Thank God for Young Life and Ministries Like Them Jan 19

In the next two days I complete 5 days and 15 hours of teaching on Jesus for new Young Life staff. I am sitting in my room near Fraser, Colorado, at Crooked Creek Ranch (a Young Life property) looking at the snow capped Rockies and reflecting on the time I have had here with about 160 new staff.

In the next two days I complete 5 days and 15 hours of teaching on Jesus for new Young Life staff. I am sitting in my room near Fraser, Colorado, at Crooked Creek Ranch (a Young Life property) looking at the snow capped Rockies and reflecting on the time I have had here with about 160 new staff.

Young Life is a ministry that reaches out to high school and junior high kinds around the country (and now also around the world). Most of those who work in the clubs linked to middle and high schools are college age or others just out of college. The staff are here to get prepared for the hours of conversations about religion, spirituality, and Christianity they will have with young people. Many of those young people who come to a club have never walked into a church or read a Bible. I worked in a Young Life club myself in 1974-75 at Austin High School in Austin, Texas when I attended the University of Texas at Austin. I understand and appreciate what motivates them to give their young adult lives for this. Young Life had a key role in drawing my attention to the beauty, truth, possibility, and power of the gospel when I was in high school and in college still seeking to negotiate my way through life. I see their enthusiasm, curiousity, and commitment to take the initiative in sharing the gospel and I think, How wonderful it is that the Lord has put this desire in their heart to give their lives to serve him in this way. So Kudos to Young Life––and to all the ministries out there that go out of their normal way to represent the goodness and grace of God to people who need the touch of the Almighty and the experience of new life. As I have told the staff, the goal of Young Life is to offer eternal and new life to people who have most of their life ahead of them. It is a worthy goal. They are worthy of our prayers and support. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to give back a small morsel of much more of what Young Life gave to me in opening the path to God years ago.