Last night after church, Rainier, Chris and I dwarfed a little Starbucks coffee table trying to recall what came to be Life Pursuits. From nine to twelve, we talked about how the Spirit caused the birthing of a vision from a shared pet passion- ministry to young adults.
Since my concentration is Worship, my involvement with the young adult ministry in my local church is limited. Though, not to brag, the young adult and singles ministry in my local church took shape based on a porposal and concept paper I drafted after I realized that ours is the only megachurch without a real active young adults ministry.
About 6 years ago, I started teaching in a Bible study group composed of a high school teacher, a university Chemistry instructor, a law student, two bankers, a CPA and two engineers. We met each Thursday and that was all we did. I started meeting people my age who have unmet longings, deep spiritual needs and questions, but find no avenue in which to express and address them.
After an informal independent study, I drafted a concept paper, presented it to my senior pastor whose main challenge was to raise twelve people who can serve as the core team of this new ministry, with a promise that in a year, we would have a budget and be included in the official roster of ministries! From there, another pastor found a similar need, and using the concept paper as a basis, the Crossover Ministry was launched. It was similar to what Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, someone planted, another watered- but it is God that causes all things to exist and grow.
Now that Crossover has grown, it is time for us to collaborate with like-minded churches to reach our generation for Christ!
Rainier, a missionary came to the Union Church as Director of International Students Ministry, who found out that the 93-year-old multi-ethnic church did not have a ministry to young adults that somehow resulted to the spawning of many "Peter Pans" - people who refuse to leave the youth ministry, particularly, among the locals (since expat kids fly out after high school). Through Bible studies and a weekly worship gathering called Station One, he began reaching young adults within his local church who have yet to get accustomed to a new ministry. Eventually, Station One grew in popularity among young adults outside of UCM. Now, almost half of Station One's congregation is composed of non-UCM attendees.
Chris Legaspi has been a Growth Group leader at GCF. He too has a burden to reach uninvolved young adults within GCF for discipleship and ministry. Having felt God's call to the ordained ministry, he is now pursuing a theology degree. The idea of an inter-church young adult ministry collaboration has been in his heart for as long what seems like two hundred years!
One evening, we all found ourselves in a conversation about a collaboration.
What began as an informal talk between three men on a Thursday night over a loaf of raisin bread, bananas and water, that eventually led to weeks of meeting, brainstorming, and so much prayer, culminating to nearly three hundred young adults from a little more than a dozen churches converging at last Saturday's LIFE PURSUITS INTER-CHURCH YOUNG ADULT CONFERENCE- the Lord has kept us all in the team overwhelmed!
From the initial "accidental" meeting of three men, the Lord raised a couple more equally passionate young adults (Mishael, Grace, Mackey- who've done much of the leg work at last Saturday's conference) who caught the vision and have taken on the challenge of exchanging the predominant "tribal/territorial" attitude (aka denominational loyalties) of their local churches for synergy and kingdom mentality, to do a work far larger than themselves; God-sized, so to speak. . With God forging friendship between us, we now seek to hear from the Spirit and look closely where He is taking us.
We shall all see where the Spirit takes us- the possibilities are endless!
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