Minnesota Youth Alive Update | Richard Baker
Minnesota Youth Alive (YA) exists to share the message of hope found in Jesus Christ with every student, at every school, in every community every four years. This happens by empowering students to reach students, recruiting praying adults, and connecting schools with mission-minded churches.
Last month we were able to partner with Minnesota Student Ministries and AIM for the Called/Destination Campus Conference. Over 400 students and leaders gathered to discover how the Lord wants to use them to reach their classmates and the world. Kristin Pruett and her students shared how a campus club works and how the Lord is using them in Princeton schools. Kelli Patrick shared with students how they can become a leader for Christ at school.
The pandemic shut down regular school assemblies for us, but it didn’t hinder the Lord from working. A star basketball player was radically changed for Christ at an outreach with Terrence Talley, one of our YA speakers, in 2019. A volunteer youth leader got her involved in a small group and she grew in her faith. She then brought her sisters and mother to church and their lives were changed. Now, as a college basketball player, she has a small discipleship group of teammates she has led to Christ. This is just one example of what the Lord can do when we partner together to reach students at school.
Seeing the need to help students with mental health, Minnesota Youth Alive partnered with several other YA missionaries to produce two resources to help students across the nation. The first is Engaging Conversations, a faith-based resource to help students deal with loss, discover gratitude, set boundaries, and learn to be a friend. We also developed a similar resource for public schools called Healthy Conversations. Our own Miranda Benz wrote three of the lessons, ten communicators added video components to each lesson, and some really smart people put all the material into an educational digital format. Check it out HERE for a special opportunity just for Minnesota Pastors and Youth Leaders.
Minnesota Youth Alive would love to partner with churches to raise up a student leader at every school in Minnesota, to help every youth leader/pastor have connection with their local school, and to bring a school assembly program to every middle school and high school in Minnesota (only 127 to go).
Our team looks forward to partnering with you!
