Ministry update!

I'm excited to update about what's going on with Pittsford YL!

We have had a consistent campaigner group all year. It's been a real joy to spend a lot of time with this group of kids that just keeps showing up. We have gotten to know them really well and we simply love them. They're the best and they are really discovering who Jesus is and are surrendering their lives to him.

 Over the last few months, I've been praying about what starting club in Pittsford would look like. Our team is still new. We're still meeting kids, learning the school, and getting to be part of the community here. I had decided on a few non-negotiables about what I felt like should be in place before we started club. My goals were this: that club would be 95% student run, that we didn't want to have club until we were pretty confident we could fill the room, we wouldn't start until kids had a desire to invite their friends. We, as a team and committee, have really been clinging to the fact that if the Lord wants club in Pittsford, He will bring it in his timing. So we've prayed, and shown up, and waited for the Lord to move.

And what's exciting is that doors are flying open left and right. Kids have been bringing their friends to campaigners and have started asking about club. So we started talking about it! 2 weeks ago we had a "club planning" campaigners. We talked about how we all come in with different views of YL club (a few kids moved here from Indiana last year, some have only been to camp, some to Pittsford's old club, some have no idea what YL club means). We talked about how this group of students has the chance to build YL from the ground up, based on exactly what they want YL to be about. I shared about my experience going in college, and tried to paint a picture of what YL in Pittsford could be about: sharing the gospel, loving people, and having fun. We looked at Mark 2, where the 4 friends bring the paralyzed man to Jesus, and decided as a group that this is what Pittsford YL will be based upon. And here's why:
1. The friends believed in Jesus enough that they HAD to get their friend to him
2. The paralytic was healed based off their friends faith
3. Jesus healed him and then the paralytic got the chance to decide how to respond (no one did that for him - he chose to get up, take his mat, and walk)
4. The people left saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

We talked about wanting to leave a legacy in the school. And then we decided that if we were going to do this, we have to go all in. All of us have to go all in. We shared that as a team, we decided that we would make a list of friends who we are 95% sure they would come to YL club with us tomorrow if we asked them. And once we got 75 names on the list, we would start planning the first club. So they started writing. And I'm excited to share that I went home with a list of 85 Pittsford high school students! The kids are PUMPED. So pumped. So for the last 2 weeks we have been planning for our first club. We've talked about what happens at club, how everything we do we're going to look through the lens of the 3 purposes of our club, we've talked about who we want there, and who wants to help run what at club.

So here's where we're at…
     -We have found an incredible location - a town lodge at a park - and from our small and insignificant points of view, it would be perfect - so we are praying big time that the town will let us use this!
     -Kids are planning away…from making a music team (so far we have high school kids to play guitar, drums, and piano!), planning a mixer, the skit, how to invite people, etc
     -As a team, we met today to figure out who would do the talk, who was going to oversee the "teams" of high school kids planning each part of club, and to continue to pray and ask big things

We are so very excited. The kids are incredibly excited. We're hoping for next week or the first week of April to have the first club.

Please join us in praying over this! We are continuing to trust Jesus. And praying that he would use YL to draw high school kids & the entire community to himself. We're praying that he would move and that we would respond faithfully. Pray with us!