Activate Ministries

Just a few weekends ago, we headed out to a beautiful winter retreat.  For the 3rd year in a row, we have had the opportunity to join Pastor Joe & Danielle from the crew at Northwest Family Church.  Traveling 15 min. west of Calgary we gathered together at Camp Kiwanis for an awesome couple of days.  With everything from campfires, late night movies and the saturday afternoon dodge-ball, jello eating competition and sock wars, this retreat has no chance of ever being boring.  Regardless of what's going on in life, they set it aside have just have fun!  But at the heart of this group is the desire to worship God.  Both in worship and while interacting with others there's no problem to see joy in their lives.  So refreshing!

This year our district Church Ministries Directory, Paul Fraser challenged us all with the word!  He spoke about the "knots" in our lives that distract us from pursuing a deeper relationship with God.  Several youth took what God was speaking into their lives as a call to action and spent time seeking God for direction.  And for some that resulted in them receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  

How cool it is to see the growth that has happened in this group over the last three years.  The much-needed balance between having fun and spiritual maturity is what appears to be a satisfying combination for today's students! And what a blessing to be able to witness that in this group.  Wow!

Every year, the PAOC churches of Calgary gather together to hold a city-wide youth event.  Led by Pastors Ken McIntyre of Revolution Youth Ministries at Beddington Pentecostal Church and Tim Mason of Area403 youth ministry at First Assembly, this is one quality event.  It draws 300+ students every year and reaches out to as many churches as possible.  One way they make it accessible to all churches is by sharing the opportunity to host to other youth groups; this year the rally was held at  Christian Life Assembly.

As a team, this was the second time we've had the privilege to be apart of the event and honestly, it wasn't just fun for the youth, we had a blast as well! There were games, prizes, a few larger give-a-ways, worship and sharing from the Word.  And afterwards, there were even snacks!  I mean, what's not to like about an event like that, especially when you get to share it with 300 other people.

Its pretty cool to see that the youth ministries of Calgary have no problem coming together from time to time.  Its can be so easy to be competitive, even in ministry; who has the most youth in their group? who is using the most up-to-date technology?  But when they come together they share ideas, share resources and ultimately show their youth that cooperation is the true way of the kingdom.  It speaks volumes when leaders display cooperation with other leads, youth can then see that they are no alone on this Christian journey.  There are hundreds of other young people just like them; sharing in their struggle with insecurities, peer pressure and pornography. They are not the only one who sometimes feels left out, ugly or confused about what to do when they graduate from high school.  While it is not important that a youth group is built on numbers, it is amazing what occurs when youth realize that they are not alone!







Sunday Morning service at Beddington Pentecostal Church with Pastor Ken and the amazing youth of Rev Youth ministries.