Category Youthmark Stuff

Big News For This Little Organization

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

24… 40… 53…

…These numbers likely don’t mean much to the readership, but they were quite startling to me, especially last year when that 53 hit. These numbers represent the number of churches/mission teams Youthmark engaged for the purpose of training and missions in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Though the seed was planted in my mind after the summer of 2010, somewhere around the new year (2012), I began to aggressively change the way I viewed the future of Youthmark. As I have stated in a previous blogpost, it was never my intention for Youthmark to be a Short Term Mission (STM) Organization. My own core conviction is that the entire field of Student Ministry should be our focus. I want to see students, staff, parents and the church improve the way we are ministering to one another and the needs around us. Mission51 (the 51 weeks outside the mission trip) is my passion!

Linking w/other orgs will enhance M:51!

Instead of focussing on the short-term mission, I began to focus on long-term partnerships with those who would be able to carry the load of managing mission trips so that we (at Youthmark) can be focussed on providing materials, strategies, consulting, speaking, etc. for the 51 weeks outside of the mission trip. Even with much of my time focussed outside of the “trip” God still blessed us with a wonderful spring and summer for Youthmark Mission Ventures (close to 50 churches/organizations engaged again).

With that as the backdrop, there are three or four STM organizations who are in discussions with Youthmark to partner with us at some level so that their mission trips can be more than just a trip and begin to really engage participants to be on mission the other 51 weeks of the year as well.

In my next post I’ll introduce you to our first official partner! I believe this partnership will lead to:

  1. More options for churches and students in the area of mission trips (domestic and international).
  2. Better  (specific trip) training for all engaged in STM’s.
  3. More tools/training options for Mission51 (ahh yeah, you’ve only seen the beginning)!
  4. More excitement (and more equipped missionaries) for the 51 weeks outside of the mission trip!

Though the concept is a couple years old, I truly believe Mission51 “the movement” is about to launch!

Stay tuned…

Grace,
Brian

 

(CONTEST) WAIT: School Picture

Brian Aaby 12 Comments

Yay, another “What Am I Thinking” Photo Contest!

First, we have a pretty legitimate prize, the winner of this one gets a free first edition Imprint The Planet t-shirt. These are fantastic shirts and will play a part in this amazing movement we think God will use for his cause!

Okay, so essentially this contest is a photo-caption competition. You come up with a quote, title, caption, etc. and submit it as a comment (on the blog) and then after a day or two I’ll start the “in the running” section. I’ll name the winner sometime after the weekend!

In honor of the beginning of the school year, I had to go with this great picture!

Have fun!

Grace,
Brian

*********In The Running*********

“I had to leave room for Snuffleupagus.” -Marc

“The first day I realized what deodorant was for.” -patloonytoon

“I’m a loner dotty, a rebel.” -mikegaines

“I now understand why I should shower after morning hockey practice.” -Joseph Cimaomo

“It wasn’t me!” -markmoder

“Another perk of homeschooling.” -Jan A.

“As part of the 1% club, I choose not to “occupy” my class photo.” -Wescott

********The Winner********

With the walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th, Wescott (or Wecott?) wins with the 1%/Occupy comment! Wes, your shirt shall be delivered soon! Congrats!

I’m Open, are you?

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

I’ve had some great opportunities afforded me the last few years to do consulting with several churches (especially pertaining to Youth Ministry and transitions of staff).

The most consistent theme is that the churches present a STRONG desire for change to take place. We all love the idea of change… until it is happening to us! Bottom line, as soon as I (the consultant) begin to introduce possible changes the guard goes up and the defensive attacks start.

For those of us in Student Ministry we all know that something is broken in ministry to young adults, the reality is, this side of Heaven, it always will be broken. But here is a case where I do believe in evolution, I believe that youth ministry needs to consistently evolve. We must explore change! Stagnancy stinks!

I’m excited about a gathering coming to the northwest where I believe both the professional and lay youth leader can be spurred on in his or her approaches in student ministry.

Please join me at Open Seattle. This an even that has taken on new (oh no, change!) approach. The speakers are not paid, the financial sheet is “open” for all to see, the electives are geared for both those who want to dream about new stuff and practical for those who simply need some great “on the ground” training! I love the mix of local and national speakers. I can’t wait to hang out with friends like Mark, Lars, Leena, Nick, Adam and hopefully YOU! Click here to get in for cheap!

  • It’s cheap.
  • It’s time-sensitive (2/3 of your Saturday).
  • It’s historical (seriously, the first ever “Open” with Boston and Paris to follow).

Grace,

Brian

Not Just a Movie: The Breakfast Club

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

When we started Youthmark Mission Ventures several years ago I wanted to make sure we had something to help students transition into life-back-home. A book entitled, Merge, was created. This book was a parallel Guided Study through the book of James and a modern day fable telling the story about a teen who had just started at a new school. Merge has since become a series of post-mission/camp books: Merge-Joshua; Merge-Ephesians and Merge-The Life of David (1 & 2 Samuel). 

I just recently started contributing to the Dare 2 Share Relational and Relentless blog; my first post is about two young men who started something vibrant on their high school campus after God sparked an idea in them that they found in the Merge books.

Check out that idea and the video of one of the young men at the full post here.

I’m excited about my partnership with Dare 2 Share, if you’re in Northwest, make sure you’re getting your group out to the conference in April! If you’re not in the NW, check out D2S here to see where their other conferences will be in 2013.

Grace,
Brian

Preparing To Imprint

Brian Aaby 2 Comments

I just returned from a fantastic four day trip to Arizona, where I teamed with friend, Timothy Eldred, to train Scottsdale Christian Academy students and staff for more than a mission! In fact, it was the first of a couple beta-tests for the upcoming launch of a movement we are anticipating entitled,  Imprint the Planet.

Scottsdale Christian High School is once again contracting with Youthmark for their missions program and we’re thrilled to help them with their 13-15 mission ventures for 2013, but even more exciting to me is seeing students (and staff) fired up to make a difference not just there but here as well.

This week we were able to see students STEP out in faith, RISK in relationship and return to their campus, club, community and churches prepared to LEAD together! I can’t wait to take the next steps for ITP with a local church retreat in a few weeks!

I am praising God for the many who risked in huge ways by seeking help in areas of brokenness as they began to understand grace in a new or renewed way. I’m pumped about seeing several students take leaps of faith in just a short 3-day time period. In addition I am thankful for the adults/teachers who honestly want to see Student Led, Adult Mentored (SLAM) take place!

Please pray for SCA and my friend Kevin Meyers (Teacher/Spiritual Life Director at SCA) as students return for their 2012-2013 school year and for the many who will take serious the call to Imprint the Planet! 

As Imprint the Planet goes through a few adjustments before it officially launches (soon), my prayer is that God would prepare this generation of students/young adults to be unleashed to use their gifts, skills, minds, relationships and voices to make an eternal Imprint on this planet– all for God’s glory!

Keep up with us at @imprintplanet (twitter) and here on Facebook to get the updates and news first!

Grace,
Brian

Addition links on Twitter you should consider:

@brianaaby and @timothyeldred

 

The Number Four

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

Taking a four month sabbatical from blogging certainly did nothing to make my life slow-down, in fact, over the last four months there have been some really great things that have taken place. So, in celebration of the number four, I give you the Top 4 for the Last Four (months).

#4 Costa Rica Mission Trip

Costa Rica kids!

In April I was able to lead a group of eight college-age students to Nicoya, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. This Youthmark Mission is one-0f-a-kind. Distributing Bibles, speaking in schools and reaching out to entire communities where the Gospel had not been heard was such a blessing!

Joe and Hilary lead at the Portland M:51 Training

#3: Mission51 Retreats

This year’s LIFE Backwards theme will be a blog post in itself. But the “Six City Tour” was simply amazing. Many said “our best yet.” Coincidentally it was our fourth year of offering these things as well! As Youthmark continues to grow, morph and develop, we hope to teach many to do LIFE Backwards!

#2 Consulting & Coaching

w/ Grilled and Regular onions of course!

One of the areas of ministry that brings me life is the area of coaching and consulting. I am fortunate to be doing this on an informal basis with several but also in an official (contracted) capacity as well. One such “official” capacity is with Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village, CA. I absolutely love the people there and have bonded well with their staff! A side benefit, of course, to traveling to SoCal is the frequent stops at In-N-Out!

#1: The Family!

The thing that brings me the most joy and the most life is time with my family! Over the last four months I’ve gotten to have several family outings, daddy-daughter dates & daddy-dude outings (can’t call it a “date”). Now, if Elisabeth and I could only find some more time (and free baby sitting… hint hint) for some more Mommy-Daddy Dates!

My hope is the next four months are just as much of a blessing as the last four!

Grace,
Brian

What’s Up With Youthmark?

Brian Aaby 8 Comments

The transformation started a couple years ago, roughly two years into our adventure that we call, Youthmark.  At that time I  knew already that the organization that I had founded was going to look dramatically different than it did then. I loved what I was doing and we were already experiencing a nice season of growth but I knew that increase was not going to be sustainable if something didn’t give. I knew steps would need to be taken for Youthmark to evolve and for it to remain manageable. I just didn’t know which steps to take. So we grew…

  • 24 teams our first year.
  • 40 teams our second year.
  • 53 churches partnered with us last year.

It was never my intention for Youthmark to be a Short Term Missions organization. I knew I wanted STMs to be part of what we did, but it was becoming everything that we were doing.

My heart and my passion has always been  the 51 weeks of life outside the mission trip. I LOVE coaching leaders to be shepherds all the time. A mission trip is typically just one week, but it can/should be one-part culmination of the year and one-part catalyst for what is ahead. But the reality is most Youth Pastors are still doing mission trips because of the trip itself. Whether they go with a turn-key organization (sign-up/show-up and everything is led by org) do a trip on their own (typically go to a church-supported missionary) or something in between, very few were/are doing anything in the area of preparation and follow through.

This is where I feel Youthmark can and should have the biggest influence in the area of short-term missions. But with growth and demand I saw the ministry was becoming more and more about managing trips and less about vision casting, training, inspiring and follow-through. Simply because of demand, I was spending more of my own time on “i” dotting and “t” crossing of trips and less time on Mission51.

I believe the time is now! Change is in the air. As an organization we are moving forward within our area of passion. This re-focus will include:

  • Partnerships with other STM organizations
  • Expanded resource catalog in product, resources and services
  • More time in area of personal passion/giftedness!

I’m stoked about what is ahead and can’t wait to share more on this blog! Your prayers are appreciated as much groundwork has already been done but there is much more ahead!

Grace,

Brian

Four-Month Blog Sabbatical

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

In March of 1995, after a 17 month experiment with professional baseball, Michael Jordan gave a two-word press release:

“I’m back.”

Well, I’m no Michael Jordan. I didn’t try professional baseball, I’m not re-upping with the Bulls, but I do want to make the same statement:

“I’m back.”

Four months ago (today) I posted my last blog post. I didn’t know then that it would be my last for a long time, but things were crazy busy, I had taken on too much and I began to realize that in some ways I was in survival mode. Something had to give. My blog was quickly one of the things that was given.

After some time I was ready to write again, but instead of immediately blogging I decided to re-focus and repurpose. Over the next few weeks I am repurposing the blog. I’ll begin to explain the process a bit in my next post.

So for now, if there is anyone out there still reading, still subscribed to the RSS or anyone who has clicked on the link to come check out what this dude has been up to, stay tuned:

“I’m back,” and it’s good to be here.

Grace,
Brian

Partnerships Expanding… You Can Join!

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

As many of you know I have been involved with a start-up Bible School (geared toward the “gap year” between High School and College/Career or between Community College and University or between University and Life). It’s been an exciting year with this first class out in Ravensdale, WA (Southeast of Seattle).

Besides the growing relationships (I’ve really enjoyed the shepherding aspect of my “consultant” role) and am quite excited about taking these students on a culminating mission project (we have two trips going out simultaneously, one to Bithlo, FL and the other to Costa Rica). I invite you to read what I posted today on the Youthmark Blog about this.

We’d love your prayer support, the partnership needs to grow in order to accomplish this great mission!

Here is the post:

Hey friends and family!

Brian here on behalf of the CR team from Adelphia!  We are just about 2 months away from our adventure that will take us to Nicoya, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Having been to this region of Costa Rica, I can tell you that our team will be blown away by the beauty of God’s creation and humbled by the spirit of the Tico’s (native inhabitant of Costa Rica).

While serving in Costa Rica our team will likely have two or three main purposes each day. We’ll likely spend half a day in a public school (teaching english), half a day distrubiting Bibles and half a day doing a special project (like painting a school or community).

Before you get after me for my poor math– you can’t have three “halves”– we will do two of those three each day and rotate through so that our days are split up nicely.

In addition to these multi-hour projects, we’ll spend time visiting a couple local churches and will be able to play soccer against some much-better-than-us Latin American soccer (football) players!

Your support is needed! We are desparate to see the Holy Spirit move in Costa Rica. The Bible distribution project is an incredible undertaking. Teaming with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and Changing Lives in Costa Rica (CLICR), we are on the front edge of a 94,000 Bible distribution effort. Each Bible represents the approximate number of homes in Guanacaste (each home representing about 6-7 persons). Thus far, the effort has seen about 20,000 Bible distributed. The stories are amazing, not only are Bibles being distrubuted, but teams are sharing (often) an hour of their time and the Gospel with these families. Many have trusted in Christ.

Our American mindset and door-to-door salesman fears need to be prayed away; this is simply not the case in Guanacaste. Tico’s there are genuninely happy that we’ve come all the way from the US to share life with them. They are happy to hear about Jesus. Our prayer is that we have the opportunity to not just bless them with the Word of God, but trust that the Spirit of God will lead them to trust in Christ!

  • Will you pray with us?
  • Can you give towards this? (Each Bible distributed carries about $3-$4 actual cost to it–including shipping).

If you can give ANYTHING towards this Adelphia Bible School trip (Youthmark is leading), please send a tax-deductible check written to Adelphia Bible School.

Send to:

Brian Aaby

ATTN: Costa Rica Team

Box 58926

Seattle WA 98138

These funds will help get the team of 10 to CR and will cover costs for food, Bible Distribution and projects!

Thanks so much! Keep the prayers coming!

Grace,
Brian

Most Mission Trips Are Incomplete!

Brian Aaby 4 Comments

There was a moment in the movie Soul Surfer that made me laugh that probably wasn’t noticed by 99.9% of the audience. The movie portrayed Bethany Hamilton making a last minute decision to join her youth group on a mission trip to Thailand. She showed up at the airport as they boarded the plane and asked if she could come (and did)!

Unfortunately the truth is, a lot of youth group short term missions are actually done in a similar fashion. Many churches operate with a sign-up/show-up mentality. Students sign-up in April, participate in a few car-wash and bake sale fundraisers that are done predominantly by the parents and then the Youth Leader hosts a couple meeting where favorite scriptures are shared and packing lists are distributed. Come June a few have dropped out due to funds, family vacation or a break-up. And on the flip side a few have added because funds, family vacations were changed and a new relationship sprouted and “the Lord wants us to serve together.”

Sadly… very little prayer support has been generated, many congregants just know you’re going on a trip (camp? retreat? vacation?), students view the mission through the eyes of a consumer (what will I get out of this) and too many youth pastors are hoping to produce a spiritual high.

Though a sending team WILL get a ton out of the trip; spiritual, emotional and practical preparation must be done before, during and after the trip. Focus and attention must be given to the people and organizations you’re going to serve and a sustainable change after the mission can and should be the goal!

I am proud of what we’ve been able to do with hundreds of ministry partners over the last few years at Youthmark. But leading short-term missions has never been our primary goal. Our goal is MISSION51! We want to see participants equipped for the 51 weeks of life outside the mission. We believe the mission trip is simply a catalytic and/or culminating event in the midst of the other 51 week mission to our own Jerusalem!

Whether you’re signed up with another great organization, planning a mission to support one of your overseas missionaries or up in the air on what you’re going to do this summer, Youthmark would like to help augment your overall mission experience (and transform it to MISSION51!). Check out our newest “Strategy Pack” that can be used by a group who especially already knows what they’re doing for their trip!

Call 1.800.455.1450 to inquire!

In addition, those of you in the Southern California, Houston, Colorado and the Northwest, Youthmark offers a Mission51 Retreat (24 hour evangelism equipping retreat). For a limited time we’re offering this retreat for only $51 per person (normally $79) when you purchase the Strategy Pack. Please call us 800.455.1450 to inquire.

  • San Diego: March 9-10
  • Houston: March 16-17
  • Seattle: May 4-5
  • Seattle: May 11-12
  • Portland: May 18-19
  • Denver: June 1-2
Please check out more information about all our packages here and don’t hesitate to call me at our 800 number!
Grace,
Brian