week. I officiated my stepsister’s wedding in Longboat Key, spoke in a juvenile detention center, and shot a Breakaway Outreach film project with NFL free safety Clinton Hart for at-risk youth.
We shared the Gospel with about 40 youth inmates at the juvenile center and I challenged them with a message around this thought: “Too often we end up living out the horror story that others have scripted over our lives rather than the redemptive and heroic epic that God has scripted over us.” Eight of those kids responded by giving their lives to Christ!
Had an incredible Easter celebration at church yesterday! We serve a RISEN Savior who still moves stones in our lives. Capped off Easter Sunday with a fun afternoon with friends and egg hunt with the kids. I’m so blessed to share this life with such wonderful friends and family.
Breakaway Outreach just released a new DVD video outreach resource with former Miami Dolphin Abraham Wright.
Wright talks about the thrill of living out a childhood dream amidst all the temptations and pressures that come with it. He stresses the most important reality was the “dream” that he discovered God had for him, not the dream he had made for himself. Get the DVD here
Watch the trailer below:
I love these words adapted from Ron Hutchcraft’s book, “A Battle for a Generation,” pp 11-12.
Never in the history of the Life Saving Service (set up to rescue people on the North Carolina’s Outer Banks beaches) did a drowning person come to the door of the station asking, “Would you please rescue me?” In every case, someone had to leave the safety of the station to save lives.
Today, our life-saving station probably has a steeple with a cross on top. The title of the life-saving talk is on a sign out front, along with the name of the Head Rescuer. Inside, people are singing life-saving songs and having life-saving committee meetings. The station is a great place for the rescuers to have their needs met, their strength built. And it is the best place to bring people after they are saved. But it is not the best place to rescue people. In fact, when it comes to lost teenagers, most will probably not come to our life-saving station. If we wait until they do, most of them will die.
Youth ministry, Jesus-style, requires the courage to leave our comfort zone and plunge into the surf and the storm – as He did. Our rescue efforts will take us into places that are not comfortable, into methods that may not be understood, into a youth culture that is out of control. But that is where the kids are who are dying emotionally and spiritually.
In a sense, our work is not even youth ministry. It is war. A battle rages for a generation of young people – and the winner owns the future. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21 ).
Breakaway Outreach needs bowlers to come out and attend our Rock N’ Bowl fundraising events this spring to help send prisoners’ children and other at-risk youth to camp this summer. We have five locations to choose from in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida.
We need people to help us get word out about this incredible life-changing opportunity for underprivileged children.
To encourage that, we are giving away 5 FREE autographed copies of the Tony Dungy Perseverance In Pain DVD over the next few weeks.
We had a great weekend of juvenile detention center ministry and Super Bowl outreach with former Miami Dolphin Abraham Wright. Today we shoot a video with Abraham Wright for a youth ministry resource project.
Breakaway Outreach will be launching a new basketball camp called “Skillz 4 Life” geared toward inner city kids and at-risk youth in the summer of 2010. We will be looking to expand this camp as well as our summer adventure camp for prisoners’ children to several cities across the nation over the next few years. More details to come soon!
