The past year I’ve had some cool opportunities to travel and see what’s happening with teens, youth, and young adults in the Vineyard nationally.  I was at the national conference in Anaheim, and was so excited to see the passion for worship that overflowed from the “youth tent” (where I spent most of my time!).  The zeal and authenticity was so encouraging.

Last month I had the privilege of joining youth from the Great Lakes North region at their annual Cloud 9 weekend gathering.  It was great to see the amount of middle schoolers and younger people who were there, giving up a weekend to pursue Jesus, and made me excited about the next, next generation coming up!

And again in November I joined youth pastors and teen leaders from my region (the East) in Maine for our annual Youth Pastors Conference.  At this event I was struck by the commitment of those who are working with youth across our region. We sat in a room with adults from 15 churches and shared some of our stories.  As we went around the table, I would say at least 90% of them had been doing youth ministry for over 5 years, many for more than a decade.  Wow!

Lastly, a couple weeks ago I had the chance to spend 4 hours brainstorming with my good friend Dave Paolozzi from the Anaheim Vineyard about all things youth ministry.  I left that conversation feeling energized, challenged, stretched, and with too many ideas to even put into practice!!!

 

I say all that to say this: Seeing, hearing, and learning about what is happening outside of our normal spheres is REALLY GOOD FOR US! It is encouraging to see we aren’t alone.  It is challenging to hear new ideas we could steal!  And it is inspiring to learn of others successes.

In this spirit, I’d like to ask for you (the readers) to submit some articles!  They can be short or long; written by adults or teens; about events or ideas–anything!  I can’t guarantee they will all get in, but I think it would be so great for all the Redpoint readers across the nation to get a taste for what is happening in your neck of the woods!

So take a few minutes in the next week, and shoot us an article.  All you need to do is email me through the contact form and tell me you are interested, and I’ll give you an email to submit the article to!

Thanks!

 

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Christian Dunn
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