Category Youthmark Stuff

It’s A Small World After All

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

On my way home from Spokane yesterday I received a text message from my best friend who lives near San Diego.

The text read: “Youthmark is everywhere” and my iPhone promptly displayed a picture  for me.

Classic.

Jeramy and his family were hanging out near Oceanside for the afternoon when Jerusha (Jer’s wife) saw some folk wearing Youthmark Mission Venture shirts.  She began a conversation saying “our friend Brian Aaby is the founder of Youthmark.”

Jeramy quickly engaged another group of people wearing the shirts.  He said, “Do you know Brian Aaby”

“He goes to our church!”

Jeramy sent a second photo to me of Jenny, Tracey and Katie.

How cool that Jeramy and his family decided on Oceanside for a day trip.  How cool that the team heading to Mexico jumped off I-5 right then/there for a short break.  How cool is it that God wanted my friends to meet right then!

Praise the Lord!

Grace,
Brian

The Launches!

Brian Aaby 3 Comments

My apologies for the lack of writing this week… I have much to write about, including some family medical stuff, some great vacation stuff and some fantastic Youthmark happenings!  But first…

I decided against my typical “numbered” picture for this launch.  Here’s why:

Wednesday morning actually began the series of Launches 3.0 – and following.  I was on vacation down in Southern California and drove from Camarillo to Santa Clarita with 230 copies of RoadGrip and Merge for the Converge NW teams traveling to Mexico for SERVE.  These churches combine every three years for a mission to Mexico.  Youthmark was honored to be a part of the process this year.  They are currently doing a three day launch at The Master’s College before they hit Mexico tomorrow.

Meanwhile…

I flew home Wednesday afternoon and by Wednesday evening was launching the Pulpit Rock Church of Colorado Springs on their City Serve YMV in Seattle.  We launched that team on Wednesday night to Thursday morning.

Meanwhile…

photoKirk Petersen flew to Juneau on Wednesday so that he could greet and launch East Boulder Baptist (Colorado) to Petersburg, AK.  They did their launch Thursday afternoon to Friday morning.EBoulder

Meanwhile…

I was driving to Spokane and am currently at the Pine and Sprague Starbucks in Spokane Valley waiting to launch 90 or so for their missions to Idaho and Montana.

Meanwhile…

OneSpotJuneauKirk is up in Juneau with three other churches doing their launch for three Southeast Alaska locations that most will Ferry to tomorrow morning!

All told… about 400 people are going out this week through Youthmark!  Praise God!

Meanwhile…

You are launching us through Prayer!  Right?

Grace,
Brian

Colorado Campin’

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

After my trip to Phoenix to launch the teams to the Desert SW, I flew into Denver and picked up my good friend, Mike Penberthy.  Mike and I were the speakers for the Summit Camp put on by the Colorado Baptist Convention.  This was the first of two camps we are doing together this summer.  We were honored to speak to this group of students/staff and to partner in ministry with Everfound.  This group is fantastic and they are very much the real-deal.  They love Jesus and understand that being missional is here and now, not later and over there.

Below are some pics from this week.

So nice to be with my family now, I should be back to some more consistent blogging too.

Grace,
Brian

While In Phoenix…

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

I was blessed to have spent time with many people while I was back for a short stay in Phoenix on Thursday to Saturday.  Here’s the quick lowdown:

Thursday evening: My parents were down in AZ for a vacation at a time-share. I arrived and drove straight up to Desert Ridge and spent the evening with them enjoying the Lazy River pool, a great grilled steak and some time just chatting.  Friday morning my Dad made a great big breakfast as well.  No worries, I did get a great workout in both Thursday and Friday to counter the food.

Friday Morning:  I met with a Youth Leader from Anthem who is interested in Youthmark.  Had lunch with Bryon Rock, who was in town for a wedding and then had dinner with my friends Matt and Leslie Ducharme (and family).  I had the privilege of having these two in my College/Career group in Phoenix when I was a Pastor down there and later performed their marriage.  I once again had a great grilled steak!  Yummmmm!

Friday Night/Saturday Morning: The Mission Launch Weekend which you can read about right here (or scroll down).

Saturday Afternoon: After watching the Soccer game I went down to Gilbert to hang out with a former student that I had not seen in a very long time.  John and Brittany Hagensen have been married for about 18 months and are a great couple.  We enjoyed some pool time and catching up on life.

Saturday Evening: I drove up to Peoria because Erik Bedard of the Seattle Mariners was pitching in a rehab assignment for the Rookie Team that plays at the Mariners Spring Training site.  It was fun to sit with about 60 other people in the stadium, most of whom were there for the same reason I was attending.  

Last but not least.  One more trip to In-N-Out with Mike Hagen who drove down to pick up two late arriving students for the mission to Pine, AZ.

Great times!

Grace,

Brian

3 Launches and 2 Lunches

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

This weekend we pulled off a first for Youthmark!  Not only did we pull off two launches simultaneously, which would have been a first, we pulled off three at once.

Kirk Petersen, pictured here, led the YMV Launch in Spokane, WA.  The teams from First Baptist of Beaverton, Shoestring Valley, Lake Sawyer Christian (here, here and here) and Cornerstone United Methodist had a great time together in Spokane.

Jess Champers, whom I forgot to tell to get an awkward photo of himself, launched the teams from Mars Hill Church and First Baptist University Place in Renton, WA.

I had the honor of launching two teams down in Phoenix. Seattle First Free Methodist and Pine Valley Community Church converged for a launch at my former Church in Phoenix, Northwest Community Church.

On top of this, we had one three churches not able to join us for the launch because of their early morning flight to Vegas (and drive to Sandy Valley), but you can read their blog here!

Please do hold all of these teams up in prayer!

While in Phoenix, I also enjoyed my favorite lunch… Two days in a row…Pictured below.

I’ll post more pics from the launches and some great stories, check out the youthmark.com blog here and read some other sides of the story as well!

Grace,

Brian

What’s Going On With Youthmark?

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

Thanks for asking, it’s so nice to know that you care!

Right now we are gearing up for the summer, which means…

  • I’m putting the finishing touches on the Mission Launches.  You can read my latest post about these on the Youthmark.com blog here.
  • I have been working with former Laker Mike Penberthy on the messages for a couple camps we’re doing together this summer in Colorado.
  • I am working with our Publishers on some long-term agreements that I believer are going to dramatically enhance what we’re able to do with Youthmark!  So exciting!
  • I am gearing up to meet with the President of an organization which will potentially be a Ministry Partner.  This arrangement could lead to great flexibility in the “receiving” area of our mission trips.  Mission51 is not just for the sending teams, it is for ALL!
  • In addition, I am praying for and beginning discussions with some great potential domestic and overseas connections.  As Youthmark grows we see the hope/desire/need for the extension of the “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Uttermost” options. Though our emphasis is Mission51 (equipped not just for the one-week mission, but for the 51 weeks of life outside of the mission), we want to offer top-notch mission trips where participants live-out that which they’ve been practicing at home as a natural expression of worship in a different setting!  Pray for these potential connections!
  • On top of all this I am very excited about the new materials we are developing for 2011 YMV’s and more!  I think this summer is going to be a Youthmark-shaping summer!  I’ll have some updates along the way and also at our Facebook Page!

Let’s not just be people of prayer, but people of action.  If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, let’s worship well by living out our faith in thought, word and action!

Top Five Tuesday: Tour “Moments”

Brian Aaby 2 Comments

The last eight weeks of my life have passed so quickly.  It feels like an eternity ago that Joe Poppino and I met up at SeaTac for our first leg of the Youthmark Mission Ventures Spring Retreat “Tour” as it affectionately became known.  Though the tour was only six of those eight weekends, I had one weekend in Montana for my sister-in-law’s wedding and last weekend I was speaking at a camp down in Oregon, so 8 weekends straight of being at least partially away.  Whew!

Today’s Top 5 gives you a glimpse at a few of my favorite moments during the six spring retreats.  The criteria is that it simply had to have taken place during the travel times for one of the retreats.

Without further ado, the list.

Honorable Mentions: Colorado–seeing/serving with so many friends (Alex, PK, Peter, Steve, etc.); Time with Jeramy, Jerusha and family in Escondido, the fantastic times with all my help @ the northwest retreats (Mike and Ricky need to especially be thanked for all that they did for these retreats!).  Shooting the videos with Frankie (and just time with Frankie in general) would be a highlight too, but the video shoot didn’t take place on the retreats.

Me with Mike and Mike in Canby

Five: The Leaders Lounge at Canby, Grove. On Friday night as the students head to their first family time after snack, Joe and a I carried on the tradition we started in Houston, we’d grab some time together and talk through the night and celebrate.  Well, this happened pretty much every weekend, and on Friday night in Canby the “Leader Lounge” took place in a room next to the dining room.  With about 10 of us, band members, sound and behind the scenes folk we stayed up too late eating, talking and LAUGHING way too much!  It was fantastic.

Joe and Neil leading into "the moment"

Four: The Original “Moment” in Spring, TX. On Friday night our theme was “Listen.”  We ended the worship time with an extended time of silence.  In Spring, TX (and every subsequent retreat) this went off really well.  I loved this moment each week, but especially loved it in Spring.

Joe "has an album"

Three: The many, many moments with Joe. I know, sounds cheesy; but can’t narrow it down to a single moment, but I can say it was very nice to journey the entire “moments” with someone.  We had many a meal along the way at some FANTASTIC places.  Joe is a great person to travel with as well, he wants/needs his own space, just as I do, so I can honestly say we did not get in each others ways!  A couple “moments” that I would mention: “He has an album,” “The Prius,” “The Escondido Waiter” and the many many times we made fun of each others routines (we got to the point where we knew exactly what the other would be saying from the platform).

Two: Escondido, CA, Commissioning. The Leaders of Emmanuel Faith and Pine Valley Community Church had no idea that they were setting up a wonderful moment, but their delay in going out to pray for students really set a tone that we wanted to see take place the rest of the weekends.  Overall, the students worship time at this weekend was one that stood out to me.

One: The Last Night, The Last Song. Youthmark has a tradition on how we end our retreats with our unique commissioning.  I won’t give it away here, but it involves a wonderful time of prayer followed by the crowd’s unified voice being lifted in praise.  On this last retreat at Lake Retreat we had nearly 220 strong sining so loudly.  The emotion of all six retreat was rolled in one for me!  I loved that time.

I am sure now that I am done with the list I’ll have several new ones pop into my mind.  I look forward to posting even more pics from the retreats soon. We had a professional photographer, Brooke Anderson, take pics the last two weekends (Canby and Lake Retreat), much thanks to Brooke, as soon as we get more pics back from her I’ll post and give out her contact information so that you can use her for your photo-shoot!

Anyone out there at a retreat and have a favorite “moment?”

Grace,
Brian

YMV Spring Retreat @ Lake Retreat… in pictures

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

Youthmark has hosted three spring retreats thus far at Lake Retreat, two last year and the first of two for 2010 this last weekend… All three of these retreats have had the exact weather! Sunny with highs in the upper 60’s.  It’s been ideal.  Thank you Jesus!

The Spring Retreat we just completed had so much energy.  From the time the doors opened until the commissioning at the end the teens and the youth staff were certainly Living and Loving LOUDLY!

I’ve provided you some snaps of our time together!  Enjoy!

Grace,
Brian

First Thoughts on Lake Retreat

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What a great weekend we had at Lake Retreat this last weekend.  I am waiting on a large file of pics that were taken, however, I have been able to snag a few off Facebook to post here with my initial thoughts!

My overall thoughts about the weekend: FANTASTIC.  I was blown away by the energy.  Gathering about 160 people in a small room sure creates some energy.  We were so thankful to God for the wonderful weather He provided as well.  The Saturday afternoon Ministry-X and Free Time were certainly a larger blessing because of the great weather.

I am so thankful for the help that we had volunteering this weekend.  I praise God for the hearts of those who serve with Youthmark at these events!

I’ll post more specifics and the pics in the next day or two, here are a couple I found from the Lake Sawyer group.

Grace,

Brian