As the Pastor for Youth and Family Ministry here at Hope, it’s my passion to share with all of the youth and families that God brings into my life.  I want to share with you this fact: “I know that there’s a God who loves me more than I can understand and this God wants to have a relationship with me and with each of you.  I am convinced that the times in my life when I have put forth effort to embrace this relationship with God, are the times when I have been the happiest, most satisfied and felt like I have purpose.  I want this for each of you too.”  That’s just my heart; that’s just who I am and that’s what I’m working on each and every day.

Along these lines, our high school youth group “the Life,” is going to be talking about some of these big questions during our Sunday night gathering.  We kicked it off this past Sunday (3/7) and we’re going to follow up on that the next two weeks (3/14 & 3/21).

This past week, our lesson included some of the following:

• Who are you?  How do you described yourself?  What’s your identity?
• Matthew 7:24-27.  What’s your foundation?
• Who is God?  Who do you understand/know God to be?
• How is your relationship with God?
• Luke 8:5-8, 11-15.  What kind of soil are you?

So, what do you think?  Who are you?  What kinds of questions are you left with?  Feel free to leave comments here and hopefully I’ll be able to respond an interact with your input, both here and through the messages as I prepare them for the coming weeks.

At Acquire the Fire, we saw the musical artist Lecrae perform.  Check out what his song “Identity” has to say on this topic.  What do you think?

Big thanks to all of our friends at Peoples Church for all their work hosting the event and helping to bring great opportunities like this to Fresno.

As you can see from the pictures below, we had a good group of kids (7th-12th grade) who participated in this weekend.

We enjoyed a great speaker (Joel Johnson), some musical artists like Lecrae and ThousandFootCrutch and the powerful drama “Surrounded” presented by ATF (check out the intro for the drama here).

It was a powerful weekend for many who went.  Did you go?  What did you think?  What part of the weekend really stuck out to you?  Did you make commitments about your faith or how you plan to live your life? 

Feel free to leave a comment here so that we can see all that God is doing and encourage each other in our faith and lives.

Of course this transition is difficult for us and difficult for Arty too.  To respect Arty’s desire to move on, and to make this change as easy as possible for him and for our youth ministry, we ask that you refrain from contacting him.  Arty will be at Hope this Wednesday night (3/3) to say “goodbye” and to share his thoughts on his time at Hope.

If you’d like to send remarks or best wishes to Arty, please feel free to write him a letter and Adam can make sure he gets it, or you could post a comment here.  These are the best ways for us to share our thoughts with Arty.  It will be tough to move on without Arty, as he brought so much to our group, but God is good and I am confident God will continue to be good to all of us.  Blessings to you all.

Your Pastor, Adam Knudson

So, what kind of plans do you have for Spring Break?

Planning to sit at home, try not to get annoyed by your brother or sister?  Try not to get bored playing 8 hours of video games or watching too many movies or two much daytime television?  Planning to sleep for three days straight?

Why not plan to do something significant?  Why not plan to spend time with cool people, serving others and have an amazing time doing it!  I’m talking about BreakAway, a spring break mission outreach that will change your life, help you grow in your faith and deepen your relationships with other kids who have the same heart and similar values.

Where are we going?  We’re going to stay right here in Fresno.  We’re going to sleep in tents on the campus of Peoples Church.  We’ll have all of our meals prepared for us.  We’ll have some great teaching and great worship.  We’ll work together through acts of service within our own community.  Our week will end up on Thursday night with an awesome concert with the Rock and Worship Roadshow.  The concert will include MercyMe, David Crowder*Band, Family Force 5, Francesca Battistelli, Fee, Remedy Drive and Sidewalk Prophets.

Does this sound good?  Click the graphic above and fill out the registration form and submit it to Adam.  The cost to be a part of this experience is $150 (if you register by March 15), but as always we have scholarships available.  Don’t miss out.

Check out this blog post and video and see what it was like last year!

So, are you going to join us?  Leave us a COMMENT and let us know that you’ll be there.  Tell your friends and encourage them to be a part of what God is doing in our city!

Well, it was quite an experience.  Wasn’t it?  We are UNITED and we went to CAMP and there was no doubt that it was WINTER.

For those of you who weren’t a part of this trip, here’s a brief or should I say “15 minute” (that’s an inside joke) recap of our weekend.  We wanted to join together with Christians from all over the Fresno/Clovis area for a weekend to come together as the body of Christ.  We had gathered around the words of Jesus, recorded in John 17 (remember this number, it was significant).  Jesus prayed that we as Christians would “be brought to complete unity” (John 17:23).  We just didn’t realize how long it would take.  We gathered at Peoples Church on Friday afternoon.  There were youth, leaders and Pastors from 17 (again 17) or so local churches (Bethany Innercity, The Bridge, Cornerstone Church, First Baptist Clovis, First Presbyterian, Flipside, Hope Lutheran (that’s us), New Covenant, New Harvest, North Fresno Church, Northeast Assembly, Northside, Northpark, Peoples Church and Valley Christian Center) to name most.  There were more than 400 people on 9 charter buses.  We left Peoples Church at about 4:00 pm.  We were happy, we were excited, we were warm, we had our Chicken Wrap “sack dinners” lovingly prepared by the good folks from First Pres and we were ready (at least somewhat) for what God had in store.

Our trip went along great and as we neared camp and approached the snow line, all the buses stopped to put on chains or cables to give the tires extra traction.  We were hoping to arrive at camp in time to start an evening worship service around 900pm, but those were just our plans.  At this point, I’ll give you the very brief version from my perspective as your Youth Director:  Tires slipping, buses sliding, kids making the most of it, cold outside, warm on the bus, amazing starry sky, buses stuck in the snow, worried parents texting, minimal cell phone signals, tow truck driver working, CHP sitting, bus wouldn’t start, half mile night hike up hill in the snow with luggage, kids NOT complaining, snow plows, sanding the road, sleeping on the bus, morning snowflakes, 7am snowball fights, more waiting, more plowing, more sanding of the roads, arrive at camp, ready for breakfast - UNITY.  We arrived at Old Oak Ranch Camp around 900am (if you do the math, that’s a 17 hour trip).

  In the morning our buses were waiting for the buses ahead of us to get “straightened out.”

The beauty of creation was all around as morning dawned.

We had an incredible weekend at camp, full of worship, friendship, SNOW, dodgeball, great messages, God’s spirit, SNOW, stories to share and an understanding of what it is to be the body of Christ.  We were gathered in Unity, called to Prayer & Worship and sent forth to put our faith into action through Evangelism and works of Social Justice.

 Here’s our group, ready to return home (and yes, the trip home was much shorter - by about 14 hours).

PRAISE GOD!

If you went on this trip, please leave a comment or a testimony about your experience.  This is a cool way to share with our whole church about what God did in your life and a meaningful way to honor God and the experience that we’ve shared.  Thanks for the privilege of being your leader.  To all of you Parents, thanks for trusting me with the lives of your children.

Sincerely, Adam Knudson

(If you’d like to see more, check out our Photos Page on this site and for pictures and other regular updates, become a “fan” of “The Answer- Hope Lutheran” page on Facebook.

Our youth group is excited to be a part of what God is doing in our city and looks forward to connecting the members of our church together with other Christians on high school campuses.  A big event coming up later this month is United Winter Camp.  The camp will be held on January 22-24 at Old Oak Ranch Camp is Sonora, Ca.  It is still possible to register.  Download both forms here.

If you’re planning on attending UnitedWinterCamp, or even if you aren’t, please check out the blog at unitedfresno.com.  The blog updates daily with words from the Bible and reflections to lead us in prayer and fasting to prepare our hearts and minds for what God has in store for us.  If you’re on facebook, you can check it out and become a fan of UnitedFresno.  If you or someone you know is planning to attend Camp, check out this link where you can enter your email to receive United Fresno prayer blogs delivered directly to your inbox.

What do you all think?  Are you excited for camp?  Are you excited to see what God will do through this united effort?

Pretty good looking group, huh?

What about the evening most impacted you?  How did you feel God’s presence?

Reminder of Upcoming Events: (Click link for more information.)

• December 16th- Youth Christmas Extravaganza (All Youth)

Sorry if you missed it, ’cause we had a blast!  Ask Adam if you can still get a Christmas Card from the Youth staff, we think our picture is pretty funny.

• December 20th- 10am-11am: Summer Camp Informational Meeting (4th-12th Grades & Parents)

          12:30pm-2:30pm: Christmas Cookies (4th-6th Grades)

          6pm-8pm: Voices of Presence-Worship Service (All are welcome)

• December 22nd- Food Pantry Christmas Party (All youth & Family)
• January 3, 2010- 8:30pm-10:45pm: Broomball (9th-12th Grades)
• January 22-24, 2010-  United Winter Camp (9th-12th Grades)
• February 5-6, 2010- Olympic Lock-In (9th-12th Grades)

For the youth who have read this Blog leave a comment about which event you are looking forward to the most. Can’t wait to hear how excited you all are about the events that are right around the corner!