This last weekend was an absolute blessing! Thank you NorthWest Bible Church! As I mentioned yesterday in my blog, NWBC served as the test-market for our Spring Tour. Not only was it a lot of fun, it was a huge success from my perspective. There are several little tweaks we’ll make over the next couple weeks, but for the most part the “core” is all there. On top of all this, it was great weather! Sunny and 85, truly a different NW than what I am used to in the early spring.

When it was all said and done about 40 students and leaders were exposed to this year’s “Together” tour stuff. I am VERY excited about it and think that it is the best retreat materials we’ve put together yet. It is very different than the first couple years (I aim to have the retreat look/feel different each year, while keeping things consistent enough that participants at least feel some sense of routine). My favorite “moment” of this years retreat, thus far, is going to be the Saturday afternoon short-session. I believe it will be very effective for Mission51.

One very cool element that I’m stoked about is that along with some of our own stuff we’re using Dare-2-Share’s (D2S) “G.O.S.P.E.L.” acrostic as part of our training this year. Over the last few years I’ve formed a friendship with several of the folk at D2S. Much of Youthmark’s DNA and D2S’s DNA match. At the core, we both REALLY believe that we ought to be living and sharing the greatest news with everyone! However, many Christians don’t believe they can, or are trained enough to do so. I believe the best thing we can do is help students (and adults) discover that it isn’t that hard and there are ways to easily remember the key points we should share in order to tell the compete story! The G.O.S.P.E.L. is one of those tools that I believe hits that mark (you really should check out Propaganda’s music video that captures this so well here). Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I simply asked if we could use it and share the love! They very graciously said “of course!” So thank you Greg, Debbie, Jason and all others at D2S! Students walked away having being trained in a few tools to share Jesus with their lost friends on their own campus, at their clubs, in their community and even at their own church!

I return home a blessed man to have had another weekend with my Texas friends. I can’t wait to see them on their Idaho Mission, but I’m even more pumped to hear about their mission this spring in Spring!

Grace,
Brian